A
ndy Murrell freely admits to having heard the question ‘is this thing ever going to get finished?’ a few times over the years it took for this kustom Consul to come together. Sometimes it will have been in his own head, we’ve no doubt about that, but he stuck to his vision and the finished car is a triumph. Well, it’s a 1962 Ford Consul 375, but you know what I mean. So, let’s rewind to when Andy was a fresh-faced teenager with visions of owning an American car from the 1950s. ‘I couldn’t afford one of those so I bought a Hillman Imp…’ he laughs. ‘It cost me £70, and it was worth every penny of about £70.’ Give him credit, though, he did manage to ‘fix it up’, doing all the work himself in his aunty’s garage – including fitting shorter front springs and painting it bright yellow. And he had it on the road a couple of months after passing his driving test at 17.
Teenage fan club
‘In my mind, it was a kind of Cal Look Imp,’ Andy says with a grin. ‘I was a teenage Custom Car buyer – or Street Machine if it was a good issue – the paper round money wouldn’t stretch to both! It was the era of UK Cal Look… what I really fancied was a VW Type 3.’ Andy never has owned a Type 3, nor an American car, but a moment of clarity in 1994 saw him shift his attention to British cars with an American flavour. ‘Cars like the Mk2 Consul have that American look, but are smaller and fit in British garages and parking spaces. And I could afford one of those!’
16 CUSTOM CAR WINTER 2023
8pp Murrell Consul.indd 16
12/11/2022 10:54
