Driving an E-Type through the winter

Almost everything written about classic cars and winter concerns storage. Using one through the season is a different question, and most of what answers it online is published by firms selling protection products. This archive sells nothing, so it can afford to set out both sides. The E-Type's own position is also different from the average classic of its period. It is a closed coupe or a roadster with a proper hood, wind-up windows and a heater, so weather protection is not the limiting factor, and parts support is better than for almost any other British car of the era. What decides the winter question for this car is the structure and the cost of getting it wrong: the monocoque and the brazed front frame are what determine whether a car is savable, and corrosion in an E-Type is expensive in a way it is not on an ordinary classic.

The decision

A car that is used stays healthier than one that sits. Seals stay soft, brakes stay free, fuel does not stale, tyres do not take a set and the engine reaches temperature often enough to boil condensation out of the oil. The companion article on using an E-Type regularly covers this side. Against it stands one blunt fact: a car that meets road salt corrodes faster than one that does not, and on this car the corrosion lands in places that are structural and costly to repair.

The tension is real. An E-Type is worth enough that owners are cautious with it, and cautious owners produce cars that sit, which brings its own problems: perished seals, seized brakes, flat-spotted tyres and a fuel system that gums up. Neither choice is wrong. Winter use done with discipline, washing after every salted drive and keeping the car dry between drives, is defensible. So is laying the car up properly. What is not defensible is the middle path of occasional wet drives and a car put away damp and salted.

Salt matters more than any product

Washing the underside after every salted drive is the single most effective thing a winter owner can do, and it is the thing most owners skip. Salt in solution keeps corroding while it stays damp, so a car put away wet and salted is worse off than one that stood outside in clean rain. Getting water underneath is the work: a hose with reasonable pressure, directed along the floors, sills, inner arches and the area around the rear suspension cage, does more than any coating applied over dirt.

A jet wash needs some care. High pressure can drive water past seals and into enclosed sections where you would rather it did not go, and it can lift loose paint and underseal along with the dirt. Use it for the underside with a sensible lance and keep the jet moving; for the body, gentler washing is enough. Afterwards, let the car dry before it goes away. A short run with the brakes used gently, or an hour with the doors open on a dry day, beats shutting a wet car in a cold garage.

What is specific to the E-Type

The E-Type is a monocoque with the engine and front suspension carried on a brazed tubular frame bolted ahead of the bulkhead. Corrosion in either is structural rather than cosmetic, and much of it cannot be seen without a lift and a torch. The structure article and the rust page cover where it lives and how to look; this article does not repeat that detail.

Water collects where it always collects on this car: the sills, the floors, the boot area and spare wheel well, the wheel boxes, the bulkhead and the points where the rear suspension cage feeds its loads into the shell. These are the same areas listed on the rust page, and winter is when they are under the greatest attack. The bonnet adds a further wrinkle: removing it is a considerable operation, so damage developing in the structure beneath it is not discovered casually, and a winter's worth of trapped moisture there can run on unnoticed.

The cooling question inverts in winter. The E-Type's known weakness is overheating in traffic, covered in the overheating and cooling system articles. In cold months the risk is the opposite: an engine used for short runs that never reaches full temperature accumulates condensation and fuel in its oil and wears faster for it. Winter drives should be long enough to get the engine properly warm, which is another argument against the occasional five-mile errand and in favour of either real use or none.

Underbody protection, honestly assessed

Three broad families of coating are used on classics. Wax-based products such as Waxoyl and Dinitrol creep into seams and set to a firm film. Lanolin-based products such as Lanoguard stay soft and self-healing, and generally need renewing more often. Oil-based products such as Fluid Film creep furthest and never fully set, which makes them suited to cavities but messy on exposed faces. The differences are real: creeping ability, whether the coating sets or stays soft, and how often it needs renewing.

What the archive cannot do is tell you which is best, because nobody else can either. There is no independent comparative testing of these products on old cars worth citing, the advocates of each are sincere, and much of what is written online is written by people selling one of them. The archive has no commercial interest and no verdict. What can be said with confidence is that any coating applied over salt and damp seals the problem in rather than solving it, that cavities matter as much as visible surfaces, and that the product's own instructions on preparation and renewal are the figures to follow.

The practical side

• Tyres. Rubber hardens with age and with cold, and a car laid up every autumn can carry tyres that look new and grip like old ones. Check date codes, not just tread depth.
• Lights. The E-Type sits low and dark among modern traffic. Working lamps, clean lenses and correctly aimed headlamps matter more in winter gloom than at any other time of year.
• Battery. Brief, frequent use is the hardest life for a battery: repeated cranking without enough running to recharge it. The battery article covers locations, trays and the awkward hold-down hardware on both six-cylinder and V12 cars; in winter the discipline is simply to keep the battery charged and the connections clean.
• If it stops. Warm clothing, a torch, a phone, a warning triangle and the number of a recovery service that will handle a low classic properly. A tow on a rope is not a plan for this car.

When not to go out

Ice, standing water and the day after the gritters have been through are reasons enough to leave the car in the garage. Freshly salted roads lay down the most concentrated solution of the season, and no coat of wax changes what that does to an unprotected sill. There is no shame in it. A winter of garage days plus the occasional dry, salt-free run, with the engine brought fully up to temperature, is a perfectly respectable answer to the question this article started with.

Common questions