Twice Bitten

It took two attempts, but Dave Caley finally made this year’s Unveiling with his incredible 100E — and he’s not shy about using it.

- Simon Woolley

So many projects fall by the wayside. Whether it’s running out of money, time, patience or even storage, we dread to think what the success rate of completed homebuilt projects is.

This 1958 100E, affectionately named Dolly, almost suffered that fate on several occasions, but six years after starting it, Dave Caley finally finished this outstanding Anglia, and in time for The Great Unveiling, too — even if it was his second attempt at doing so!

Dave’s first car was a Mk1 Escort when he was 17, and that car sowed the seeds for a love of Fords ever since — to the extent that he’s only ever owned Blue Ovals, and mainly Transits at that. “I did have Toyota for about three weeks once, but that doesn’t count,” he grins. After messing about with classic British bikes for years, back in 2013 Dave decided he wanted to build something a bit different, and started scouting around for a suitable project.

“I’ve always loved the simple shape of the 100E — if you asked a child to draw a car, that’s what they would come up with, a classic three-box design — plus they do make for a great hot rod.

“This one belonged to a friend of mine. He’d had it for almost a decade and it was just sat there doing nothing, so I convinced him I was the person to bring it back to life. It’s always been a local car, and we think may have been owned by a couple of US serviceman at one point, as we found an old logbook with RAF Bentwaters as the address under the back seat.”