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Hi all. I'll put together a few photos on Monday to give you a virtual 'walk through' of the workshop. Lots going on right now on the turnkey line so plenty to discuss once I've uploaded them.
As promised, here's a few tasters from Ribble HQ. We're getting nicely busy with turnkey projects and every one is different! We start with a couple of Navigators. Both are headed to France and both will be fitted with 2Ltr engines. You will see some modifications to the frame we are working on. The idea is that with so much weight 'up front' the more we can move to the back, the better. Both cars have the battery relocated rear of the cockpit and the bodyless car has the tank moved as far back as we dare:
Next up we have a Pilot we've named 'Ol Yeller, which will be going to Germany. This came back from Spray (The colour is an authentic 50's Jaguar Pale Primrose) and was snapped up within half a day! The new owner asked for some upgrades so all bushes will be changed to Poly and the engine upgraded to the Spitfire 1500cc with Overdrive. Behind it is Simon's car which will be covered in its own thread:
The next Navigator shell is currently parked on a Herald chassis. With the immense amount of work done last year to straighten and remould the Navigator, it seems to make sense to use that as a starting point to revive the Pilot rather than going over old ground with a Pilot shell. It will also feature the integrated bulkhead so negating the use of the donor's last 'rusty bit'. This will appear as time allows:
Next, Chassis stripped ready for the turnkey line. We try to keep one ahead of each marque rather than scurrying around for donors when an order comes in. That way we can get a rolling chassis at the price we want rather than entering a bidding war:
Now to 'Colani Corner'. The blue one in the background is our own original car and the foreground in Purple (It is going to be sprayed) is the first shell out of the new mould. That one is headed to Greece!
Turnkey line 1:
And the set wouldn't be complete without our Admin Staff (Sorry AndyP85):
More hidden in the background and will be shown when we're ready (or if you care to visit you may get a sneak peek)
There is alot more going on since my visit a couple of weeks ago, looking good keep up the development work,
Will be placing an order once i find a suitable donor (locally i hope), picked up a straight six so heading in the ight direction.
Andy - When I first saw a photo of your new premises, I thought it looked HUGE and you'd struggle to fill in.
How wrong was I? If anything you look like you could use a bit more space!!
That "Pale Primrose" is a lovely colour.
Although Micha is probably tutting away in German at the sight of some over spray.
I think it is a good idea to base the new Pilot on the new Navigator body.
I am planning to give the "Sticky" a bit of an update one of these days.
So I will include a section for the Colani.
Thanks Paul. We're not quite struggling for space but it is always surprising how much of the 3, 500 sq ft we can fill! The beauty of 'Ol Yeller is that both front and back suspension will be completely stripped and powder coated so whilst it's apart, the chassis and floors are getting a good repaint. No overspray once it's back together. The next car to spray will be done differently. Working with the sprayers, we're going to fit the shell without bonding, remove it and send it alone to spray before coming back for final fit. We'll be letting you know how that idea gets on
Thanks for the tour of the shop guys, you look busy, eh. Some interesting projects there, good to see how it's done. I am rebuilding my spitfire motor now, get back to you real soon, eh. Thanks again.
I think it was Mr Towed that originally posted this link to an engine rebuild. If you have not seen it before it might give some confidence to tackle yours!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daVDrGsaDME
I think it was Mr Towed that originally posted this link to an engine rebuild. If you have not seen it before it might give some confidence to tackle yours!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daVDrGsaDME
All sorts happening right now at Ribble HQ and it's always good to see visitors pop in for a chat and a brew to see what's happening first hand. Good to see you Mickey1mo and many thanks for the Leyland Tiger - Ribble coach model which now sits by my desk
Business is steadily pushing towards the turnkey direction (although the bread and butter kit sales are always there) and to that end we have appointed a very experienced agent, Rene Kummer, who will be looking after western European turnkey sales from his base in Cologne. Rene recently attended the Essen Classic show representing us and has come back with some interesting leads and ideas. His own car, a 1500cc Engined Pilot in Jaguar Pale Primrose, is about ready to be shipped along with the 2Ltr Navigator which will be heading to France, seen here together for the first time:
Why 274 you may ask? Well this may give you a hint and it doesn't take too much imagination...
Navigator Turnkey 002 body shell returns to us from the spray bay today in an original Triumph colour, a Salvador Blue last seen on a TR3:
In the background of the first photo is the donor for Navigator TK003 which will (probably) have a white powder coated chassis and a very dark green livery. We will be making a few design mods to this one which will be carried through to the range. The first is to address the tight seating position of the Navigator and will entail a sloped (oops!) rear bulkhead and a slightly extended cockpit to accommodate the normal bucket seats and also a bolt on body with bonded side rails and 'chassis' mounted roll bars. More photos as this one progresses.
As the turnkey side of the business grows, along with a slow move into track day cars such as the Silverstone (and a non Triumph based track version of the Pilot we are talking about now :spy we will be adding to our web site and in preparation, have already added two more URLs (Both of which currently point to the usual web pages. These are:
Also nice to see the pictures that show how dedicated you are to providing a quality product to the buying customer - both those export turnkeys are a credit to you.
Interesting that someone else has chosen to go with a D24 racing number - as I'm sure you're all already aware, #274 was the car that Felice Bonetto drove to victory in the 1953 Bologna Raticossa Pass 43.2km hill-climb, seven seconds faster than second placed Lancia teammate Eugenio Castellotti (driving #260, a D23/24 hybrid). Bonetto's winning time of 26 minutes, 03.2 seconds, gave him an average speed of 99.488kph, and was 40 seconds ahead of the closest Maserati (3rd), and a whopping 1 minute 25 seconds faster than the top placed Ferarri in 6th place.
And to think I was able to recite all that from my comprehensive knowledge of Lancia heritage without referring to Italian pages on Wikipedia and translating them into English even a bit...
Oh, and in case anyone's forgotten, this picture was my inspiration -
