Here she is, a beautiful A series manta from 1975.
We went straight after I finished work at 3p.m on a wednesday afternoon. Straight up to glasgow with no 360-related problems at all (wind noise notwithstanding). All was going great and we got to the guy's house before dusk. £1100 changed hands and off we headed in a better-than-average condition piece of euro-muscle, everybody happy. I rode shotgun in the manta to advise on the route and so my mate would have the benefit of my 'technical experience' (pfft), while a 3rd mate drove the 360.
Sound too easy? Well that soon changed. After stopping to put some juice in the manta, the fuel gauge lost illumination and pointed towards empty. The temperature gauge is on the same clock, so we thought it only natural that it had stopped working, probably just a loose earth or something. Idiots.
So it came time to tackle the cheviot hills on the border. We were running late due to some very dodgy map reading, it was around midnight by this point. Not long after crossing the border into England, the fuel and temp gauge started working again. "ooh look the clocks are working again", "oh yeah the temperature gauge is back to life". A pause. "Oh SH!T, look where it's pointing!".
It was off the top of the red bit. The next safe place to stop was a layby after 2-3minutes of agony. Belching black smoke and a terrible stink, we ground to a halt. We were miles from home and in the middle of nowhere. Thank god for the AA, who got a tow truck to us from somewhere near Newcastle airport. Anyway by the time it arrived, dropped us off at my lockup in Sunderland, and I'd dropped everyone off and got to bed, it was 4a.m. and I had to be up at 5.30 to get ready for work
The moral of the story is: If, like me, you have a perfectly reliable tow car and trailer, don't mess about trying to drive home in 32 year old classic cars of unknown condition
Anyway, we all appreciate a classic, so here are some pictures of the beast, which has been forced into project status earlier than expected thanks to the engine failure.
Cavalier rims, undecided whether they're better than the wolfrace alloys that were on:
Empty engine bay, cam-in-block 1900 has been ditched:
To make way for a C20XE:
With R1 carbs, dizzyless ignition with megajolt and Ford coil pack:
And a Getrag gearbox from a manta B 1.8 GTE:
The whole thing slots together like bloody meccano, the only hard part of the conversion is finding a good A series shell
The whole project should come in at under £2500, excluding the bodywork that will need doing as that's common to all mantas! More pictures to follow of the worst bits, including what we found under the vinyl roof...
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We've got a real Volvo nut on our hands now...good on you 
