anyone know my old scimitar? KOJ 726E

anyone know my old scimitar? KOJ 726E

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buzzer

Original Poster:

3,557 posts

247 months

Saturday 21st July 2007
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Just wondered if any of you guys know of my old scimitar? It was a 1967 coupe but it had a GTE front end grafted on. It was black and silver when I sold it…

If anyone knows of its existence I can add quite a bit to its history!

The reg number is still live and its taxed so its out there somewhere!

scimmie

69 posts

237 months

Thursday 26th February 2009
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I know it's a very very late reply but KOJ 726E is currently on Ebay (ending very soon!!)

item 330309620799

I would love to know the history of the car smile

Cheers

Dave Poole of www.sporting-reliants.com

Edited by scimmie on Thursday 26th February 17:31

buzzer

Original Poster:

3,557 posts

247 months

Thursday 26th February 2009
quotequote all
Hi Dave

Thanks for the reply, god that bought back memories! I have just emailed the seller to say I know a lot of this cars early history…

I bought it around 1978 I think. I bought it as repairable salvage from Hewitt’s Salvage in Darlaston. It had suffered an engine fire which had taken the top of the engine and the bonnet, and the front of the window screen in the area where there is a grill. I tried to fabricate a grill but ended up cutting a metal one from a scrap car (triumph I think) and bonding it into the fibreglass repair. The fire was a result of the petrol inlet pipe coming out of the carb, a common defect I think.

Over a period of MANY months I rebuilt the car. It was a body off restoration where I started with a bare chassis. I repaired the front lower suspension mounts and made up some out riggers and welded them on. I also welded up the rear body supports as well. At the time money was tight and I put the car back on the road with the engine gear box and axle as they were. I just replaced the Carburettor, distributor and all the bits caught in the fire. Over the period of ownership I reconditioned the engine, rebuilt the gearbox, and reconditioned the Salsbury axle, which was an interesting job.

At the time I was working at a Royal mail garage and used this as an opportunity to aquire as many parts as I could for the car…. I used some Morris J4 van rear drums and brakes, and the silences were off a Commer PB petrol van! The remainder of the exhaust was home made. At the time, scimitar badges were expensive so a made a mould out of plaster of Paris using a borrowed badge and cast some in lead! I wonder if they are still on there!

I can’t remember the original colour of the car, as part of the original restoration I painted it black. It was a reasonable paint job but not perfect as there was some bubbling in the fibreglass. After a while I decided to repaint it again and set about rubbing it down. I spent months on this! Finally, when it was prepared, I painted it again in black… I remember pushing it outside the garage, it looked great! Unfortunately, the first sunny day caused it to bubble again, very disappointed I set about rubbing it down again… the worst bubbling was on the roof, hence I have a glass sunroof fitted (sacrilege now I know) and I the undercoated it an had it baked and then painted it. Again it bubbled but I lived with it. To this day I still suffer tennis elbow because of all the rubbing down on this car!

At the same time o owned this, I also had a blue one, that was 1966 and was a straight 6 2.5 ltr ford engine with a Raymond Mays twin SU conversion on. I sold that car to a company in Stourbridge called Carval. A few months later I sold KOJ 726E to the same company and bought a Lancia Monte Carlo.

I made many friends in the Scimitar Club, Bob Safe was an owner from Wordsley and also Tony Robbins from Kingswinford. Both had Coupes and later Tony had a V8 Scimitar. One of my colleagues at Royal Mail also had a red Coupe that had been converted to a soft top.

There are some pictures of the car at http://www.jtccc.co.uk/index111555.htm when I owned it

One important thing, this car has a later Scimitar front end on; it must have had an accident at some point before I bought it…

Before me, the owner lived on the Penn road in Wolverhampton. The insurance paid him out from the fire and he used the Money to buy a triumph 2000. To this day the Triumph sits on his drive! I often see it as I drive by!

Well, that’s enough for now…. Thanks for taking the time to reply!