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mini_surfari wrote:are there enough panels available as reproductions to build a brand new shell yourself in a nick w style fashion?

i appreciate the man hours and price involved, but is it possible....

yes I think it would be possible, and you could easily fit some of the new panels that are available from m machine

but whilst there are still original shells to restore I wouldn't bother....too much hard work!

I saw this shell today & it is ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS!

I was talking to the guys from heritage about it & they practically admitted it was an embarrassment.
Please see some pics below.

I'm not being picky or snobbish for £10,000 Plus VAT (£12,000) this is not good enough.

Did they indicate that production ones will be better?

I'm interested in one in a couple of years time to bring my 1965 back to life as an S-alike.

mk1 wrote:I saw this shell today & it is ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS!

I was talking to the guys from heritage about it & they practically admitted it was an embarrassment.
Please see some pics below.

I'm not being picky or snobbish for £10,000 Plus VAT (£12,000) this is not good enough.

Did stevie Wonder put that shell together That is bad , very bad . And of all places to promote there Business

I dont think even Stevie Wonder would be pleased to see that Ian

I hope its a shoddily and rushed together shell to promote the 'new Mk1' shell but its not done them a huge amount to endorse their product.

Lakeland does have a point about its potential in motorsports though and could save a few Mk1 shells from competition.

I think it's good that they are producing a mk1 type shell, but think it has been rushed to get a sample at the show, I can't believe the finished article will be that bad.
It will never be as original though as too many heritage panels are incorrect for a mk1,
We have far better panel availability for our cars though compared to other cars which is something to be grateful for.

Would you go racing / Rallying in that

STG95F wrote:Would you go racing / Rallying in that

Well ..... no, not as it stands

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Shame!!
Appears to be yet another lost opportunity.

You could drive a bus through the driver's door gap at the bottom let alone the top as in Marks pic. The roof gutters looked hideous and the excuse I was given was that they were like that originally. I remember seeing a new Heritage shell years ago at the NEC which was terrible and seemingly they've learnt nothing. It's not as if this Mk1 spec shell hasn't been hotly anticipated for years, they really should have produced a better finished product than this. A resto company would have been minced for turning a shell out like that.

And as for the point about Motorsport. I can't see any serious racer paying £12k for that in a month if Sundays as it stands which made me wonder where the market would be?

It's worse than I could possibly have imagined, and to say "they were always shit from the factory" is a measure of the esteem they have for the heritage which they are named after. They have been selling half heartedly manufactured panels, at the highest price they think they can get away with for decades, as a trade customer, they leave virtually nothing in the discount to incentivise me to sell it into my jobs, and when something doesn't fit, or is badly shaped there is absolutely no after-sales service to fall back on to sort things out, which means no feed-back to tell them what they might alter. They seem to want to control the market, in fact, at 12k inc vat they are holding it to ransome, but as Trevor suggests, they daren't scrutinise their own product, and seem to expect us to congratulate the emperor on his new clothes. To buy this is to give them credit for a job half done, and I can't see where the additional £5k over their already over-priced mk3 saloon bodies is spent. The shame is that they have willing volunteers that could help them produce a product worth buying, the question is why don't they ask?

Pete wrote:And as for the point about Motorsport. I can't see any serious racer paying £12k for that in a month if Sundays as it stands which made me wonder where the market would be?

maybe its the new M R Magoo special

Seriously though , they will need some experienced panel beaters to build a correct replica mk1 shell ....and the hours involved will always make it a none starter...

Nick W wrote:

mini_surfari wrote:are there enough panels available as reproductions to build a brand new shell yourself in a nick w style fashion?

i appreciate the man hours and price involved, but is it possible....

yes I think it would be possible, and you could easily fit some of the new panels that are available from m machine

but whilst there are still original shells to restore I wouldn't bother....too much hard work!

Whilst we're on Mini Machine, the Heritage man wouldn't even talk about them when we discussed using their panels , or the potential thereof, so obviously a ding dong has been had between those two!

Nick W wrote:

mini_surfari wrote:are there enough panels available as reproductions to build a brand new shell yourself in a nick w style fashion?

i appreciate the man hours and price involved, but is it possible....

yes I think it would be possible, and you could easily fit some of the new panels that are available from m machine

but whilst there are still original shells to restore I wouldn't bother....too much hard work!

Unfortunately for me, my 'mk1' has been reshelled so I'd need something new, so if heritage could've pulled this off then that would've been the solution for me!

If these shells weren't so bad they'd definitely be the answer and save so many Mk1 850s from being recycled into Mk1 Ss , race cars and rally cars. That's got to be s good thing, as opposed to the standard of that horrible shell!

So did they say the 'production' shells would be better Pete, or do they go along the rule of F**k one up, F**k them all up.

If they had any sense at all they would collaborate with Mini Machine to create a much better end result. Sadly they don't appear to have any sense !

I have a feeling they've fallen out over this project Andrew for some reason. They did say they'd get it better but I had another look today and noticed the passenger side door fit was just as appaling as the other side. A long way to go I'd say.

Pete wrote:I have a feeling they've fallen out over this project Andrew for some reason. They did say they'd get it better but I had another look today and noticed the passenger side door fit was just as appaling as the other side. A long way to go I'd say.

They've fallen out over the fact that you have to take a so called premium product which you pay premium price for,then bugger about with it (thanks M-Machine) to make it look something like the original BMC panel. I'm amazed Or do m-machine use Magnum panels ?

You can buy a complete mk2 escort shell for 7k, and they made all new tooling for it.