THE WANDERINGS OF A G15

One Car's Epic Journey

WHK 30L came into being on the 25th September 1972.   She left the factory at Witham with an 875cc engine, Monaco Blue body work and went into the ownership of a Mr C. Hill of nearby Pleshey, Chelmsford in Essex.    A few optional extras had been added... a heater, seatbelts, Dunlop SP80 tyres, a stick on rear screen heater, a steering column lock and an engine cooling fan, the cost for all of this was 974.50 pounds in kit form.    The car was assembled and then first registered on 5th October 1972.    Trevor Pyman, the GOC Registrar, recalls seeing this car around during 73/74 and flashed lights with the owner on more than one occasion.

The car then turned up in the Basilson area of Essex in the mid to late 70's.    We don't know but we suspect it had changed hands by this time.    In 1981 the car was purchased by a Stuart Dean of Halstead, Essex , who just happened to know Trevor Pyman quite well.    Trevor tells me that the car had changed very little in appearance and was still Monaco Blue in colour.    At some point in the mid to late 80's she once again changed hands, this time to Neil Boreham who lived just over the border in Sudbury, Suffolk.    I don't know how long Neil owned the car for but we purchased her from him at the very end of October in 1989 and took her home with us to Newport Pagnell, Bucks, which was just about the furthest she'd ever been away from her roots!    Neil was immigrating to Australia and was selling everything he owned in order to finance his ticket.    We had been looking for a G15 for a couple of months and had been disappointed by the quantity and quality of cars available for sale, at least within our price range.    The car was in good "used" condition and was minus any flares, body panels and strange cutouts that had turned us away from other G15's that we'd looked at.    We're not crazy archivists or historians by any stretch of the imagination but we love the look of the 15 and didn't want any "extras", especially home-made ones!

By the time we got our hands on the car only a few minor things had been changed.    The stick on screen heater was missing, the drivers seat had been changed for a really bad "racing style" one, the original steel wheels had been replaced with Exacton ones, which had been fitted to G15's after April 1973 and also to G21's.    The heater was missing and the paint work had been resprayed from the original mid blue to a very dark navy.    Apart from that, she was in good condition both visually and mechanically.

During the winter of 89 into the spring of 90 Andrew worked very hard on her in our little single garage and we slowly brought her back to a "very good" used condition.    We didn't have the room for a body off restore but she didn't really need it to be honest.   At the time we were both employees in the Engineering Department at Aston Martin Lagonda and so had access to a lot of facilities and contacts which came in handy on more than one occasion!    Front and rear screen rubbers were replaced and we pulled out the old steel C section channel for the sliding side windows and replaced them with new stainless steel ones which set off the dark blue a treat.    Andrew found that the rear spring pans had rotted through and developed a profile for them and had them made up in steel.    The heating and cooling system received an overhaul, a heater box from a mini was installed and a new radiator was put in with sealed for life radiator fluid.    Also, a brand new, specially made stainless steel fuel tank went into the front, made by a chap who was advertising in the GOC Newsmag.    The chassis was cleaned and repainted, not a nice job to do lying on your back on a cold concrete floor in winter!    Andrew then set about working on the rear suspension, nothing major was required so he moved on to the engine and tinkered about until he was happy with the way she ran.    She was still the standard 875cc Imp but she now sported a Janspeed inlet manifold, a Weber 28/36 carb and a RamAir filter, not a common conversion I believe, but she just flew with this setup.

While al this mechanical stuff was going on I was up in a spare bedroom working on trim stuff.    I re-trimmed the door panels in new black vinyl and developed patterns for the new sound deadening.    We purchased Italian Alcantara, a fake suede material, which is very hard wearing and durable, and using our old one as a guide, we carefully cut out the new headliner and bonded it directly to the roof.    It's light mushroom gray and really brightens up the all black interior.    Next on the list was the carpeting, the car only had a couple of tatty pieces left when we bought it so a complete new set was required.    Using John Roses' book on the G15 as a guide we made up patterns of the 19 individual pieces and had them made in black Wilton with Connelly leather edge binding!    Black leather gaiters for both the gear stick and the handbrake lever completed the picture, so she's trimmed to a very high specification.    In order not to ruin the new carpets and sound deadening, after all, G15's leak like a sieve, I sewed and bonded velcro onto both them and the bodywork, so they're completely removable.    Very handy when it rains hard.    About the last thing we did was to refurbish the Exacton wheels.    At some point one of the owners had painted them Monaco Blue to match the body, unfortunately, they did a very bad job, the paint was all chipped off and to make matters worse, she wasn't even that color any more.    Andrew worked on them, I worked on them and then our neighbour took them to the foundry he worked at and had them shot blasted for us, finally they looked great again.    We also got rid of the awful racing seat and managed to find an original G15 seat to replace it with, courtesy of Geoff Butcher, back in Essex, with whom I spent an enjoyable morning in August of 1990 when I went to pick it up.    Geoff was working on the restore of a 1980's G4 at the time.

She passed her MOT with flying colors in April of 1990 and we were off and running!    Weekends away, jollies in the country hassling Porsches - who nearly always pulled over after first attempting to hang with us on the twisty country roads between Newport Pagnell and Bedford, visits to racing tracks, friends and camping trips.    We got many happy motoring miles under our belts with only two problems.    One minor, one major.    The minor incident occurred when I was driving, she was getting incredibly hard to control from standstill, we were on our way to visit friends and I still had about a two hour drive left.    Every time I came to a complete stop in a town at a traffic light or a junction, I would either pull away in a cloud of blue tyre smoke or else stall the car!    Andrew was getting increasingly "irritated" with my appalling driving and would not believe that something mechanical was wrong.    Finally we arrived at our destination and I put the car in 1st gear and tried to pull up gently on the driveway, when the throttle pedal gave out under my foot and hit the floor as the cable finally snapped, the G15 stalled for the final time that day!    The cable had been fraying strand by strand the entire journey, luckily, for some obscure reason, we carried a spare and Andrew managed to get it changed, with much cursing and complaining I might add!    At least I was vindicated!

The second problem we ever had with her was major, or at least had the potential to be.    In the 3rd week of May in 1992 we decided to do a fuel consumption test and so filled up one fuel container completely and in another we put exactly one gallon and then drove around until she was completely dry.    In went the one gallon, the trip was zeroed and we once again drove around until she again ran out, the trip said 47 miles, we were very pleased.    Once again filling up, this time from the second container, we headed to a local pub for a bite to eat and a drink to celebrate.    On the way home she began to misfire a little, we'd seen this problem before, the plugs had a habit of sooting up once in a while and all we'd do was pull over to the side and blip the throttle a bit to clear them.    That's what we did this time.    Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the interference fit fuel line had come adrift from the fuel pump, we weren't actually clearing the plugs as much as spraying fuel all over them!    I still remember the "whooshing" sound as a jet of flames shot out the back of the car.    Luckily we carried a fire extinguisher with us at all times and quickly put out the fire so a major disaster was averted.    The damage was minimal, some electrical cables needed replacing as did the fuel line as the fire had burnt a hole in it, there was a slight amount of bodywork damage to the underneath part of the trunk lid but as it's not visible we decided to just leave it!    The worst casualty was the air filter, it was made of foam and had melted all over the carb.    Six days later we were leaving on a 2,000 mile camping trip to the far North of Scotland and didn't have time to get a new one and to clean up the carb so we had to resort to the original manifold/SU carbs and pancake air filters.    We enjoyed our trip but on the way home the 15 developed breathing problems.    On the flat she was fine but the hills were killing her and she coughed and spluttered her way up them, usually down to 2nd gear and 20 miles an hour by the time we reached the top.    Andrew and a good friend had started their engineering careers in Petrol Engine Development for the Rover Group and so went through the 15 engine with a fine tooth comb when we got home but came up with nothing.    Our problem was and always has been a bit of a mystery.    That trip was her last major outing and at the end of 1992 she went into storage at my father in laws while Andrew rebuilt the engine and did some other work on his Triumph GT6 during 1993.

Not much in the way of an epic journey so far!    For the most part, the G15's wanderings had been confined to the South East of England, but in July of 1994 things changed drastically for us and we left the UK and came to live and work in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, USA.    The GT6 went back to Cambridge to my father in laws and joined the G15, and there both cars sat for the best part of 8 long years.    Our sojourn in the Colonies was only supposed to be for a couple of years, then another couple, then we extended our Visa's, then we got green cards and in 1999 we built a home in the Detroit suburbs.    In 2001 we had the 15 ready for shipping to the States, we badly missed both our cars but decided that the G15 would be the better of the two cars to bring over.    It was September 8th 2001, I needn't dwell on what transpired three days later but needless to say, the car stayed in England.

In the summer of 2002 my parents in law told us of their intention to move and downsize their home and garage, we had to move everything out.    For a little while we went back and fore about the merits of shipping everything to The States or storing it all.    As well as the two cars we also still owned several pieces of furniture and enough personal belongings and car parts to fill 68 boxes!    It didn't take long to convince us that the lesser of the two evils was to ship everything, but the burning question was, how do you pick a suitable shipping company when you're 3700 miles from home?    A quick internet search revealed a plethora of companies out there, but a bunch of emails later soon sorted out the wheat from the chaff!    Half didn't even bother to reply.    The ones that did, passed me around from pillar to post and back again, I soon gave up on them as I realized that they'd be hard pushed to organize the preverbial party in a brewery let alone be trusted with our goods.    But it was one of these companies that finally gave us the only bit of helpful information we got, when they told us we should contact their agent in the UK.    That pointed us in the direction of F & N Worldwide in Grantham, Lincs.    They proved to be efficient, courteous, knowledgeable and very helpful.    Finely, someone who knew what they were talking about!    Our belongings were wrapped and boxed in situ at Cambridge, by F & N, and a car transporter arrived to take the cars to their facility at Grantham, where everything was then packed into a 40ft container and transported to Felixstowe.    We filled in what seemed like reams of paperwork just to get the container on a ship and off British soil.    The P & O vessel Nedlloyd, left Felixstowe on October 29th, 2002 and washed up in Montreal on November 17th.    From there our container was loaded on to the Canadian National railway and arrived in Detroit 13 days later on November 30th.    We filled in even more paperwork which was submitted to the Detroit Customs by Wickman Worldwide of Indiana, who had been selected by F & N to act as our clearing house and deal with the vagaries of the US Customs Dept.    We finally cleared customs and were given the green light to pick everything up on Tuesday, December 10th.

Prior to collecting everything, Andrew spent three very cold nights after work assembling a Perfect Park four post ramp in the garage, a quicker and cheaper alternative than knocking down walls and rebuilding the garage to accommodate everything!    We have a 2 car garage, which for the three years we've lived in the house was perfectly adequate.    But we had just doubled our car "family" by 100%, and with a cold, snowy, icy Michigan winter to look forward to, we wanted at least one of our daily drivers out of the elements too.

So, on a bitterly cold but thankfully, snow-less Saturday morning on December 14th, a rather strange convoy made it's way along the freeway to the CN railhead in Ferndale, on the Detroit city border.    I led the way in our Chrysler Minivan, a friend form work, Tim, drove a hired 17ft box van, he was followed by another friend from work, Dean, who was pulling a home built trailer behind his pickup truck.    His Dad George, built the trailer about 30 years ago and accompanied him in the pick up to help out.    This is an 84 year old car nut who still owns a couple of Model T's, along with a superb, original 1930's "boattail" speedster.    Andrew made up the end of the convoy with a borrowed Jeep Liberty and a hired trailer.    The rail yard had put our container at the far end, away from the hustle of their everyday business, which allowed us to take as much time as we needed to get everything out.    We broke the seal and with much trepidation, swung back the heavy steel doors and peered inside.    The GT6 was peering back at us, slightly sideways, but not touching the sides, behind her we could see the G15, also slightly sideways.    It's amazing just how long it took to carefully roll the Triumph out, position the first trailer and haul her up on it.    We were concerned about the track width and getting the orientation just right before we winched the car up.    The trailer, after all, was usually used to haul modern vehicles.    With a little too-ing and fro-ing the GT6 went up correctly first time, but it was a very tight fit!    The G15 was an even tighter fit on its' trailer, but it was finally winched up successfully.    The boxes were loaded into the minivan and the box van, and three hours after arriving at the yard, we drove back out again.    Once home, the cars were unloaded and pushed into the garage, the G15 sat on the ramp and suddenly looked like a Tonka toy!    The boxes disappeared into the basement, to be opened over Christmas and we ordered pizza and crashed out on the sofa, exhausted but content.    The whole operation had taken about 9 hours.    Our Ginetta friend from New Hampshire, Joe Perry, called up at about 7:00pm that evening, his first question was "So how many times have you washed and polished the 15?"    I think that'll come later Joe!

The GT6 is to be the subject of a pretty major body off restore, the 8 1/2 year in storage didn't suit the old girl at all.    Boxes full of small parts have already started arriving, but nothing will be tackled until the weather breaks and the 15 is back on the road.

The plans are to have the G15 up and running by the summer, so we can take her to our local race track and get out for camping weekends again.    She's already caused quite a stir... she had more visitors over the Christmas break than we did!    The carburetion needs to be sorted out, and Andrews Dad had suggested that our intermittent breathing problem might be the coil.    Perhaps it overheated in the fire and starts to break down on longer journeys.    A new one was fitted before the cars left England, but it'll be a while before we're able to test the theory out.

Through January, February and March the weather stayed unseasonably cold - January averaged -20C, February and March were not much warmer and we lost power on more than one occasion in March when we were blanketed with a three day ice storm followed by very wet, heavy snow.    We experienced the coldest winter in South East Michigan in over 20 years.    Unfortunately it made working in our unheated garage almost impossible.    Andrew looked like a Michelin man every time he went out there!    Instead, he concentrated on taking off as many components as he could and then working on them in the basement, assessing what could be cleaned and re-used, or what had to be discarded and new items bought.    That was my forte, tracking down things on the internet, some of you may have seen my adverts on the excellent GOC web site and in the Newsmag.    A re-conditioned carb arrived from New Zealand from Brian Bradshaw at Impwerks after a tip from Simon Dobier, another carb is at my father in laws in Cambridge awaiting pickup the next time we're in the UK.    Also at my father in laws are a myriad of small boxes containing brake parts, tubing and a host of other items.    Speedy Spares have been a very good source to deal with and Bob Allen, the Spares Coordinator with The Imp Club, has proved invaluable, as has the G15 User Guide, I don't know where we'd be without it.

Michigan has an extreme climate with spring time tornadoes, high summer heat and humidity - we spend a good portion of the summer above 30C, and frigid winter temperatures with snow and ice storms.    It took us about three years to get used to it, we're not sure what the cars will make of it!    I suppose we'll cross the bridges as and when they arise, right now we're just happy that they're over here and are, most definitely, looking forward to having the best summer ever this year.