Ant Anstead

[jeff jackson]

Did anyone see the Ant Anstead master mechanic show last night on Quest?
Ant fell in love (why wouldnt he?) with a lagoon blue 1972 big valve +2.
He wanted to get it back on the road an sell for a profit.
Now did I imagine it or did he say the respray cost hime £1800?
If so, I want (need) to go to the same place.
Also bit surprised after hime seeing damage to the head he didnt stip down the block.
He ended up putting a non big valve in at a cost of nearly £9K. Is that how much a twin cam will set you back?
Blimey.

[NickWilmshurst]

Hi

Yes, I watched it. What a plonker!

He lost a packet on the car and he deserved to. Why didn't he just buy a new crank (or second hand) and rebuild the engine. I'm amazed he found a complete engine and we're led to believe he found it in just a day!
There was no mention of rusty chassis or sill members - if it had been standing for 30 years, I would have thought this highly likely.
Why were the headlights always up - sounds like a leaky vacuum chamber to me!

Nick

PS. He put the shell in an oven - this doesn't sound wise to me. Thoughts?

[Phil.C60]

It's the usual "made for TV" rubbish I'm afraid. Things are often done to fit in with the filming schedule rather than being done appropriately. They bought another engine because the car was entered in the auction at the NEC (?) a couple of days later so they had no time - I assume that getting it there was part of the filming contract otherwise surely you would have just pulled the entry and stripped the engine (which they should have done when they found the head damage. Any sane person would, especially with an unknown car that you are in theory "restoring"). The replacement engine was actually £10k IIRC and that's quite reasonable complete with carbs (unless they were the ones removed frome the car) and therefore I assume (unwisely perhaps!) dyno run. As an example, an FIA twin cam from one of the proper engine builders is £17,000 plus these days. The list of obvious issues that he didn't fix or mention is endless if you watch the program closely. The fact that the headlights clearly didn't even get mended so that they go up and down tells you everything you need to know.
I've recently finished (as part of a team effort but I did most of the final assembly and a lot else besides...) a re-restoration of another Lotus he "Restored" on TV that was actually a complete shed when we started looking at it. The car ended up being stripped to a bare shell and the fun really started when we began removing bits of polystyrene that had been wedged in the rear quarters to fill some inconvenient holes. There's no proof that he/they did that, but it wasn't hard to find and they clearly didn't deal with it. And that was just the beginning, but it's a long story for another day....suffice to say my view of his claim to be a "Born Mechanic" is unprintable, a view that is shared by pretty much everyone involved in the last project and that includes a lot of folks with more knowledge and ability than mine. My advice would be that anyone thinking of buying a car "restored" or "recommissioned" by him as part of a TV program at auction would be better off keeping their hand down, or only bidding up to the value of a car that requires complete restoration again, and that's probably why it only sold for what it did.

[SimonH]

There’s probably a good reason that every company he sets up to ‘restore’ or build cars fails. They are all rubbish or just badly run. The Lotus Exige based thing he did under the Radford name has folded now. Failed to deliver and now has people wanting their money back. Wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him

[Jason B]

I watched it too, you sort of expect that all of these things are setup for TV, but this particular programme is really lame and they do not even try to make it look convincing.
Which wouldn't be so bad if it was entertaining or you learned something because they did something technical but it does neither of these things. I had watched half of one before and thought it not worth bothering the rest, so only watched this as it had an Elan in it.
They even made up the non car stuff, his "showdown" meeting with the Parish Council for example, who have almost non existent powers over planning and absolutely none over building control, so they are hardly likely to be able force him to remove insulation. Even when used to bodge a car!

[jeff jackson]

Interesting comments guys.
What about that respray, it looked ok, but surely not properly done ay £1800???

[Hawksfield]

Hi all
These type of programs are for couch potatoes. And the production team and directors don't let any problems get in the way of completion.
Its pulp fiction.