It was clear that most of the wood in front of the front doors needed to be replaced, so I found a timber merchant in High Wycombe that could supply me with Ash. I bought one plank 12 foot long, 2˝ inches thick, and 11 inches wide and from this the parts were cut out. The rotten parts were used as patterns, and where timber was missing, photos were used as a guide.

Once the forward parts were done I started on the timber over the back mudguards, but these parts were more complicated and took longer to fit together. After these parts were cut out, all the wood had gone and I could not believe this plank had not been enough.

Thankfully, I saw Ivan and he said that he had some ash left over from his restoration, and with this extra wood I was able to complete the remaining woodwork.

The body has perforated metal on the curved parts of the car, on the roof sides, back and the two rear quarters. Unfortunately, the bottoms of the two rear quarters were rusted away, so these were covered in tape and I used fibreglass over the tape. When this was cured, the fibreglass shell was removed, the rusted metal removed and the fibreglass shells were put back instead of the metal, but before these were fixed in place, the woodwork was given a coat of Cuprinol Five Star.

I have had most of the chrome plating done, but when it came to the radiator mask the chrome plater could not do the mask, as it was too big. A friend of mine said he could get it plated so I gave it to him. Weeks went by, but no radiator mask arrived, and on enquiring about it, I discovered that the platers had dissolved the mask!

As you can imagine, I was extremely perturbed as to where I would find another mask. The one that had been dissolved was in good condition and only required re-plating, but fortunately the platers were very apologetic and agreed to replace it, and after some phone calls to Standard Club members, a mask was found.

This mask had seen a hard life and was dented and split, but it was better than nothing. I rang a company in Coventry and they said they could repair and re-plate it. But after twelve weeks nothing was done, as they had discovered it was made of nickel and they were not confident that they could restore it.

Finally, I rang Spencer’s Radiators in Hereford, he picked it up. He confirmed that it was too badly damaged and split to repair, and advised that it would be cheaper to make a new one, using this as a pattern. After talking to the platers that dissolved the original mask, they agreed to pay to have a new mask made. This has now been started and I hope to pick it up by December.