Progress has been made on the restoration of AEM 513, which was the first Haflinger to come to the UK in 1960 and was used in many of the press articles of the time.
We bought this haflinger around 10 years ago, then sold it, wished we hadn’t and then luckily bought it back !
It now has the registration SFF 519, but the DVLA confirmed that it was originally the famous AEM 513 !
Sometime in its life it was fitted with a later MK2 chassis and engine, but thankfully the original parts came with it too, but were in very bad condition.
Over the past few years the chassis has been completely restored by Smithie Garage in Ramsbottom and the engine completed by ourselves. This was particularly challenging as many parts are different to the production haflingers – for example the hub shafts are a different diameter with different bearings and shims – in fact there are many, many parts which are visually the same but differ in detail to the halingers which followed.
We owe Peter and Ged from Smithie Garage a huge thanks for working through the issues to bring this haflinger back to life. We believed that with all of its history it really had to be restored to a high standard and I am sure you will see from the images that Smithie Garage have done a fantastic job..
The next stage will be to remove the platform from the MK2 chassis for restoration, then refit it to its original chassis. Watch this space !
