On e-bay at the moment is an HK500 for sale from Steve Grey’s Brooklands Motor company. Steve has had a number of HK500s and even prepared one for historic saloon car racing, although I haven’t yet seen this car on the track.

The car for sale is a left hand drive machine although there’s not much to tell you that. Actually, there’s not much at all! There’s no roof, although it’s claimed to be a manual gearbox, there’s no engine or gearbox, no glass of course – in fact not a lot.

However, there are various parts which would be useful to a restorer, such as the rear axle, steering mechanism, front grill, front suspension etc. The bodywork is obviously non-existent, so its really only a spares donor, not for restoration – unless you’re very brave, optimistic and possibly slightly foolish!

In his description, Steve says the chassis is pretty good and you can see it above. So yes, there are bits that can be salvaged, but they are probably the bits that are salvaged off any car, they’re the bits that last. The price, when I last looked, was £5100 and the auction ends on Sunday.

I’ve been on holiday with my copy of the Classic and Sports Car in which there is an article about Simon Lorkin. He is a French-based Englishman who not only restores woodwork but also paints it a la Facel and indeed, I have an attic full of his stuff at the moment, ready to go onto my Excellence. The article gives a good description of him and his talents so by all means have a look at the article. I’ve had stuff done elsewhere and certainly his products are far superior to what I had done by another painter.

I’ve received two pictures of Excellences on my phone, one a reasonably looking car, the other less so, but I don’t know where they are from. Certainly one is a right hand drive. I have a little rash of Grands Prix coming up so I won’t be posting too much in the next week and then it is Goodwood and the auction of Mr Carrington’s Facel 11, so I shall be back after that!