ghce said:
Didnt see this post, I have been thinking about this car for the last week or three, what can you tell me about it?
Graeme
Hi Graeme,
gladly: this car was an import from the UK ( 1980's? ) and has suffered "UK rust" issues to an extent that certainly in South Island ( Mainland NZ ) cars you very rarely see. This P5B would require a full restoration and you would have to be handy with a welder, or put it this way; once you had finished doing everything that needed welding you would have become *very* good at welding indeed ( ! ) Would not be economic to have done professionally, too many hours involved
The car only stayed on the road as my mate was a WOF inspector, and only onsold because it became too rusty to self-issue WOF's for with any degree of conscience or the further ignoring of self-preservation; and this was several years ago. The buyer was made fully cognizant of the fact that the P5B would require substantial welding ( eg: to the floor and A-pillar bases ) before its next WOF, but I doubt this was ever done. I would rate this as a very good parts car for a restoration of another P5B, but too much of a challenge to restore, would currently have the structural integrity of a wet cardboard box... There are occasionally P5B's come up on Trademe for sensible money; when I was looking for a Rover V8 in 2008, I was offered a White P5B in Hamilton for $3,500 ( what this car eventually sold for on TradeMe ) that needed little more than the seats retrimming, which would have been far better buying than the Wellington car overall as a useable, slightly tatty runner. Having said that; there are many cows need sacrifice themselves for that purpose and a quality retrim would still have cost a fortune....
I wouldn't buy this car with a view to doing anything other than a complete, lengthy and costly restoration ( and there are still way better cars about to start that with ) or I'd make the seller a silly low offer; ( which he'll probably take ) then trailer this home, bust it up for spare parts and keep all the good stuff for a P5B project and sell off the surplus; it's a goldmine of parts + a very original example
Graham ( the proper spelling! ) Ware
aka GW