Reader's Restoration How the Fate of a Very Poorly Alfa Romeo Montreal

Reader’s Restoration Great care was taken getting the Alfa’s distinctive front end spot on. ➽ Getting the AFTER glorious V8 back on song was a long and involved task. Alfa Bravo How the fate of a very poorlyAlfa Romeo Montreal was determined by a game of Top Trumps WORDS JAMES WALSHE PHOTOS MATT HOWELL isting all the cars you’ve ever retire, the lucky few will have something moment at which Dominic’s career in the owned can provide an interesting truly fruity stashed in the garage. winemaking business really begins to take map of your life. A clear historical You can certainly map out the rise and o . It’s the late-Nineties and he’s dumped L pattern of fi nancial wellbeing can rise of Dominic Hentall’s career by his Lancia Fulvia Zagato in favour of emerge – from the time you fumbled about scanning through the list of his cars. a Maserati Biturbo Spyder, followed by behind the wheel of your fi rst motor to It begins with a humble Morris Minor, a Ghibli GT and later a Maserati 3200 GT. something representative of an a Fiat 850, Peugeot 104 and a Citroën GS. But then Dominic’s car list begins to go improvement in your monetary As your eyes scan down the list, you see o the scale. We inevitably begin to eye circumstances. As we approach middle things improving in the late-Eighties as he him in a di erent light – perhaps even with age, many of us end up in something snaps up a succession of Lancia Betas, a shameful smidge of jealousy… family-orientated and sensible – others will including a Coupé, Spyder and Montecarlo He’s now into his forties and driving out choose a premium-badged saloon. Spyder – all restored by him and his of the showroom in a Ferrari 400i, And then, as the kids fl y the nest or we brother. You then become aware of the Lamborghini Countach 5000S, Dodge ➽ 32 NOVEMBER 2015 // PRACTICAL CLASSICS www.practicalclassics.co.uk To subscribe to PC go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/practicalclassics PRACTICAL CLASSICS // NOVEMBER 2015 33 Reader’s Restoration Here’s how Dominic did it The restorer October 2011 Dominic Hentall, 49, is Engine out 1 a winemaker with a long and Everything was fascinating car history. whipped out, Residing in the Su olk town cleaned and closely of Sudbury, Dom is often seen inspected. out and about in his cars. ‘After all that e ort restoring January 2012 a car, you’ve got to drive it – cars need to be driven!’ Little things One of the two 2 cylinderheads starts to come together. YOU CAN DO IT! Dismantled engine laid March out on a sheet of plywood! 2012 3 Thorough. Obsessive work on the Montreal saw Dominic taking almost every part of the car into his tiny workshop in turn. That way, he’d know that if any running problems surfaced later, he could eliminate issues more easily. Four double Weber 4 November 2012 Head space carbs replaced fuel Dom skimmed the heads himself in his shed. Both of the injection system. Montreal’s head gaskets expired shortly after the engine was put back together, which meant they had to come o again. Viper SRT10 and a Ferrari 512 TR Koenig. these days, you’d struggle in here. The shed His supercars have all gone – sold, Feb 2013 June 2014 But let’s not begrudge the man his success is so small and tatty that you’d be presumably to collectors elsewhere with 5 Dirty bits Back on form 6 because there’s something you need to concerned about leaving a single shrub in bigger garages. Dom’s latest restoration The valves had heavy New or reconditioned parts know about Dominic Hentall. He has, over there, let alone engine components from conquest involves a car he fell for at the carbon buildup – the were reinstalled in the the years, maintained all of these cars a Countach. Of which there are more than age of 12 during a game of Top Trumps. car was clearly not Montreal and it went back himself. In a tiny wooden potting shed. a few. But despite the presence of dusty He has left his life of supercars behind and thrashed enough by out onto the road in fi ne ‘Sorry about the cobwebs,’ he apologises parts from a Ferrari fl at-12 and various Viper has returned to his fi rst love: an Alfa Romeo previous owners. They form. It has run perfectly as he stoops under a shabby Perspex roof. entrails, we’re here to join Dominic for one Montreal. ‘When I heard one for the fi rst were as good as new ever since, thanks to Dom’s If it was politically correct to swing a cat giant leap backwards into his past. time, as a kid, the sound of it… it revved like after cleaning and work on his detailed lapping back in. refurbishment. a hornet’s nest,’ he says, clutching the very Top Trumps card he used to study as ‘The sound of it, a child. ‘It looks great, doesn’t it? But it was the sound… it just got me. I knew one day revving like a I’d come back to a Montreal.’ Trying to re-sculpt Gandini’s lines felt like Dominic’s restoration journey began at brakes and put in a secondhand engine.’ The Shockingly, the Alfa Romeo Montreal cost an impossible task so Dom wisely took his the same time as his entrepreneurial career boys then parked it on a local grass verge hornet’s nest. It more than a Jaguar E-type or Porsche 911 time seeking out the perfect – at the age of 14. ‘My brother Ewan and with a ‘for sale’ sign in the window. He grins: at its launch in 1970. At fi rst glance – and project. ‘I’ve always been I were still at school when we bought ‘It was snapped up soon after for £750!’ just got me’ certainly when you consider Alfa Romeo’s sensible about knowing DOM’S a Morris Minor from an old lady for £75. A Fiat 850 Sports Coupé turned up fall from grace to the current mire of Fiats in my limits,’ he admits. BUYING TIP It was very rusty underneath so we shortly afterwards. ‘It had been o the road frilly dresses – it’s hard to imagine anyone ‘There are certain Ask advice from stripped the whole thing back to bare for a while and rusted through. I couldn’t get parting with so much cash for an Alfa. jobs I need specialist somebody who has worked metal and resprayed it ourselves. panels, so I cut out the rust and then But the Montreal arrived in an era when help with – but I was on these cars before. The We overhauled the suspension and hand-fabricated all the bits myself.’ Alfa workshop documents Alfa Romeo still shone bright. With that always keen to have Twenty-fi ve years later, Dom was are fl awed and hoping to avoid the use of badge came respect on a level with any a go at as much as sometimes supercar maker, backed up by a long I could from a very inaccurate! these skills for his romantic history of exceptionally early age.’ Montreal’s ➽ beautiful and unique automobiles. Even Henry Ford was a fan, telling the then Managing Director of Alfa in 1939: ‘When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat’. ‘The Montreal’s styling is the fi rst thing that hit me, admittedly,’ says Dominic. ‘For that reason I really wanted to fi nd a restoration project that didn’t need a great deal of bodywork’. 34 NOVEMBER 2015 // PRACTICAL CLASSICS www.practicalclassics.co.uk To subscribe to PC go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/practicalclassics PRACTICAL CLASSICS // NOVEMBER 2015 35 Reader’s Restoration bolts: ‘They’re made from bits of old bodywork I cut from the Countach’. What’s it like to drive? The task of unravelling elderly Italian electrics was predictably di cult. James Walshe is the lucky man tasked with fi nding out… ‘Nothing worked – not even the slightest Fire the Montreal up and it’s I have no doubt it would glow!’ he sighs. Checking and cleaning the DOMINICS’S clear that it’s so much more happily take me there. fuses got about half of it working again. ‘The than a concept car with the The twin-pod speedo and BUYING TIP rest took days and days of poking about. I guts of an old 1962 Giulia rev counter are beautiful Inspecxxxhassis rails, Sprint GT. The carbs emit design details, set in the unravelled and reinstalled bits of wiring, DOM’S xxxxsts and sills thoroughly a fruity slurp – the all-alloy usual smelly, brittle Italian replaced bulbs and bad connections and BUYING TIP on the MinxxxxxRot is not V8 burbles like a muscle car plastic. Of course, you can’t rebuilt switches,’ he says. ‘Montreals are becoming uncommon. You’ll need at idle and then roars in a way read any of the other dials Neither of the electric windows worked, harder to fi nd for reasonable two Travellers to make that only an Italian V8 can. – they’re obscured by the obviously, since each door contained a maze money. Dull as it sounds, buy anoxxx‘2000’. Steering is sharp and the steering wheel. The stalks of wires and pulleys. Dom explains: the best you can a ord. car feels agile. I drove the are typically vague, as if Alfa ‘The windows run on seven or eight pulleys There’ll be a fewer tears when you restore it!’ car in rural Su olk but was just poked some old knitting and a wire that snakes all the way around craving the Furka Pass to live needles into the dash.

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