This car is a really jacked up/high stance example, built and owned by Keith Murrell. A stock HB 2 door shell, but the front end is all welded together to form the flip front. The inner wings are missing, but the chassis rails are now heavy duty boxing and the front rails positioned about 6" lower. The usual pipe extends from the bulkhead down onto the new chassis rails to provide the strength. This therefore gave the high stance to the car.
The rear end is very a shortened and highly chromed Jaguar IRS. The engine is a Ford 3.0 Essex V6 with an overdrive gearbox. The wheels are similar to Chrome Appliance Steel Spokes, but all are actually American Racing ones I think. With the high stance, the front cradle is well off the body, which meant there was no cutting required to the bulkhead or tunnel.
The spray job was fantastic, not so much in style but quality. The colour was dark purple with a lighter purple as striping. This alone cost over £1000. Not much on today's standards, but heck of a lot for the 1980s! The interior let it down in my opinion in as much as it was Draylon, not one of my favourites! The back seat was removed and boxed as I remember. The boot space held the ali cylinder petrol tank and was again finished in Draylon. The tank had to be put into the boot as the lower rear valance and lower rear sections of both rear wings had been removed and capped. This gives a far better view of the IRS and creates the high stance. But the worst bit for me was the Deluxe grill! I constantly nagged Keith to change it, but he would not as it was brand new. Keith worked in a Vauxhall Dealership, hence he was able to source many new parts during the cars construction. But not as many as he would have liked.

I first discovered the car and bewildered owner at the Strood Motel, Hickstead, East Sussex in May 1987. This was the original place of the Street Machine, Lazy Sunday afternoon bashes. Of course I was a jibbering wreck as I had actually found someone else interested in Vivas! Keith wasn't a fanatical Viva lover so I must have seemed a total jibbering anorak. This was the best known HB on the custom scene, but still it never got to centre fold status. Keith and his then girlfriend would spend hours cleaning it, especially underneath. This included the floor and all the chrome work. This was a sight most blokes at the shows loved, ones girlfriend/wife laying underneath their car polishing it!!
By now I was thrashing around in Rova and turning up at the same shows, and taking the mickey out of all the cleaning. Keith admitted one time that he wished his was more like mine, (Not the scabby condition of mine!), in the fact you turn up at a show and leave it for viewing, without spending 4 hours polishing it! Even being this clean, the car wasn't without it's problems. Although the engine was rebuilt, Keith always had trouble with it. The fact it was never run in or thrashed were my cures to the problems. A Holley was finally fitted, which cured some of the problems, but not the knocking ones! The car never covered many miles, but did turn up at Billing Aqua Drome for the All Vauxhall Rally in 1989. I had hounded Keith to bring it up, but I felt guilty in the end as the car was totally snubbed by all the Viva owners club types. It might not be their cuppa tea, but they couldn't even appreciate the workmanship!
The car was featured at most of the South Coast Custom Shows throughout the late Eighties and early Nineties. By the mid-Nineties Keith was fed up with it and was hankering after a Hot Rod. This turned out to be a '32 or '34 Victoria? He even tried to sell me the Viva as a rolling shell as the car was now just laid up in his back garden. I tried hard to find a new owner, but failed. I hate to think what happened to it as Keith was in the process of moving house. I haven't seen Keith for 5 years so its true fate is sadly unknown.
Guy