“It had had a full respray but the wheel-arch lips needed replacing because they hadn’t been painted inside so began to rust from inside out,” he explains. Terrified by the prospect of further tin worm, Reece set about thoroughly undersealing the car. “Everything is now properly protected,” he says.
I’d forgotten Vitesses sat so low but Reece assures me his car is on the correct suspension. The wheels, however, are a bit of a mixed bag. “At the rear, I’ve fitted wider wheels from a Porsche 944 but the fronts are Rover ones,” he says. To my eyes, they look very much like BBS wheels I’ve seen on other cars. In fact, the story goes that BBS was very unhappy with Rover about using the wheels it had designed for the car’s evaluation, only for Rover to award the contract for making them to rival company Speedline. It’s why, rather cheekily, Reece has affixed BBS stickers to them.
Following six years of blood, sweat and toil, Reece is sure his Vitesse won’t let him down again. “It’s run perfectly for two years now and I feel much more confident about taking it on longer drives,” he says. “For example, I’ve taken it to the British Motor Museum a couple of times, a round journey of about 200 miles, without any problems.”
