Final update on reimporting Oxford Blue 1589
Al Barnett has sent in a eighth update report on his experience of buying and reimporting Oxford Blue 1589 from David Boniface in Japan who had advertised the car on the V8 website in March 2007.

Several people have enquired how my 5 litre imported RV8 is going. The answer is that I have now done about 4,000 miles since I collected the car from Clive Wheatley after it had been MOTd. In that four months we have been to Luxembourg for the 50th anniversary of their MG club, down to the south of France to our house and taken part in the 2007 Prix des Alpes. This year's event was hard, with some truly atrocious roads and a lot of detailed map work. There were also a few high speed driving tests where I managed to stay within one second of a well driven BMW Z3M roadster.

At the end of that lot I was able to assess just what I had got. There is certainly no shortage of performance and acceleration is very impressive. All the bodywork, trim and underside are in excellent order and very clean. It uses quite a lot more petrol than my old RV8 and the engine, with all its special bits, is noisier. Oil and water consumption are negligible and the car has been completely reliable. The ride however, in spite of having Clive's improved Koni's, is quite hard. The tyres are Michelin Pilots and although they are of recent manufacture I intend to change them in the Spring for a make with more compliance.

The 2007 Prix des Alpes rally route caused a few problems as we grounded the exhaust on several occasions and one of the catalysers started rattling. There was also a rattle from the driver's door which was getting steadily worse. We did win our class, but to do it we could not treat the car too kindly at all times. Back home I visited Clive's emporium in Shropshire last week and Steve was able to weld the cat back to its housing and cure the door rattle by simply tightening the fastening at the base of the window channel. We also replaced the front rubber


Oxford Blue 1589 in the warm sunshine in Provence after the 2007 Prix des Alpes rally. (Photo: Al Barnett)

exhaust hanger which had cried enough and also gave the underside of the car a thorough coating of Waxoyl. Steve identified that the brake servo seals were starting to go and was able to fit an exchange unit from stock. The next challenge is to contact an engine management specialist so that a wizard with a laptop can make some adjustments. The car has a Tornado chip fitted and on start up it revs to about 1,400rpm and takes a little while to settle to around 1,000. Also when it is warm, if you stop at lights, it ticks over initially at around a 1,000 before settling to the correct 850rpm. This behaviour makes me think it is probably over fuelling. I intend to contact Mark Adams, the chip guru who has premises in Church Stretton in Shropshire and see if I can arrange to go and see him for a diagnosis and hopefully rectification.

So in summary the car is going much better than when I first drove it and has benefited from use but there is still room for improvement. The failures that have occurred can be put down to a bit of hard use and the fact that although the car had only run 10,000 miles, it is still twelve years old. I hope to have it fully sorted ready for next Spring and for the V8 Register 30th Anniversary events. (23.11.07)
Diary of reimporting Oxford Blue 1589
We felt many members would be interested in a series of running reports on Al Barnett's experiences with reimporting this RV8. So Al will be sending a series of reports of how he has organised the export arrangements, freight and insurances, reimport procedures, collection from the UK docks and preparation for UK roads.		 The full set of reports is available using the links below.
Report 1
Report 2
Report 3
Report 4		 Report 5
Report 6
Report 7
Report 8