The 1100 Club has purchased the original BMC factory front wing tooling for the 1100 and 1300 range and put it back to work to produce new panels.
The new panels are the culmination of two year’s work, prompted by David Kingerley of Longbridge Motor Spares kindly donating the wing tooling he’d acquired when taking over spare parts company Earlpart. At that point it wasn’t known if the tooling could be salvaged as it had been stored outside for a long time, but the club managed to find a traditional family-run engineering to painstakingly clean it up and put it back to work.
The original intention was to produce the rarer offside wings only, but as the wings are in three parts and part of tooling produces two of these for both the offside and nearside at the same time, the decision was taken to produce nearside wing tops too. This means pairs of brand-new wings are being offered straight away in good quality primer.
The 1100 Club doesn’t expect to sell hundreds immediately, but this move helps to future-proof the cars in a fitting manner for classic car owners’ club. Chairman Robbie Claydon said: “We are incredibly proud of what we have been able to achieve as a relatively small club – brand new panels using original BMC factory tooling and made by a proper British family-run engineering firm. It doesn’t get much better than that!”
The wings are now available to purchase either as complete panels or in sections, with hefty discounts for club members. Email the club via info@the1100club.com, visit www.the1100club.com or check out its Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube social media channels.
