The specification
As it sits today
- Year
- 1969
- Marque & model
- Altona 2.4 GTS (fictional marque)
- Engine
- 2,389 cc inline six, twin carburettors
- Power
- 168 bhp at 6,200 rpm (as rebuilt, on the shop dyno)
- Gearbox
- Five-speed manual, close ratio
- Weight
- 1,042 kg dry
- Colour
- Juniper Green over oxblood leather
- Wheels
- 15×6 painted steel, bronze centres
- Restorer
- Velden Automotive, 2021–2023
Figures are recorded from this car, not quoted from a brochure. Anything we cannot evidence is left off the plate rather than estimated.
The work, in detailThe journey
Five dates that made this car
-
1969
Built in Altona
Car number four hundred and something in a run that never got past a thousand. Ordered in dark green with the close-ratio gearbox, which at the time cost more than the paint.
Provenance: original build sheet held on file. Placeholder record.
-
1974
Two seasons of club racing
A regional series, a roll bar welded in over a weekend, and a number seven that has been painted back on twice since. The scrutineering stickers were still in the glovebox in 2021.
Period results are not published here because they could not be verified.
-
1992
Parked in a hay barn
A head gasket, a house move, and then thirty-one years of good intentions. Dry storage did most of the preservation work that we later got the credit for.
Odometer at storage: 68,412 miles (placeholder figure).
-
2021
Restoration begins
Shell stripped, media blasted, and considerably more rust in the sills than the photographs suggested. Eleven hundred hours logged over two years, all of them written down.
Original panels retained: roof, doors, bonnet. Placeholder detail.
-
2023
Back on the road
Six thousand miles since. It gets driven to events rather than trailered to them, which was the entire point of doing the work.