Hi, thanks for your posts, there's lots of stuff on Retro Rides that I drool over too, if you like 2 doors, check this one:
retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=37519I like this one a lot, very tidy, mine has Ziebart under the bonnet, so the engine bay doesn't look as clean as this one.
Anyway, all questions should be answered by the potted history I have been working on offline, although I may have omitted to mention it was built in Belgium, but I think all the 2 door saloons were, anyway hope it copies in ok.....
I want to sort of document everything I know about this car, I have all the original paperwork and more for the car, but will try not to get too carried away.
The car was bought by a women living in Sandbach in Cheshire. She was, it seems, driving a G reg Triumph at the time, I don't know what model. After having obtained quotes for a Chevette L 2 door in late 79 and early 80 (I have the handwritten quotes on price lists!) she walked into Horns of Macclesfield in january 1980, saw the car I now own on a turntable in the front window and said basically 'I want that one'. Apparently the salesman (a Mr Roger Vernon) wasn't keen, the car had just been put onto the turntable that day, and I think perhaps they didn't have the right paperwork to register it properly as a special edition with the DVLA (I am only guessing this bit, but the vehicle registration document doesn't mention the car being a Silver Special). After a little persuasion a retail order form was filled out, I've chopped out the first owners address and some blank bits, but here is most of it:
Although no mention is made of it being a special edition the price shown is different from the normal price of a 1600 2 door L at the time, and of course there is no mention of the extra cost of metallic paint, rostyle wheels and other GL spec items the car came from the factory with. The engine size of 1598 is perhaps a mistake, it was registered with the DVLA as 1584cc, as are all 1600 Mk1s (as far as I know).
Next I have a Horns service invoice dated 7th February for the Ziebart treatment and fitting of the mud flaps, apparently paid for with a cheque by Roger Vernon. Included with this is the Ziebart Certicate in a nice Ziebart envelope. The car had done 33 miles by this stage. Then on the 8th February a receipt of payment was sent out to the buyer. (Again censored a little).
The car was then registered on 12 February 1980. It was kept on the road and used until sometime in 1997 (I have all the MOTs) when I understand the owner was no longer able, or wanted, to drive. By this stage the car had covered just over 13,000 miles, mainly for monthly trips to a local golf course.
I bought the car on the 12th November 2000 from a friend of the owner. He was a car enthusiast and so had contacted the then named 'Cavette Club' (now 'Cavalier and Chevette club'), which I have been a member of since around 1996, having owned 2 very rough looking, but very reliable, 78 Cavalier 4 door 1600 L models and a 77 Chevette GL. I went to see the car the same day that the newsletter with the advert arrived in the post, I had always wanted a 2 door Cavalier saloon, and it was only about 15 miles away, I arranged to buy it there and then for 1400 quid. A pretty silly price for a Mk1 Cav ten years ago, but it was in amazing condition, the spare had never been used, it had all it's original docs, had done less than 13,500 miles and the spare key still had, and of course still has, it's security number tab attached.
I went back the next day to pay for it and pick it up after arranging insurance. It had been MOT'd by the seller in August 2000, I don't know how it passed, as the windscreen wipers were in shreds and the original Michelin XZX tyres had strips of the tread flaking off, but it made it back to mine and I took these photos.
Any avid car spotters may recognise the other car on the drive as a Renault 5, this was my brothers Gordini Turbo, sadly now gone.
Back then I had an R reg Turbo Diesel Astra van as a company vehicle, averaging 1000 miles a week, so I didn't use the cavalier much. I had quite a few spare bits and pieces from my previous 2 Cavaliers which had been daily drivers, inlcluding the chrome wheel trim rings that you can see in the first picture I posted. These were from a mates scrapped 2000 GLS saloon, I had also kept his 5.5J 13 wheels which had recently bought 185/70 tyres fitted so they went on too along with a new set of wiper blades. Heres another shot of it from around then.
I attended a few club runs and the Billing Aquadrome VBOA meeting during 2001 which was when I was first told that it was probably a special edition. The Cavalier and Chevette clubs website, and indeed an article in a recent newsletter which had figures from the howmanyleft website, does mention the existence of a special edition called the Command Performance but completely overlooks the Silver Special. Here is the car at that show anyway, it's pretty easy to spot in these photos on the Cavette club stand.
I used the car to attend a works Christmas party that year, which was when I was rear ended by a taxi driver in the hotel car park. I photographed the very depressing results.
I had been insuring it as fully comp with an insurance company who may as well remain nameless, they refused to accept the value of my car once it had been in an accident, even though they had been happy to take my money off me based on the value I had quoted. I was told if I tried to claim they would write it off and I would lose the car as I didn't have salvage rights. From then on I have referred to them as 'just AAssholes' and have since always had a classic car policy. So I had the job done at my own cost. I was a keen reader of Street Machine Magazine (R.I.P.) at the time and one of the writers based somewhere near Manchester regularly used a Bodyshop in Droylesden called CW Motors, they're still there, I checked on the web.
While they repaired and resprayed the car in it's original colour (well a very close match anyway) I was busy tracking down a new rear bumper, in the end I bought a new one for the front too, as the original was looking a bit rusty, and they were a lot cheaper and easier to find nearly ten years ago. I also had the 5.5J13 wheels shot blasted and painted, as they were looking tatty as well. The original wheels are 5J13s, I still have them, 3 of them still have the original factory fitted XZXs mentioned earlier. It's difficult to tell from the photos, but once I'd put it all back together it looked a whole lot better than when I had first bought it. I left off the mud flaps (still have them though) and the fog lamp and did not re-do the black round the bottom, which had been Ziebart, as I felt it looked tidier like this. I don't seem to have taken any decent pictues of it when it was newly sprayed, I took one at Billing 2002 when it won the Cavalier and Chevette club best Cavalier saloon trophy, it's not a good photo, but like I say I didn't take many.
I was asked by the club if I would show my car at the NEC classic car show that year, I was very proud to do so and took a few photos, but the indoor ones are awful, I'm glad I took this one of it sitting in the rain waiting outside for our clubs allotted time to enter the hall.
Up until recently I had done little else with the car apart from use it occasionally, I did at the time also own a UK built 1932 Chrysler 6 Richmond 4 door saloon, although I never did much with that either! I won't rattle on about that, I don't have it now anyway, but here it is circa 2001.
Other excuses for not having done much with the Cavalier include the fact that I became a Dad in early 2004 and moved to Northern Ireland in 2006. Since moving to Northern Ireland the Cavalier has been bumped twice by careless drivers who left no note, suffered a bit from the salt (I live by the sea) and in June this year a large and quite heavy object (probably a person retrieving a football) fell through the roof of my rented lock up and landed on the bonnet of the car.
Heres one of the careless driver bits. The car is stripped and ready for another trip to the body shop at this point and, despite the fact I painted it with Silver Smoothrite just to stop it rusting, you can see where the filler applied by CW motors has cracked and fallen off, the bumper is a tiny bit bent, but I think I've managed to pull it just about straight, I really would like to get it rechromed though.
The other bump took out the door mirror on the drivers side, I was able to buy a N.O.S. one on Ebay, it was still sealed in it's plastic bag inside the GM box, it was an enjoyable item to fit, kinda like working on a new car. Anyway heres some of the salt damage and the worst bit of the bonnet.
The 'pimple' in the bonnet picture is where the top of the damper has almost punctured the bonnet. The landlord of the lookup I rent offered to pay for the damage to the bonnet and gave me a free months rent. I decided if it was going to go into a bodyshop again I might as well get the rest of it repaired at the same time, so I stripped all the badges and trim etc off it, and took more photos.
Because of the rust on the wings, I decided to remove them to check out the state of the inner wings. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that they were in great shape, my previous 2 Cavs (Luton built) needed extensive repairs to the inner wings. There was a little surface rust around the seams (see pic) but a good wire brushing and a coat of POR 15 had them looking like new(ish).
The second picture here gives away my plans for new wheels, more about that another time. So that's almost up to date now. The car went into Norman Grahams Bodyshop on the 18th of July and is still there as I type this, Ian, who seems to be in charge of this job has a Mk2 Ford Escort RS 2000, it's nice to know he understands older cars, I told them I was in no rush, they seem to do a lot of insurance work on new cars, which need to be turned around quickly. I get the impression they work on my car when they are a bit quiet, which will hopefully keep the price reasonable. I went to see it a couple of weeks later and took these photos.
In the last photo you can see the wings in the background all nicely repaired and the bonnet just in the foreground, it had dents and scratches all over, but it looked pretty good when I saw it, I'm glad I didn't need to get a new one.
I'm looking forward to having more stuff to post soon, the wheel shown in the second inner wing shot gives away the fact that it won't look quite so original at the end of this rebuild, but I will only be carrying out mods which would be reasonably easy to reverse and of course will not throw anything away! So until I get it back, and know just how much I have left to spend on it, I'll maybe have another look at that gorgeous red 2 door that's been on the Retro Rides site for ages and repair one of my many slot car basket cases! If you got to the end of this, thanks for sticking with it, I'm the number 1 Google result at the moment if anyone searches for Cavalier Silver Special, not really a big surprise, but nice. Cheers, John.
