Significant items to consider:

 

Chassis; only the sills are currently available as spares (£110 per side plus VAT) all other parts have to be fabricated by the restorer i.e. you.

 

Seats are currently available at around £215 + vat each, you can pay well over £400 for some. The main thing to watch for apart from the seat condition is the mounts and floor bars under the body tub - accident security of seats - very important!

 

Hoods (cover only) are available in two types at a cost of around £280 + vat frames are less freely available but cost about the same as the cover. (They can be seen advertised for well over £500 each in places, so have a good look round.)

 

 

Headlamp lift units are no longer available as parts but can usually be refurbished. Last list price £200 to £350 + vat (although now quite rare). The headlamp bowl is the same as on a BLMC metro with various options for brighter lamps if needed.

 

The general failure on the lift mechanism seems to be the diodes within the switch box on the unit. A slow moving mechanism generates a far higher current draw than a free running one (almost double in fact) and it is mainly this current flow that burns out the diodes - broken water seals are also an issue of course.

 

NB: Operating the headlamps on frosty mornings should be done carefully for this reason! New diodes can be picked up for less than a pound if you know where to look!

 

The factors set out above will all affect directly what is a ‘value for money’ car, quite simply, the more work and parts it needs the less its worth! The more ‘original’ and Reliant source parts that are missing or unserviceable the less viable the restoration, as almost all original source parts are now gone.

 

Note!

 

Not all parts listed in this and following descriptions are available from “Reliant” dealerships and many chassis and similar metal structures will have to be fabricated from scratch either by you or a contractor. Where a source is known it will be included.