Not a barn find but a lean to find!!

[ebj60t]

Just brought this home, its a December '71 build 1300XL in Daytona Yellow.

2 owners and 54,000 miles, not moved for 22 years.

The aim is to bring it back to life and keep it standard.

We connected it to a battery today and all electrics work except for 1 sidelight and 1 reversing light (both blown bulbs), even the interior light came on 1st time.

We also reoved the the boot mat and the floor was amazing!!

I had a Daytone 1300XL in '76 and my brother had an 1100 base also in Daytona in '79 so its a bit of a back to the future thing.

Enjoy the few pics i have at the moment.

[Aled]

Superb..... do what you need to pass the MOT and then leave well alone !

No Paint, no polish, no nothing. Even leave the dust on it

[ebj60t]

You know what Aled, I'm tempted to do that but I may have to clean It but that is all at this stage, proper patina!

[RS2000EXPRESS]

I reckon a resto is the only way forward as the car needs looking after and well deserves it! For one reason to start with, there's rust on it which will always be a sign of neglect and can only get worse at the sight of moisture! Otherwise it's a lovely car and can be made into a beautiful original example if you spend some time and some money on it!

Tim

[alancdavis]

Very nice ,,,had a 1300XL years ago OEO735L..in Sebring Red ,,lovely car

[rwdrs]

I reckon a resto is the only way forward as the car needs looking after and well deserves it! For one reason to start with, there's rust on it which will always be a sign of neglect and can only get worse at the sight of moisture! Otherwise it's a lovely car and can be made into a beautiful original example if you spend some time and some money on it!

Tim

With this stuff (Fluid Film AR) , you should be able to leave the rust on it and keep using it.
It is used to coat ballast water tanks so it is both a rust converter and preserves the metal underneath by excluding oxygen. The protection is guaranteed for 15 years!

[RS2000EXPRESS]

With this stuff (Fluid Film AR) , you should be able to leave the rust on it and keep using it.
It is used to coat ballast water tanks so it is both a rust converter and preserves the metal underneath by excluding oxygen. The protection is guaranteed for 15 years!

There's nothing attractive about rust on a car in my opinion! To keep a car in this condition would not give me any pleasure whatsoever! If the restoration is done correctly then a lot of it's originality can be saved! Trouble is that many restos are taken to a condition and finish better than the original factory finish! For example in the engine compartment we put so much paint in there in the hope that it will never rust again. Fords sprayed a coat of primer then showed the can of coloured paint to the engine compartment, in other words it had a very thin spray of colour blown over which often had signs of the primer showing through and gave very little protection to the metal, but that is the original and authentic finish!!!

Tim

[ebj60t]

There's nothing attractive about rust on a car in my opinion! To keep a car in this condition would not give me any pleasure whatsoever! If the restoration is done correctly then a lot of it's originality can be saved! Trouble is that many restos are taken to a condition and finish better than the original factory finish! For example in the engine compartment we put so much paint in there in the hope that it will never rust again. Fords sprayed a coat of primer then showed the can of coloured paint to the engine compartment, in other words it had a very thin spray of colour blown over which often had signs of the primer showing through and gave very little protection to the metal, but that is the original and authentic finish!!!

Tim

True about the engine bay as there's more surface rust there than anywhere else!

[RS2000EXPRESS]

True about the engine bay as there's more surface rust there than anywhere else!

The engine bay was lucky to receive that, under the floor was left in primer and nothing else to protect it from the ravages of the road! They sprayed colour where you could see and not much else!

Tim

[ebj60t]

Boot floor is brilliant though as in the pic above!

[RS2000EXPRESS]

Boot floor is brilliant though as in the pic above!

Yes that does look nice! Probably had a boot mat protecting it most of it's life, no light or damp has got to it either! Now I would possibly keep that part as it is, as I did with mine. Just give it a light T Cut and polish maybe!

Tim

[RS2000EXPRESS]

It looks like you have the original front grill on it too!.....quite possibly the least produced out of the three variants of the grill!

Tim

[ebj60t]

It looks like you have the original front grill on it too!.....quite possibly the least produced out of the three variants of the grill!

Tim

Everything is original on it Tim except the Motorola radio, has 4 ¹/2" GT wheels too!
I want to try and keep as much originality as I can!

[rwdrs]

There's nothing attractive about rust on a car in my opinion! To keep a car in this condition would not give me any pleasure whatsoever! If the restoration is done correctly then a lot of it's originality can be saved!
Tim

The owner of the car says he'd be happy to keep it as it is. The best way to do that, leaving it untouched, is to coat the car using Fluid Film AR.
According to the manufacturers of the stuff it will penetrate broken coatings and neutralise existing rust (stop oxidisation) and prevent further rusting by excluding oxygen. By the way, a mate of mine bought an untouched Mk1 Mexico and also left it alone. After all, the car will never have the factory finish again, and using this stuff allows you to keep the car totally original and stop it getting worse without major work.

[RS2000EXPRESS]

Everything is original on it Tim except the Motorola radio, has 4 ¹/2" GT wheels too!
I want to try and keep as much originality as I can!

Hi, As you have probably guessed, I am not a patina fan! Back in 1973 I bought a 3 month old 1300 Sport in the same colour as yours and I remember the first time I sat in it in the garage. It was gleaming, everything was new and it had that new car smell! I kept it immaculate for many years and it was well admired in it's bright yellow bodywork! To have had any rust on it would have been a crime to me! Rust was not admired, it was a sign of neglect, decay, or just old banger, so if found we did something about it to get rid of it! So patina for me is perhaps left for old antiques...but cars no!.....are we not supposed to look after and polish them? So ok, how far can we take the patina??? Do you leave the mildew on the seats, the mud on the doors, dirty oil on the engine, rotten tyres??? Does whatever you remove take it a step nearer to a restoration? When I bought my RS it needed new inner wings and rear wheel arches so I had no choice other than to respray the whole outside of the car, but the detail had to stay looking original as possible bearing in mind I was using 2 pack paint! I painted the engine but left some bits in their original finish as they were not rusty and were quite acceptable, this retained a bit of originality to it, so when you lifted the bonnet it was not shouting restoration quite the same!

I'm not telling you what to do or anything, just putting the other side of the debate over to you! It's your car and you can do what you like to enjoy owning it! Whatever you do to it in the end, it's still going to be a great car to have!....I always used to like the GT!.....it had a nice spec to it! Ha ha, I had a Sharp cassette in my RS and that came out straight away! Best of luck with it anyway!

Tim