This Odd British Sports Car has an American V-8

Completing the trio

The story began in 2000. Don was at a cruise night where he spotted an unusual British coupe powered by a 289. Don already owned the typical pair of Dearborn-engined Brits--a 289 Cobra and a Sunbeam GT Tiger. So a Griffith, it seemed, would make the perfect addition to his pack.

"I wanted the complete British collection--Cobra, Tiger and Griffith," he said. "I was at a cruise in Danbury and in pulled a nice gentleman in a red Griffith. I started asking questions about it and then I had to have one."

A subsequent four-year search led to a welder in Peekskill, New York, who owned a complete but tattered Griffith 200. The car was located three hours north in Queensbury, New York, where it was gathering dust in a barn.

"It was one of the few I could find for sale. After assessing it, I didn't know how bad it would be (to restore/rebuild), but all the instruments were there, the door handles were there, and a lot of the other stuff that drives you crazy was there."

The owner wasn't eager to sell, but Don, a Ford enthusiast and collector, sweetened the deal by offering to throw in a Ford 427 "side-oiler" short-block from his stash. With the Griffith now safely in his possession, Don spent the next 18 months formulating a game plan. "My standard habit is to do a lot of research so I don't make a foundational mistake," he said.

Neglected and missing parts

As purchased, the car was suffering from the effects of damp storage and neglect. The original engine had been left out of the car; it had filled with water and was locked tight. The Griffith's fiberglass body had been painted a couple of times--once in yellow and again in white--masking the original green. Beneath the grille opening, a chunk of fiberglass was missing and someone had cut a hole in the hood, apparently in an attempt to keep the car from overheating. Under the hood, the wiring harness in the engine compartment had taken on a nest-like appearance. The interior was similarly disheveled: dirty and disassembled, though goodies like the original gauges and wood steering wheel were present and accounted for. Meanwhile, underneath the car, rust had taken hold of the chassis outriggers.

After talking it over with friend Bob Cuneo of Chassis Dynamics, a race car chassis fabrication shop in Oxford, Connecticut, Don decided to start the project by ordering a new chassis for the car from David Gerald Sportscars in Redditch, Worcestershire, England.

"About three years into it, I ordered the chassis," he said. "I was deeply suspicious from the start and before I got into it myself, I called Bob Cuneo for his opinion."

Instead of ordering the chassis in the original 16-gauge tubing, Don decided to upgrade to 14-gauge tubing. When new, the Griffith 200 chassis differed slightly from the TVR Grantura in order to accommodate the Ford 289 and Toploader four-speed transmission: The front cross tubes were moved forward to make way for the oil pan sump, the frame tube on the passenger side was massaged with a hammer to clear the starter and the front suspension mounts were strengthened. All of this work was done at TVR prior to the car's arriving in the U.S.

The new chassis arrives

Don's new, 21st-century Griffith chassis arrived in Baltimore, via British Airways, approximately two months after it was ordered. After some wrangling with U.S. Customs officials, the chassis was picked up by Griffith specialist Fred McKinney. McKinney prepped and painted the chassis, then repaired the hole in the car's hood as well as the section of broken fiberglass below the grille opening, and mounted the body to the chassis. Originally, Griffith bodies were mounted to the chassis with strips of fiberglass, but Don's would be attached with bolts.

Once the car was back at Don's shop, he installed the front suspension and set up the engine, transmission and rear axle alignment for permanent mounting in the chassis. With assistance from Bob Cuneo, the drivetrain was aligned to yield perfect working angles on the extremely short driveshaft; this included relocating the Corvette differential--a factory upgrade installed when the car was first constructed. New half-shafts were also required to correct other factory issues, so Don and Bob determined the dimensions and Azam of Anderson's Electric in Waterbury, Connecticut, fabricated them. Bob also worked to eliminate the "bump-steer" from the front suspension, reducing the factory's nearly half-inch variation across the suspension's travel to just 0.05-inch.

Fixing the fiberglass

Once it was rolling, the car was sent off to have the body media-blasted; the stripped body was then sent to Don's brother, Bob, for finishing. His brother went to great lengths to get the Griffith's fiberglass clamshell hood to fit properly--reworking the hinges as well as heating and molding the fiberglass. Satisfied with the panel alignment, he then smoothed the body with marine epoxy, block-sanding between coats. Afterwards, the body was primed, block-sanded and painted with a urethane basecoat/clearcoat finish. The center stripe was painted BMW Steel Grey while the rest of the car was painted Laser Blue, a Buick color--deviations from the factory original British Racing Green.

"I made the decision to paint the car a color I wanted," Don said. "Every other car I own is painted according to the dataplate."

Powering the wee beast

Since the original engine was no longer usable, Don went on the hunt for a 1965 date-coded 289 and found one at a high-performance engine builder's booth at Carlisle. Though the engine had started as an original 1965 289, the engine builder lengthened the stroke from 2.87 inches to 3.4 inches, raising the displacement to 347-cu.in. At its heart is a fairly aggressive hydraulic roller camshaft; the compression is a healthy 10.5:1. What this adds up to is 380hp and 312-lbs.ft. of torque in a car weighing less than 2,000 pounds.

If he had to do it over again? "I would've installed a lower-horsepower 289--the car has way too much power for its weight," Don said. "This is a dangerous car if you get aggressive on the gas."

The restoration comes together

Reassembling a regular production car can be trying, but reassembling a low-production lightweight like the Griffith--while trying to make everything function properly and look concours-quality original--is a monumental undertaking.

To get the electrical system right, Don laid the original harness out on the garage floor and traced out every wire, diagramming the system as he went. He then turned to Auto Sparks, a U.K.-based company familiar with British cars, to make the new harness. One of the original problems with the Griffith was that its electrical system was unable to handle the draw of the dual cooling fans, an electric fuel pump, lights, a blower motor, etc., if they were switched on all at once. So Don put his engineering skills to work to ensure that everything would have adequate power. As the Griffith used a generator when new, Don restored a Ford generator from a Thunderbird and bolted it in place.

Griffiths were also notorious for overheating issues, so Don had a heavy-duty radiator built that would fit in the stock location and use the original shroud. Though excessive cabin heat was a Griffith trademark, Don spent a month restoring the original Smith's heater blower motor to better than new condition. Normally straightforward tasks like getting the side windows to roll up and down perfectly was another excruciatingly difficult labor of love, as was fitting the replacement Lexan rear window back into the car.

The standard Griffith 200 interior was basic black, but Don wanted something a little more exciting. Dave's Auto Upholstery in Oakville, Connecticut, performed all of the interior work.

Two-tone gray Italian leather was lavished on the seats, the door panels and the dash, while the floor was covered with traditional Wilton wool carpet. The instruments were recalibrated by Nisonger Instruments and the original steering wheel was restored by British Autowood.

With so many custom touches, the Griffith wouldn't be complete without a custom exhaust. Borla built the muffler out of stainless, replicating the original, and Bob Cuneo bent and fit new pipes exactly as they were routed originally.

"It's a single muffler with two inlets and two outlets, custom-made by Borla, wrapped with stainless wool inside," Don said. "Bob Cuneo made the pipes out of .065-wall aircraft-grade stainless. We did change the outlets to 1965-'66 Mustang GT tips."

The finished car is astoundingly well detailed and finished. Had the originals been this painstakingly assembled, Griffith might've been a serious competitor to Shelby American.

While the Griffith story is history now, Don has made sure that future Griffith 200 restorers, however few in number they may be, won't have to struggle with issues the way he had to. True to form, the engineer has compiled a notebook recording all the minute details, wiring improvements and suspension changes he has implemented.

"I did this to help others who might try to restore a Griffith," he said. "And to allow me to go back and troubleshoot if I encounter a problem."

Owner's view

"You don't know what you don't know," Don Antilla sighed when asked if he was aware of the effort it would take to make his barn-find Griffith better than new. "This is by far the most challenging car that I have ever restored.

"Many friends helped me with advice, and sometimes psychological counseling, as I built the Griffith: Randy Hartigan provided Griffith production history, as well as build details of the Griffith, and graciously offered me parts from his collection when I could not find them; Bob Cuneo is an engineer and NASCAR suspension, aero, structural fabricator who helped with the driveline, exhaust and suspension alignments and fabrication; Todd Decatur opened his machine shop many times on Sundays to machine special parts for me; Chris McArdle helped with detail parts from his collection of Griffiths; Fred McKinney and Craig Johnson performed body repair, frame interface modifications, and supplied suspension parts; Mike Mooney offered Griffith development details from the early Sixties; and Russ Rogers, Lou Santaniello and Mike Buonaducci gave me insight into the mechanical and electrical build details of their cars, while my brother Bob Antilla and his son, Michael, worked long and hard on the body and paint."