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Finding my old Roadster?

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  • Finding my old Roadster?

    I've just joined, and am on a quest!

    Back around 1984, I built a SWB Roadster, using mainly Marina GT parts, with the 1800 TC engine, but used a Dolomite gearbox and higher ratio rear axle, because the gearing turned out to be a bit too low with the original Marina gearbox, especially the very low ratio 1st and 2nd gear. The car was built in a tent at the end of my garden, and sadly I had to sell it only a year or so after I completed it.

    The registration was Q252UGL, and the car was yellow ("Post Office van yellow" according to the motor factor that sold me the paint!) with a brown cord interior. I built the car whilst I was living in Helston, Cornwall, and sold it to an RAF chap at Chivenor in Devon in 1985, very reluctantly, as my then girlfriend hated the car, and resented the time I'd spent building it, so ran off with another bloke.

    I've recently come across some old photos I took back in 1985, that I took for the advert I placed in Autotrader when selling it, and then went digging around on the web and was completely gobsmacked to find that the car still existed three years ago, and is in the gallery here: http://www.marlinownersclub.com/wppg...&image_id=3911 , looking very similar to the way she looked when I built her, but with the addition of a couple of spot lights and different wheels (being a cheapskate, I just painted up the Rostyles that cam from the Marina GT).

    If this Roadster is still around, and if someone here knows of her whereabouts, then I would love to be able to see her again. She was the first kit car I'd ever built, and started me on a path of building boats, aeroplanes, another car and finally designing and building a house, so in many ways Marlin, and in particular, Paul Moorhouse, is to blame for all the projects my long suffering wife has had to put up with for the past 30 years..........

  • #2
    Re: Finding my old Roadster?

    The DVLA site shows it as SORN so it still exists. However no MOT details so that suggests it could have been off the road for a while.

    I can tell you that it's not come up on any of the usual selling sites (eBay, Preloved, Gumtree etc.) since the beginning of 2015.

    Good luck with your search!

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    • #3
      Re: Finding my old Roadster?

      Thanks very much, I didn't realise that it was possible to get information from DVLA.

      I was a bit staggered to find that 30 years after I built her, she was still around and looking pretty good. I'd hoped that maybe the owner was a member here, as the photo is in the gallery, but I'll keep hunting around in the hope that I can find her. I remember all the hard work I put in when building her, including things like veneering the dashboard with American Walnut, and scrounging the use on an industrial sewing machine to make the seat upholstery and tonneu cover.

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      • #4
        Re: Finding my old Roadster?

        Not showing as insured either, must be stored away somewhere hopefully.

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        • #5
          Re: Finding my old Roadster?

          Jeremy, you'll have to look in Europe. According to the archive records she was sold from Littlehampton in the UK in Dec 2014, next appearing for sale in Germany in Feb 2015 - I've not seen anything since then
          Rgds DC

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          • #6
            Re: Finding my old Roadster?

            Good grief, fancy her having gone as far afield as Germany!

            I'll have to see if I can find a way to ask around over there, in the hope that I may be able to find her, but presumably the registration would have changed, and that might pose a problem, as I didn't keep a record of her serial number, and I can't remember what the position was with regard to the VIN back then. I remember having to take the completed car to the registration office in Truro, on a car trailer, so that a lady from the office could clamber up to try to verify the engine and chassis number (a futile exercise, as she was wearing a tight skirt, so I ended up reading them out to her - made me wonder why they had forced me to trailer the car all the way to their office). I remember giving the chap I sold her to all the paperwork, receipts, manuals etc, and I rather wish that I'd kept copies now.

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