Rebuild of Invercargill, NZ A90 Atlantic continues...

Good recent progress has been made in the long, arduous rebuild of this car.

The body is now largely finished and the vehicle's original beauty is returning. The new engine is fully operational and most ancillaries and accessories are now connected up and working, thanks to a complete re-wiring throughout.

The car is finally driveable and has been on a couple of short runs for testing. The engine is performing well and there is a very noticeable lift in torque performance due to the factory Healey 100M cam being installed.

After a few miles out on the road the car had dropped noticeably at the front and was sitting slightly uneven. The front coils have been taken out and sent to spring-makers Brown and Cope, in Dunedin, for refurbishment to their correct tension and ride height. Brown and Cope are a long-running and very experienced company, having been established in 1937. Along with their normal business today, mainly in

trucking, they are specialists in restoration and remaking of classic car and horse-drawn cart springs.

Readers will notice from the photos, the "colour-coded" front bumper on the car. It was decided to take this "modern" looking route with the car's bumpers, because the original bumpers, through rust, were not suitable for refurbishment for new chrome.

The idea became a goer through noticing the Atlantic bumpers sat right up against the car's body, both front and rear, thus giving the impression the bumpers were an extension of the body. The bumpers were then welded up and smoothed out and painted. When the front one was attached for viewing, it was thought by most, this effect did indeed give the car a "not out of place" modern look to the front end. It was also a lucky escape route compared to the near impossible task of finding good, usable, replacement bumpers that could be re-chromed.

Another stroke of luck was the still quite mint condition of the car's front seats. These had survived the long storage period by having originally had robust covers put over them, and thankfully, no attention from any rodents.

Still a way to go on the car, with the front windscreen to be fitted, along with the convertible hood mechanism to be put in, but the re-birth of this rare gem is definitely emerging now.