| 16Hp
Special built on the 1932 Standard chassis
I have featured this car before,
part way through the rebuild. Michél Mousett has now turned the
unpromising remains of an early 1930's 6 cylinder Standard into
this highly desirable Special:
Click on any of
the thumbnails below to see enlargements
Michél writes from
France:
Hi Phil,
Here's story and some
photos of my 16hp Standard spéciale.
In the aim of building a
30's spéciale, I was originally looking for a
Salmson S4 chassis.
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Michél
must have had a vision of what could be achieved! |
Talking about it with
a friend of mine, he told me about a Standard rusty
rolling chassis he bought several years ago with the
intention of rebuilding it, what he never had time enough to do,
and which could be for sale. He didn't know
much about it, he thought it was a 3 litres engine and had no
idea of its internal condition. When I saw
it, despite some surface rust, it seemed to be very sound and
having had a beginning of restoration many years ago.
So my wife agreed with me this could
be a very sensible base for my project, so the very nice
Salmson DOHC four cylinder would be replaced by a less cammy, yet
bigger and very attractive too, Standard six.
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The
body frame and some of the panels laid out |
When at home,
in August 2005, disassembling it confirmed a
very sound overall condition, the engine had only been
rebored and 1st oversize pistons fitted with only
very little wear.
The major mechanical
problem I had to face with was about the crank: during the
years of inactivity, dampness had reached and lightly
rusted some of its journals, so I had to get it reground
and new white métal bearings made.
I suppressed the original
Solex carburettor on the right hand side of engine and
modified the block to receive a pair of 1"1/2 SU's
near the valves on left hand side. The ports were widened
and polished the best I could, valve seats enlarged and
guides shortened as well as head machined to increase CR
to 8 to1 |
Clutch, gearbox and rear
end have only been disassembled, cleaned, checked, painted,
reassembled with some new bearings and adjusted.
| I draw
the new body, shortened the front grille by 30cm, moved
back and down the radiator and had it shortened and
compensated with thickened cooling élément. I repositionned
the engine and gearbox lower and 33cm back and lowered
back suspension by shortening the rear crossmember,
squeezing the back of the main rails and securing the
front end of rear springs higher and aside from the main
rails. I then made the rear body
structure with 12/17 steel tube, pannelled the floors and
feet boxes, made the exhaust. I
then took it with the drawings to a panel beater to
have the rest of the body made. Then,
painting, wiring, finishing and final
reassembling made me busy for about a year
before it passes the technical control (MOT equivalent). |
The
parts come together |
Now, it is on the road since two
weeks and has covered about 200km.
The cylinder head which certainly
had been frozen formerly had been welded and was not completely
waterproof, so I tried a sealant (Woderweld) which seems to be
efficient till now.
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Just
the paintwork remaining to be done |
I believe
most of the unavoidable little adjustments are now
nearly OK and we enjoy a lot using this car, though we
didn't try it under the rain yet...
I must finally warmly
thank the club committee members who gently helped me
with advice and providing spares, as well as enthusiasts
Peter Lee and Mark Spridell whose kind information and
large knowledge of these cars were of great help to me.
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Michél Mousett,
March 2009
Hi Michél,
I am absolutely knocked out by
your achievements, of which you should be justifiably proud. What
a head-turner! I think anyone that has restored a car will get an
idea from your photographs of the thousands of hours you have
dedicated to this project. I hope you enjoy driving it for many
years to come and hope to visit you to see the car, if you can't
make it to the UK.
Thanks for sharing your car with
us.
Phil
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