‘It’s got a Lotus engine and a Ford colour scheme!’

RESTO HERO

Bob Meldrum loves a Viva HB Estate, and he loves a hot one

WORDS DANNY HOPKINS PICTURES JONATHAN JACOB

AS FOUND

Sometimes, a love of a particular make and model of car comes to you completely by accident and in the case of Bob Meldrum, that’s certainly what happened. Bob is the proud owner of four Vauxhall Viva HB Estates and has owned at least one of the curvaceous classic load luggers since he was 18.

It all started for Bob in the late Seventies. He’d recently passed his test and was driving his dad’s Ford Cortina MkII, but was itching for some wheels of his own. ‘I came home one day and my dad told me that his uncle had this old Vauxhall sitting in a unit, which had been there for a year or so as he couldn’t get it to start. He said if I could get it going, it was mine.’

He went down to look at it with a friend and it turned out to be a blue HB Viva Estate. It had a blocked breather valve on top of the rocker cover, which Bob cleaned up and adjusted. ‘It ran like new, so I told Uncle George the car was fixed and he could have it back – then he said that I’d fixed it, so it was mine.’

That first Viva was Bob’s pride and joy through his young and impressionable early motoring life. ‘I had it for a few years and, like all young fellas I made it my own, so I customised the Viva to within an inch of its life… there was no stopping me back then!’ Bob ended up fitting the HB with a fruity slant-four, but sadly he crashed it in 1986. Life was tough for a while but fast forward a few years and fate intervened again. ‘One day I had a quick look on eBay and typed in ‘Vauxhall HB Viva’. Lo and behold, this blue HB estate popped up and it was only down the road. I had a bid.’

The seller had said it was a good car, and it looked it, but no sooner did Bob get it home than I realised it wasn’t. But being back in an HB had certainly put Bob’s needle back in the groove, as no sooner had he got the white car restored than he got another one, this time to restore himself. That’s when he joined the North-East Restoration Club. ‘I found another HB, a dark blue one.’ Bob customised it just like his first car, in the style of something from Hot Car magazine, ‘NERC has given me friends for life since.’

1967 VAUXHALL VIVA ‘LOTUS’ DELUXE

Built between 1966 and 1970, the second generation Viva was bigger than the first and was essentially a new design. It had an enlarged 1159cc engine, although this one has a Lotus Type 907 from a Lotus Elite, which was a development of the Vauxhall slant-four that sat under the bonnet of the Viva HB GT… hence Bob plumping for it.

The Big Project

It’s his red HB – his third of four – that’s the car he’s done the most complex work on. ‘I thought I’d have it as I needed various bits from it for my other two, it was originally a parts donor.’ But when Bob got the car back to NERC’s workshops and looked over it, he decided it should be restored. It wasn’t good. But it was way too good to scrap.

‘The first thing I did was repair all the bad bits on it. I had to cut chassis sections out: I patched up a bad chassis leg, did all the MIG welding all by myself, and then had to make and beat a spare wheel well out and repair rear sections of sills – there was an awful lot of scrap metal left over at the end of it!’

The bodywork took Bob two years, but he still didn’t have an engine. The project lived at NERC where Bob had access to all the kit, as well as support from other people. ‘One of my friends in the club asked me if I could advertise something for him on Facebook,’ said Bob. ‘It was a Type 907 Lotus engine from a Seventies Elite, complete with front cradle, propshaft and rear suspension arms.'

That was the moment when Bob thought ‘hang on a minute’. The Lotus engine has a symbiosis with the Vauxhall slant-four engine, ‘so I thought to myself that maybe it would go straight in.’ Time to get the tape measure out then.

It wasn't as simple as a straight swap but Bob thought it might work using a Jensen-Healey front crossmember, and with some careful calculations along with some careful (and some more forceful) adjustment he got the Lotus engine to fit. ‘I had to modify the inner wings and the bulkhead a tiny little bit, but only by a quarter of an inch or so. In my opinion that’s a natural fit. The best bit is that It’s only really held in by eight big bolts.’

Then a problem arose. ‘I got the engine installed, wired it all up and it started first time. I was absolutely euphoric.’ But it had no oil pressure… alas, the previous builder had neglected to fit a lower pick up pipe O-ring. Bob found himself having to fit new shells. ‘Then after running it up to temperature and with full oil pressure restored, I discovered the rear crankshaft oil seal was shot. I fitted a new seal. Out the engine came and back in again.’ Bob had done it a few times, so it only took him three hours.

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