THIS WAS supposed to be an introduction to a new project car – in fact, I’d even started referring to ‘Project Withnail’ as my car – but alas, it has already gone due to unforeseen circumstances. More of which in a mo’.

  Apparently abandoned by its former owner – a lady punk rockist – the 2000 had had rather a lot spent on it prior to it being left alone and rusting for on the wild streets of Bournemouth. Hard-earned has been spent on welding, new dampers, exhaust and the suspension being rebuilt with poly bushes, so it did seem a shame to scrap the old bugger. His Royal Madness has more than enough 2000 spares, so there wasn’t even any point in stripping it down, so aside from nostalgic reasons, I felt obliged to take it on. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s seeing a classic being scrapped.

  Its major problem was that it had been heavily bashed in the near-side rear wing and given that you can’t get new MkI saloon wings, MM decided to try and bash it back into shape. He very nearly made it, but the panel gap between boot and wing was just not acceptable enough, so Plan B was adopted – featuring a bonding adhesive and a cut-down 2000 Estate rear wing.

  So instead of acting as my daily retro, the 2000 is due to be totally transformed for an STS customer into a 2500PI lookalike, which is a shame because I was looking forward to tooling around in the old bus, annoying cyclists with one of the finest exhaust notes to smoke out of Canley.

  However now that I’ve stopped sulking, this episode has helped me to focus and concentrate on projects which I’ve been neglecting, so now I’m going to have a good hard think and re-organise the Charlesworth fleet. The time has come to make it more manageable...

  Anyway, have a look at the Dep-O-vision vid to see the preparation work that goes into fitting a 2000 wagon wing. I was so impressed by the ease in which the wing was bonded to the car that I might have to rethink my natural distrust of modernity. Rats.