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www.QV500.com - De Tomaso 103 Restoration Part I |
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The first time we came across De Tomaso's unique 103 F2 car was after a copy of the Wallace A. Wyss book 'De Tomaso Automobiles' found its way onto our desk in 1998. We were struck by how pretty the car looked in its various configurations but gave no thought to acquiring it. That all changed in August 2002 when chassis 001 was entered for Bonhams Nurburgring auction by its Milanese owner, Marco Antonucci. However, an unrealistic reserve saw the car fail to sell both here and at Coys' Le Mans Classic sale a month later. By the end of the year we had been in contact with Antonucci who was advertising the car on QV500.com, and when 001 was entered for the Bonhams Goodwood Revival auction in September 2003 (with a more realistic estimate), we knew a deal could be on the cards. Banking on the bidding stalling below Antonucci's reserve (which it did) we carved out a post-sale deal that saw the car head to Bournemouth a few days later. Included in the sale were two extra sets of cast magnesium wheels, four uprights, a steering rack and various suspension parts, these factory original spares turning up in the back of a ten-year old Skoda courtesy of Max Girado's Cars Europe. | |||
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| When it arrived, the car itself was clearly very original if a little tired, the faintly ridiculous front wing and general condition clearly having been of little concern to Antonucci. Anyway, 001 was trucked up to Paul Fox's Foxcraft Engineering in Stockbridge during mid January and at the time of writing (mid March) is completely stripped. From the photos you can see the monocoque and various gorgeous magnesium castings. Not so gorgeous are the mountings for the suspension arms that are bonded and riveted to the monocoque - they look poorly fabricated and will have to be replaced. As suspected, the fuel system proved to be a bit of a problem although happily we have found a solution. Originally the fuel-filler was contained under a small flap just ahead of the dashboard from which it fed into tanks on either side of the driver. At some time a previous owner had replaced this system with one that filled from behind the driver and into a smaller tank mounted behind the drivers seat. No doubt this was OK for hillclimbing, but the capacity would have been insufficient for a typical 12-lap International Historic Formula 2 race. We intend to install bag tanks in the cockpit sides that will be fully FIA compliant. |
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The gearbox is a standard Hewland FT200 unit that looks in pretty good shape, although the ratios it contains confirm that the car was configured for hillclimbing - 110mph in top won't cut much ice on circuits where you would expect to hit 150mph. The biggest challenge though is the engine and here we were in for a real surprise. All the auction literature (that can be notoriously misleading - caveat emptor) said the car had the standard 1.6-litre FVA. Now the FVA is a pretty rare beast these days and as most of those who compete in International Historic Formula 2 use the BDA (belt-drive A-series) engine that was a derivative of the FVA but originally intended more for rallying. When Paul Fox removed the engine from 001 and took it apart, it soon became apparent that it wasn't an FVA but an FVC - outwardly the same but with the capacity upped to 1835cc and the output from 235bhp to in excess of 250bhp. Whilst it's undoubtedly an interesting engine to have at our disposal, it clearly won't be eligible if we want to run the car in Historic Formula 2 where the 1.6-litre engine limit applies. Fortunately we do have a fully rebuilt spare BDA that has slotted in for the timebeing. | |||
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