Today has been… interesting. With a view to taking the Mantis to a paintshop (Whitehead Classics, Cheadle) today to get the stone chips on the bonnet sorted out before the Annual rally at the start of July (& the US trip), I collected the car around 0900 hours from it’s garage, only to have a lady reverse into me at the lights in Altrincham by 0915 hours! Unfortunately the towbar on her Nissan Terrano has made a bit of a mess of the bonnet around the number plate The lady driver was quite distraught & simply hadn’t seen me as the Marcos is low (not convinced she looked in her side mirrors mind you, ‘cos it might be low but it’s bloody wide!). A simple accident so hard to get annoyed at anyone; wish it hadn’t happened though. So… insurance details were duly exchanged & the brief to the paintshop is now;

• repair & respray bonnet (at least the stone chips should go!)
• removal of stress crack around the nearside windscreen wiper pivot
• polish out chips on offside door
• remove & respray rear over spoiler (should remove a stress crack & the dint from when a lamppost leapt out behind me as I was reversing! )
• respray boot lid to remove flaking lacquer around petrol cap
• remove flaking lacquer & re lacquer around petrol cap on main bodyshell
• touch up all remaining stone chips or wear marks (windscreen surround, door edges, boot lid edge)
• and please please please can I have the car back for the Annual Rally 1st July!

This should all be achieved for under a grand. I have rejected the idea of a complete respray due to cost, but mainly because the car is far more likely to need one after driving 3500 miles along Route 66 in September! Of course, the word ‘respray’ has me thinking about that Candy Apple Brandy Wine paint job I have always wanted (along with new straw leather with red piping)! Now, where’s that lottery ticket again?

Got the car back from the garage, where I had it rewired to bypass the Traction Control completely (well actually I said “Take the thing out”! But I guess he thought I was joking…). The world’s most expensive red LED now no longer even lights up when the TC is turned to ‘Off’. The Mantis subsequently drove eight miles each way OK in heavy traffic, but then again it has failed on the last two occasions after a couple of hours of driving so that doesn’t prove anything. I have grown to hate my TC of late & just want to see the back of it. Racelogic have been excellent I should add, it’s their North West dealer RC Developments who haven’t returned phone calls & have generally washed their hands of the whole thing as soon as I drove away from their premises Suffice to say that I won’t be touching them with a barge pole. I guess all I can do is try & drive it as much as possible to see if the problem re-occurs. Fingers crossed…

Well the car has been back into the garage for more investigation around the TC switch etc. Eddie has been talking to Racelogic & Guru Chivers about the problem; sadly RC Developments continue to fail to return phone calls from either myself or the garage, which isn’t very helpful. I took the Mantis into Manchester this morning & once again it was fine for a couple of hours but then stalled at some lights feeding onto the Mancunian Way Oops! All rather public; I received a mixture of ‘helpful’ advice by the motorists who pulled past me! LOL Nevertheless this is getting a bit disheartening.

Initially good news, as the garage have found a plug into the ECU with a bent pin. Drove the car round the M60 (quite quickly!) & around town for two hours without a problem, then it stalled a few hundred yards from home – just as I was about to phone the garage to congratulate them on having found the fault. Bummer. I have had to contact Warren at Topcats Racing to cancel my Monday booking – he sounds almost as unimpressed as I am!

Get Mantis trailered to the garage from its home – do not want to think about cost. Desperate to get it sorted so I can get down to Topcats Racing on Monday for the suspension checkup. They are busy for weeks if I miss this slot & I don’t have weeks before the car is due to ship to the US (mid March).

Today I took the Mantis to RC Developments in Warrington who are the nearest Racelogic dealers. They had the car for three hours & confirmed that the TC kicked in regardless of external factors at anything over 2000rpm, that the mapping was crap & that the signal from the sensors was intermittent. So… it’s shagged then. They will need it for a whole day to confirm that the hardware is OK & to remap the Racelogic box & check sensor wiring etc etc. However! About a mile from their place on the way back into work the engine started misfiring heavily, got worse then eventually cut out. Wouldn’t restart. restarted then wouldn’t idle. Normally I would point the finger at the TC but it was turned off! Called RC Developments anyway but they were (predictably) confident it was nothing that they had done. Now worried as engine was totally reliable before . Car died in several exciting places (across a T-junction, in front of some Traffic Police, etc etc) but nursed it back home to the garage. Que phone call to Eddie at Cross St garage!

Tada! I went & collected my Mantis from Todmorden today, & took the opportunity to give its erstwhile custodian a lift down to Nottingham to deliver a supercharger for his soon-to-be-quite-scarey LM500 which is being fettled by Boost Performance. Ian is the co-conspirator in the Route 66 jaunt, & his new race wing & revved up engine has turned my thoughts to a little tweaking of my own, but where to start? Mechanical knowledge; nil point! However I have started scouring the internet etc & soliciting oodles of advice (all conflicting so far, of course!), so we chall see. A faultless journey & I am soooooo pleased to be driving the car again!

Has anyone seen a green Mantis? <sniffle> ‘Cos I haven’t <sniffle>. As predicted I haven’t made the trip to see the car since I dropped it off. Not so much of a problem when the weather is grim, but I really miss the opportunity to hop in it when the day is a really cold & crispy one – my favourite type of driving weather. At least I still have it of course. So, in the absence of being able to drive my Mantis, I have spent lots of time thinking about what I am going to do once I find a new local home for it; and the conclusion is… send it to America! Yup, Route 66 beckons folks!

Calamity! I have lost the use of the garage I store(d) my Marcos in. I certainly can’t keep it on the street from a weather & idiot-attention point of view (never mind the insurance side of things). Fortunately one of the other local owners (LM500) has an enormous garage he had built for the Plymouth Fury he is currently having restored, so there is a lovely empty garage available ATM. At least I don’t have to think the unthinkable… So, the car has been driven up & left with my generous chum, which is a relief; the downer is that it is over forty miles away & I can’t see myself popping up there to take her out for a quick spin very often. However, I will try.

MOT passed (Huzzah!) with only headlight realignment & handbrake adjustment. Incredibly, a two digit garage bill! I haven’t had one of those for a while (if ever!). My garage man (Cross St Garage, Sale in Manchester. Highly recommended!) noticed the engine sounded different, plus there were high Hydrocarbons on tickover, which he eventually traced back to one of the ignition leads shorting out (by turning all the lights off in the garage!). What a great spot!

Today was the second show of the year at Tatton Park. Weather was excellent & there were more punters in than I can ever remember. The Marcos stand looked great with the factory banner hanging from the gazebo (& we were grateful for the shade!). We had seven cars in all, including a 1971 2+2 Mantis, which Jem Marsh had for his wife at one point – I’ve never seen one of these before & predictably perhaps it won ‘Best Marcos’ from the show organisers. Futuristic for the ’70s but still too many straight lines for me compared with my voluptuous proper Mantis! Alas, the sunshine really highlighted how tatty my bonnet has become, & I am determined to get it resprayed before next spring. Despite this, my Mantis was the subject of many a photo; it’s rather nice to think that the car will live on in pictures all over the country for years to come. Strangely, I was not once asked to pose next to the vehicle in question – Philistines!