Colin & Helen
Elstrop's Grantura - 9686
Last updated - 30-9-2006
TVR Grantura MK3 - race car to be restored to FIA spec. The car was
imported to Australia by Peter Owen . He had become the TVR dealer for
Australia and imported about 20 carsover the next five years or so. Peter Owen
was a lot more interested in racing cars than being an importer and owned some
of the better racing cars in Australia at that time [Lotus, Lola etc .]. He had
Kevin Bartlett drive this car who was a champion driver in Australia , it
became very well known and won a lot of races , all around Australia . Bartlett
moved to open wheelers in 1967 and the car stopped racing at the end of that
year. It was sold after the Surfers Paradise 12 hour race in 1967 by Peter Owen
and never raced again. A schoolteacher bought it with the intention of doing
hillclimbs etc. and it broke the bottom out of a rear upright almost
immediately . He took it to Forbes , a small country town in New South Wales,
about 300 klms inland in our hot dry interior and stored it in his
mothersgarage, undriveable. He was off school teaching in other areas and the
car just sat there. Finally his mother died and it had to be moved , it was
sold to a person in Adelaide [South Australia] who kept it for two years
without doing anything to it and then I was able to acquire it. The previous
australian owner completely stripped the car and rebuilt it. Hereplaced every
bush with nylothane [firm ] bushes . He obtained two new rear uprights from
David Gerald TVR[UK]. We replaced the two front uprights and fitted new axles
front and rear. He fitted new AVO externally adjustable shock absorbers,
re-conditioned the steering rack, recored the radiator, went through every
chassis member for rust, [some are covered in fibreglass as you probably know]
I believe it to be rust free. Reconditioned the brakes, replaced all brake
lines , fitted a new fuel line, removed and repaired the fuel tank and had it
foam filled, replaced every chassis bolt until the chassis was as new. He was
able to obtain an engine that came to Australia as spare parts for the Austin
1800's that ran in the London to Sydney rally . It was a factory prepared
engine and most of it is still in the car. The bottom end has been very reliable,
he has replaced a couple of sets of bearings . It came with a cast iron head
which makes excellent horsepower and a Warneford induction manifold , which
takes a single 45ml DCOE Webber . It has a rough extraction manifold, we did
very well with that set up. The car ran in period with an HRG Derrington head,
it was supplied to him but was too soft to use . He finally tracked down the
current maker of these heads and had one sent to Peter Burgess [Author of How
To Powertune an MGB] in Derbyshire UK in rough blank form and had him port it
to suit a Kent 719 scattercam ,which is also fitted after being cross drilled.
The torque increase was noticable. At the same time he built up a new bottom
end. The new head was fitted to that bottom end. We gas flowed the head from
Peter Burgess and thought we could also increase horse power as well as torque
so I bought another HRG head and had it ported by his cylinder head man here,
it did flow better and allowed us to use lower compression and achieve better
performance . Whislt running the head from Peter Burgess we got detonation and
lifted the top off a piston so we fitted our new head to the older bottom end
and have been happy with it. A Tilton brake bias is fitted to the original
pedal box. The original brake pedal seemed to be flexing so we made one from
Chromemoly . The accelerator pedal is adjustable both sideways and front to
back without removing the assembly so that you can get exact comfortable
position to heel and toe. A rool over hoop is fitted, single bar just behind
the head, fibre glas seats are fitted, bolted to two metal metal straps braised
between the centre chassis rail and the outrigger, the front of the roof is
attached to the front of the dashboard by an aluminium left and right hand
threaded tube so you can lift the roof to fit windscreens and then wind it in
tight so it is unable to flex and dislodge. Two fuel pumps are fitted [only one
connected] in case of track failure of pump etc. Car has very good HPC coated
extractors fitted with new head . Siamesed exhaust port is difficult with these
heads. Is fitted with plexiglass door windows . There other spares such as
lights etc, I imported the car 1 month ago with a full box of spare parts,
period pictures, period log book. Chassis numer is 9/686, checked with David
Gerald. The car is now going on surgery to find its original body shape ... and
to be FIA legal!
Update of new owners:
We bought 9/686
from Christophe Willmart in 2007, since then it has been returned to the Peter
Owen Team colour scheme as it raced in the 1960’s.
We have been racing in the Equipe GTS series
and also at Classic Le Mans in 2008. we will be competing again at
Current Owner:
Colin & Helen Elstrop (UK)
To
contact the owner, please route inquiries through the registar.
Registar:
serel@zeelandnet.nl