Motorsport Inspiration

Everybody has their favourite things, which usually stem from some sort of childhood experience, exposure or desires. For me almost anything motorsport related from the mid to late 80's will always get my attention. For me, The now abandoned FIA sanctioned Group A and the Monster Group B formulas were the epitome of all things motorsport. Group A was always my favourite due to the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) being broadcast on Channel 7 on Saturdays. I can still remember the many times my Mum would tell me off for watching it and to get outside and play as the weather was nice.

 

As with everyone who loves Grp. A, There were some standout car/driver combos. Back when you're a kid, results or round wins, didn't always help with picking your favourite driver, but the car played a big part. The Colours of the livery, the stance of the car, the style of wheels, the sound it made and how it looked bumping over the ripple strips helped me decide my favourite cars and drivers at the time. If the driver won, that was alright too!

Jim Richards was a child hood hero of mine, he always drove the cool cars. The Winfield R32 GTR, The John Player Special BMW E30 and the Gibson Motorsport HR31. To add to this, the announcers always spoke of Gentleman Jim and he seemed to win a lot. I can agree that Jim is a Gentleman. I had the chance to meet Jim at our Car Club (Skylines Australia - QLD) Christmas dinner at Lakeside Park Raceway. He was more than happy to have a chat and to pose for a photo with me. Cheers Jim!

Dick Johnson was the Aussie Battler, who seemed to be able to screw together a fast and usually reliable race car. The car that sticks in my mind is the Shell Sierra Cosworth. It was fast and red, which made it faster! His Sierra was and still is a desirable race car. it had everything a Group A car needed. It looked aggressive, yet subtle enough to almost pass as a roadcar. Bonnet vents, flares, wings, BBS wheels. The whole package.

My favourite cars of the era would have to be the Sierra Cosworth RS500, the E30 BMW and only for the sake that it looked cool the Mitsubishi Starion. 

To be honest, I still love all things that are true to form for Group A. Big power (for the time), factory aero, race seats, simple roll cages, sticky rubber, box guards and light weight wheels. From this, many Brands that where used by the various race teams also made it into the factory offered sports cars of the time. Brands such as Recaro, BBS and Momo. It wasn't uncommon to find cars that had Race inspired accessories, like factory or even dealer fitted Bodykits, Recaro interiors and BBS or BBS Styled wheels.

What has all this got to do with my car? One of the reasons I bought the TX5 was that it was a late 80's Japanese mid sized tourer with sports car styling. The interior of the TX5 Turbos was typically 80's with a palette of grey. The steering wheel was an exposed spoke design, the seats were based off Recaros. The exterior had a certain Sierrra Cosworth profile and shared body stylings with the European XR3 and the local TX3.

The inspiration for my car comes from the styling side of Group A and the accessories that followed into the production version and non-Group A models, Factory fitted Aero, Recaros and BBS wheels.

Stay tuned.

busted handles and dropped windows

A few weeks back my wife was getting into the passengers side of the car. As she opened the door handle I heard a crack and the handle flew up, without the door opening. Great, busted handle,  I'll fix that later.

I had some time today to have a look at the damage and work out what to do with it. After I pulled the door card off, I was pleasantly suprised to see the inner door plastic in great condition. After peeling the plastic back gently, and the locking mechanism removed the handle came out nicely. As the handles age, the levers for the latch deteriorate and the end snaps off.

On my old Telstar Sedan, I did a door lock delete. To do this I used a handle cup from a rear door and the handle from the front door. The rod to the locking mechanism is removed and the handle fitted into the rear door cup.

The handle chrome on the replacement isn't in the best condition but it'll do until I find a replacement handle. 

The difference can be seen here with the handle cups and latch arms.

With the door card off I noticed some double sided tape behind the mirror cover. The locating tabs and clips were all broken and the cover panel stuck back on. I found a spare one I had laying around. It isn't perfect but it's in beter condition than the one I removed.

Once the door was back together I could start work on repairing the dropped glass in the driverside rear door. The plastic guide that holds the glass had broken resulting in the glass becoming less inclined to do as it was asked.

Once the door card came off, the plastic liner was in excellent condition.

The window mechanism came out with a little wiggling. The spare I had was a little different in the length of the cord tube, but everything else is identical.

 The tube was trimmed and fitted into the door. Door trims back on and everything tested ok.

Much success!

Factory stickers

Over the years, I have never seen a car that still have the factory stickers on the windows.

• Ford Selectaire air conditioning
• Security Coded Radio
• Motorcraft Hi-Guard Alarm

Here's a couple of pics of the ones on my car.

Dents, Scrapes and other body Damage

Due to the issues with getting into Sydney to get the car, I arrived at the sellers place in the dark. This was a blessing as I didn't get turned off buying the car due to the body work, but also a disadvantage as I didn't get to see how bad the bodywork really was. The pros for buying the car was the rare USC kit, the genuine 110,000 km's and the interior was  near enough to being spotless.

When I finally got to check the car over in the day light, I was excited but it was short lived. Besides the expected fade, which is a given for a 25 year old car, the paint was not in great condition. It looked as if the car has spent a great deal of it's life under a tree, with it's inhabitant using the car for target practice. Obviously the previous owner didn't really care about this and the result is damaged paint.

Damaged paint on the Roof

The rear of the car wasn't spared either, with the same sort of damage on the drivers side rear quarter, which is probably in worse condition that the roof.

Not only is the colour stripped, the paint is pitted. No amount of detail work is going to repair this, with the only solution being respraying the damaged panels. The rear quarter panel also receives a nasty dent and scrape down through the paint which has been covered with a sticky of bullet holes, kind of fitting that I bought the car from Merrylands..... I peeled the sticker off to inspect the damage underneath, it's not pretty.

The car has it's fair share of 'Elderly first owner' parking tattoos. Front bumper, rear bumper, side skirt, rear kit, etc.

The rear bar didn't escape having the exhaust pushed up into it from parking up against something. The result is damaged fibreglass. By the looks of it, it wont take too much to repair it.

As for the dents, it looks like the roof above the drivers door was used as the resting place for a bag of rocks, or very localised hail damage.. Somehow I don't think mother nature is that selective of where she throws her little ice rocks.

The car has been keyed at some point also, but considering the rest of the body damage, this seems to be insignificant.

Here is one of the worst dents. I don't have a pic of the dent on the bonnet of the driverside front guard.

There is next to no rust in the body which is fantastic for a 25 year old car. The only rust found is in the rear tailgate, just below the rear glass. It's still in the early stages, so it shouldn't be too much effort to get rid of it before it spreads.

So far this paints a pretty nasty picture of the condition of the car, but realistically, it's not too serious. The car is straight and has never been in a major accident. The front bumper has been repaired and resprayed at some point, but everything behind it is dead straight.

With a little time spent on the old girl, she'll be looking sharper than a number 2 pencil.