Looking for a James Bond Aston Martin? Of course you are, but you're not one of those run-with-the-herd types who gets seduced by gadgets and impulse-buys a project DB5. No, you watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service for the 19th time and impulse-buy this 1968 Aston Martin DBS. What are the first words that come to mind when you see this fine British automobile? I mean, after "basket case" and "burn victim," that is? Exactly: Beautiful car. Even sitting in a dirt lot in California's Meth Gold Country, where it spends every winter beneath a layer of snow and every summer baking in the relentless high-altitude sun, even though it's what the seller himself describes as "barely a rolling chassis," this Aston is still a great-looking car. This one will need an engine and transmission, but is that even a challenge? You've got the world's economy collapsing, buddy- desperate sellers will give you anything from a Toyota 1JZGTE to this Countach drivetrain, for next to nothing! Then you just need to fix the interior, body, suspension, electrical system, brakes, and… well, you get the picture. Thanks to Jon for the tip!

You like the Aston Martin, but you know you'd get sick of the Bond jokes once you finished it? Yeah, even though you'd be 92 years old by that point, the Bond jokes would get tiresome. What you need is a product of the illustrious Rootes Group, Chrysler's henchmen on the Continent, and we don't mean any damn Simca or Hillman here. No, we're talking Humber now, the class of the British Rootes lineup, and we've found us this nice 1965 Humber Super Snipe up in Canada. It failed to sell at 700 bucks, so you should be able to snag it for a few cases of Moosehead. It runs, even… well, actually, it "fires right up right away," but that means a tiny part most of the journey is already done! There's some rust "just starting" in the usual spots, but how bad could that be? It's a good-looking car with a big six-cylinder (and room for an even bigger one) with that hard-to-find Anglo-Detroit styling, for dirt cheap- what are you waiting for? Thanks to Armand Bengle for the tip!

You got your Reliants and your Lloyds, but when you're talking about weird British marques that Americans can't identify… well, it's tough to beat a Humber. You get your Rootes Group-ish Chrysler-influenced styling, Lucas Electrics, and ahead-of-its-time technology (well, not really, unless the time is being set in Detroit) with the Magnificent Humber Sceptre!

Just look at that fine hunk of British iron! At this point, you're probably bummed because you know there's no way in hell to get a Sceptre without traveling to the UK, and even then you'd be in a frustrating right-hand-drive car… but hold on a second! There's a left-hand drive Humber Sceptre (go here if the ad disappears) available for just $750 in rust-free Southern California! We know, the seller says it's a '60 and the Sceptre Mark I didn't exist until 1963, but this one ran when parked! OK, that was 10 (probable Craigslist-to-English translation: 18) years ago, but the "motor turns over" and it looks like all the impossible-to-find glass is intact. Add an SR20DET and you'll be the Sceptre King of your time zone!

That Sceptre is mighty fine and that's a fact, but where's the sportiness? You need a slick-looking two-door to get anywhere in this world, and you need to remember that Chrysler wasn't just building Hillmans and Humbers and Singers in England- the Rootes Group was building cars in France as well! Yes, perennial PCH Superpower France, where engineers don't give a damn how the rest of the world thinks cars ought to be… and you're in luck today, because this 1959 Simca Aronde is available at a very reasonable price. How reasonable we can't say, because of that damn eBay reserve game, but we're betting it's a 3-digit number. That means you'll have money left in your budget for an Offenhauser engine to fill in that void under the hood, and then you can start the search for a new rear window. Oh, wait- the seller says "i have found a rear window and i will give new owner the phone number to buy it," so you're pretty much ready to go!

In yesterday's Aussie Edition PCH Commenter CasterOil copped to owning a Morris Major. The loophole stems from the fact that since he lives in the land of baby-eating dingos, he actually made his comment today, not the day before today. Get it? good. Oh, and here's his winning comment:

Guys, the Morris Major was my first car! Have a look - it's got FINS!


Talk about a Project Car Hell - once the passenger rear drum brake return spring broke, and the out-of-round drum pulsed and pumped up the three remaining brake drums down a wet hill one day .... imagine an irreversible 3 wheel lock-up in one of these in the wet! Luckily I speared into a gutter and slowed my passage without causing too much damage to anyone else's property.


Then there's the rear axles. They break. Badly. They half snap off inside the differential side gear. You can't remove the differential because the axle is partly there. You can't remove the axle because the end of it is bent sideways inside the differential. Hmm.. technical conundrum.


Oh, my ears and whiskers! The Lucas electrics! The three position switches that are either DIM, FLICKER and OFF, or else SMOKE, SMOULDER and IGNITE.


Not even enough power to pull a sailor off your sister. Rust! It would rust while you looked at it!


Parts, surprisingly, were easy to come by, as the 1500 cc Morrie Major had the same mechanicals as an MGA. You could go into a genuine spares outlet, and find the same part in an "MG" box at three times the price of the identical part (even down to part number) in a "Morris" or "Austin" box.


Thanks a lot for some acutely horrible memories.....

When you're looking for a good, solid project car, what's the first place that comes to mind? Tin Can Bay, Queensland, of course! Yes, Tin Can Bay is where you'll find this 1956 Humber Hawk sedan. According to Bill, parts are just about impossible to find, and the performance- in his words: "2 liters pulling 16 tons of iron down the road.... veeeerrrry slowly....." According to the seller, it's in pretty good mechanical shape, and it looks like the body and interior aren't so bad, but you have to figure that even the slightest problem will involve endless phone calls to former outposts of the British Empire ("Hello? Nairobi?") in order to find parts that never existed in Australia and were long since forgotten back in the Humber's homeland. All your sufferings will all be worth it, however, as you cruise (slowly) down the boulevard in your fully-restored Hawk. Hmmm... would the Humber fanatics string you up if you dropped a turbocharged GMC 292 in it?

Having a customized 50s machine with a pink paint job makes you feel cool, of course, and it's hard to get any cooler than a '62 Morris Major Elite, available now with an asking price of just 1500 Australian dollars. If ever there was a car that deserved a great big 6-71-enhanced V8 sticking through the hood, this is it! Oh, sure, you'll have a helluva time getting all the trim pieces missing from the side of the car you can't see in the photo, and it's probably got rust galore. But since you'll need to fabricate a custom tube frame for the new/improved drivetrain anyway, you'll have plenty of time to sort out the body and interior woes. We think the shade of pink needs to be louder, too, to go along with the Cherry Bombs.

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We know all about the dreadful-yet-oddly-lovable Reliant Robin over here, and some of us even dig the Reliant Kitten. Real aficionados of hellish car projects also know that the Israeli-made Sabra and Sussita were Reliant-based machines as well. But how about your very own Reliant Scimitar? It's a decent-looking car, powered by what appears to be the same Ford V6 used in the Capri, and here's an intact one pretty cheap. Imagine what you'd have if you stuffed absurd amounts of boost into that engine (well, aside from shattered drivetrain parts and the grunching sound of rusty steel collapsing, that is). Of course, first you'd need to fix all the stuff that's wrong with it, and we're guessing that's quite a list... but the seller has health problems- and other cars- so it's time to swoop in and steal this deal!

But the Scimitar is just too flashy for some of us, too obvious. Some of us like our hellish projects to be practical 4-door saloons with familial connections to about ten million different Hillman/Rootes-based models. For you, we have this lovely Humber Sceptre, also on eBay UK with no reserve. Talk about heritage- the Sceptre is related to everything from the Hillman Minx to the Iranian-made Paykan! Don't go harshing our mellow with talk about the horrid build quality of 70s Rootes products, now, because your magical wrenching skills will have this Humber burning up the roads... well, someday. The seller admits right up front that it needs some work, but it's got only 28,000 miles! What could go wrong?

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Yeah, see, it's perfect for checking out underage girls, see? You got your turret, you got your gunslits there; heck, if her dad comes after you with a shotgun, what's he gonna do? Take away your birthday? Oh, wait, Humber, not Humbert?. Like the Rootes Group company; right they took the Super Snipe chassis and put that there tank-like body on it and ran all over Western Europe blowing up the Germans real good like while reconnoitering various and sundry things. I gotcha now. Sorry 'bout that teenage girl thing. You know, sometimes straight-six vehicles make my brain go a bit loopy, y'know? Yeah, you know. – Davey G. Johnson

Humber Light Reconnaissance Car Mk II [WarWheels]

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