ONE STEP BEYOND
92 August 2019
Reader’s restoration: Saved after being left standing for over two
decades, this Granada 2.8 Ghia X has undergone an extensive and
highly detailed restoration — way beyond the usual rebuilds.
Words Mike Renaut Photos Adrian Brannanhe worst thing you can do to any classic
car is to leave it unused in damp
conditions. This 1983 Granada 2.8 Ghia
X was left parked for 23 years. You might
remember it from our Grafters feature in the
Spring issue, but we doubt you’ll recognise it.
Owner, Davey Farrell has just got his car back
after an incredibly extensive restoration.
“I first heard about the Granada in 2017,”
explains Davey, “it had been left at a garage in
1994 after the timing cog broke a tooth. The
garage put in an engine with just 1500 miles on
it and replaced the exhaust and brakes, but the
owner was injured at work and couldn’t afford
to pay his bill so the car just sat in the corner.”
Davey offered to buy the Granada but the
garage owner, who had since received the car’s
V5 in lieu of payment, wanted £5000. “I
offered him £2000 once I heard it running and
then we came to a deal. I’m a builder and he
urgently needed work done to his house, so IT
did that in exchange for the Granada.” Davey
then contacted Neil Dawson at KD Kustoms
UK. “I’d planned to restore it myself but in the
month I’d owned it I hadn’t even had time to
wash the car. I thought it looked solid, but Neil
soon found a lot of hidden rust.”
“It was rotten,” remembers Neil, who began
the restoration in September 2018, “the outside
had surface rust, but once we’d done the
stripdown there was serious rot in the front
chassis legs and inner wings. We ended up
replacing the entire front end, constructing a jig
to keep the whole thing straight. We fabricated
new inner wings and the slam panel, I got hold
of some new-old stock front wings and sourced
a new bonnet, too.”
“Many of the hard-to-find parts came from
stock car racers who were all extremely helpful. I
visited racers in Lincolnshire six times — a
12-hour round trip from here in Scotland —
and what I couldn’t find we made.”