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14
etcetera.
After sending many emails and pictures to Alpine owners, it was a noted Alpine restorer in
England who noticed that the left-hand rear wing looked wrong and that I should take some
measurements.
I did that and it was obvious on close inspection that the Alpine had obviously been in an
accident as the two arms that hold the body secure at the rear were bent downwards, the
rear window aperture was also 2 centimetres different from one side to the other and the
left-hand wing at the rear was several centimetres too low.
The answer, I must cut the rear off, re position the rear to obtain the right curvature of the
wing and gain the right height in the engine bay to allow the carburettor and hood to fit, and
re fibreglass it all back on.
This was achieved by cutting straight up from the middle of the wheel arch to the window,
and around the base of the window to the other side.
By bolting on wooden legs I was then able to position the rear correctly in readiness for
fibreglassing. But first I had to learn how to fibreglass!!!! To that end I had a boat builder
come and show me first.
I took this opportunity to have a closer look at the rest of the Berlinette’s fibreglass in more
detail, and could see that it had sustained a blow to the front RH side as well as the driver’s
side just behind the door as well.
All indications were that this car had been used in competition at some point in it’s life.
The front anti roll bar points were also very poor and this included the radiator fan
housings too.
At the same time I tested the seat flooring and found that the ply was rotten, so I replaced
this with marine ply instead.
All this required a lot of the items already installed on the car, to be removed again so that
the fibreglass could be repaired.
Unfortunately several sections of the previous repairs had been rather poorly done, so it
was important to me to cut these areas out and get it right once and for all. This took a lot of
time.
I also replaced the securing points of
the body to the chassis under the car,
which was quite prudent as there was
a little surface rust in those areas.
Having taken off the old fibreglass it
concealed quite a dent in the RH front
tube!!!
My final observations were that when
the car was repaired prior to being
sold to the collector, it must have had
twin Webers and extractor’s installed,
not the standard downdraught Weber.
Thus height was not a problem. This
was verified when I asked the previous owner, who indicated that it did have twin Webers
and extractors when he bought it. Not sure where they ended up!
So when I had finished all the fibreglass repairs it was time to repaint the body.
I thought long about what colour, as I had found at least 4 different layers of paint plus
undercoats. The car started life as 06 Gardenia blanc but had been sprayed red and a couple
Mark and the Alpine ahead of Ron Fabry in his MG
Midget, Northam Festival of Speed 2015