One great thing about being a car guy with a TV show and a website is that I hear from lots of
people who want to sell me cars. Most are Ford Granadas—those really rare ones with the fake hubcaps—but every now and then something interesting comes my way.
Take the 1962 Daimler SP250 I'm currently restoring. The original owner, a man named William Brzozowski, lived in Baltimore and never garaged the car. It sat outside in the snow and the rain for 40 years. Bob Brzozowski, William's nephew, inherited the car when his uncle died. He wanted to restore it but didn't have the room at his place in upstate New York, or the money. He contacted me, we talked a lot, and I offered a very fair price, considering that the car hadn't run in 10 years and would need pretty much everything. Buying a vehicle sight unseen is a cardinal sin for car enthusiasts, so you can consider me the president of the More Money Than Brains Car Club. But this SP250 intrigued me: It had wire wheels and a removable hardtop, both rare accessories.
When I was growing up in Massachusetts, everybody had a four-door Ford or Chevy. I remember going to the local bowling alley and seeing a red SP250 and thinking, what a weird-looking car. It had tiny fins, bug-eye headlights, and an oval grille that earned it the nickname the Angry Catfish. But it had a peppy little 140-hp 2.5-liter Hemi V-8 engine that was designed by Edward Turner, the famous BSA motorcycle engineer.
When the car first appeared in the U.S. in 1959, at the New York Auto Show, it was called the Daimler Dart. But Dodge was already using that name, so Daimler quickly swapped in the much snappier SP250. At a time when most English sports cars had drafty side curtains, the SP250 had roll-up windows. Even better, it weighed only about 2200 pounds, had four-wheel disc brakes, and could top out at almost 125 mph. But sales were never good: Just 2848 SP250s were made, in three series, before they were discontinued in 1964. About 500 of them ended up in the U.S., so they're rare.
After buying the car, I had it shipped from upstate New York to my Big Dog Garage in Southern California, where the first thing we did was check for bugs. Here's why: When I was in high school, I had a Hudson Hornet that I let sit outside all winter. That spring, when it wouldn't start, I got under the dashboard to try to find out why and was immediately stung by a bunch of bees. I got some bug spray and doused the entire vehicle. A week later, I slid under the car and a garden snake landed on my chest, which scared the hell out of me. Luckily, the SP250 was filled only with spiders and ants. So we covered it in plastic, fumigated it with cans of Raid, and let it sit for three weeks.
Like I said, the car didn't run, but that was fine with me. If you have to restore the engine and wiring anyway, why pay for the fact that it's working? A running car might cost $10,000 more than something that hasn't been started in 25 years.
The good news was that the car itself was in pretty good condition. There was one little issue with the frame, where it had been backed into something, but the fiberglass body was fine. And there wasn't any rust.
John Lamm
Whenever you take a car apart, it's essential to photograph every piece as you go along. If you don't meticulously document a car with pictures when you start a restoration, you'll never be able to put it back together. At my garage, we shoot pictures of everything and store them in the computer. In the old days, you had to run down to the photo mart and wait for your pictures to be developed. That was a pain in the neck. Now you can take thousands of images, and it doesn't cost anything. So there's no excuse not to catalog.
But you don't take everything apart all at once. You just want to disassemble whatever you're working on first. The nice thing about body-on-frame cars like the SP250 is that it's easier to handle each section separately. With the exception of the hood, the trunk, and the doors, the fiberglass body comes off as one piece, so somebody else can work on it while you're working on the frame.
Once we start the restoration, the first thing we like to do is to get the vehicle back on four wheels. Before we start working on the engine or the transmission, we restore the chassis. Then we can roll it around the garage if we need to move it. As of this writing, we've straightened and powder-coated the frame. It's always helpful to have the original factory manuals, if you can find them, but this car is pretty straightforward. A lot of the worn-out parts are universal British components, stuff that you'd find in a Triumph TR3 or an Austin-Healey. The only thing that really makes the SP250 unique is that little V-8. And I can't wait to get my hands dirty taking that apart.
John Lamm
We've also carefully sanded, primed, and repainted the body. It was red, but we did it over in blue. Most SP250s that I've seen are either green or red, so I wanted something that really stood out. Stitch Corp., my upholsterer, has already measured the interior for new seats and carpeting. Whenever they finish installing their work, we'll mount the body on the frame and complete the wiring and plumbing.
We also plan to make a few improvements: bigger front disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering, a T5 transmission, and radial tires. We can always change it back to standard, but it will drive and stop a lot better with these upgrades. We'll breathe on the engine a little, too, with higher compression, lightweight pistons, a hot cam if we can find one, electronic ignition, and maybe bigger carburetors.
People ask me if there's a timetable for completion. Look, a car restoration is not like some Stalin-era five-year wheat plan. When it's done, it's done. A lot depends on how long it takes us to find all the missing stuff. But in the meantime, it's a lot of fun to see a dusty, bug-ridden hulk coming back to life. And when the job is complete, Bob Brzozowski is going to come out to California to go for a ride with me. I think he'll be pleased.
