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Driving test stories

26/8/2020

0 Comments

 
from Admin

We asked our members to share memories of their driving tests and the responses were so much fun, we've collected them all here for you to enjoy.

1974 in a Ford Anglia. I was told by the examiner to use hand signals and do a three point turn. All went fine until further down the road he told my to turn right at the junction, I put on the indicator, then he said we are still using hand signals, so I put my right arm straight out of the window and left arm through the centre of the steering wheel to turn the indicator off.
Incorrect use of the controls.
Max Carman😞
Had a Morgan 3 wheeler for my 16th birthday in '62. Went for test, it was raining. No doors on the Morgan but a working hood easy hinge up and down and 3 press studs holding to the windscreen frame, no sidescreens and hood needed to be lowered to get in and out.

Test inspector was a large man, very large. Did the eye sight test, went to the miniscule car, lowered the hood (seats not too wet) inspector shoe-horned himself in.

Oh, by the way, had no starter motor so had to hand crank which meant retarding ignition by the lever on the steering wheel, turning off ignition, back to the front to turn the enine to the compression point, back to the cockpit to switch on ignition, back to the front and sharp pull up of the starting handle with thumb tucked away safely in casd of backfire and removal of thumb and possibly other parts of anatomy depending on trajectory of flying handle.

If you got the hand throttle and choke settings just right it may start or it's back and fore adjusting until success then dashing back to the cockpit, throwing the starting handle onto the floor, advancing ignition, blipping the throttle and adjusting the choke - both also hand operated levers mounted on the steering wheel - to keep it running, climbing in and pulling the hood over the now soggy inspector.

​Set off, the one vacuum-operated wiper scraping feebly away at my aeroscreen. So far so good! But, following instructions about 2 minutes later we arrived at an uphill tee-junction to turn right onto a main road - yes, you guessed, in my nervous condition I stalled and had to go through the starting procedure all over again!

I actually persuaded the inspector to switch the ignition on and off to save time while the traffic built up behind. After that it all went swimmingly, especially the inspector sitting in a pool of rainwater.

Never really understood why I failed but he certainly didn't mention any of the above!
Owen Short
A neighbour when making the 3 point turn did the first part and turned the car across the road. Then when she tried to engage reverse which was up to the left and lift, the gear stick came off in her hand.

The test was abandoned with the car left in the middle of the road.
Tony Dixon

I took my test in 79 in my own car, a 59 Morris Mini. It didn't have seat belts and the front seats were just the tip up and down variety (no locking).

I won't go into the finer details but you can imagine what happened to my instructor when he banged 
his clipboard on the dash to signal my emergency brake attempt. Squished against the inside of the windscreen and then a crumpled heap in the foot well.

Being a a proper old school fellow he dusted himself off and told me to return to the test centre immediately. You can't comprehend my delight when he handed me my pass certificate and wished me a happy life of motoring.
Nick Mead
When i took my HGV Lorry test I arrived at the test centre in a different lorry that had been booked with them. The first part of test was the reverse manoeuvre and I couldn’t do it.

When the examiner checked his paperwork the lorry I was driving was 
3 metres longer!
😬

He reset the cones further apart and I did it first time no issues, except I was a bag of nerves and failed on lots of minor issues!

2nd time around I passed no issues, but I did check I was booked in with the correct size lorry first
Jonathan Griffiths
I didn't fail, but during my test in Clifton, Bristol in May 1975, I turned into a very narrow side street to be confronted by a Rolls-Royce completely blocking the street as it attempted a 3-point turn right in front of me.

The poor driver was heavi
ng and straining on the steering wheel - it took him so many "back and forths", I had put my Mini into neutral with the handbrake on long before the Roller finally drove away.

The test examiner sat in silence the entire time, simply murmuring, "Well done" as I was at last able to continue my test.
Paul Sweeney
I passed my test first time in 1971, in Slough. I had a practice lesson with my instructor, a sexist old boy who had a constant eye on the young ladies as I drove past them rather than what I was doing, and took the test in his Austin 1300. Having a decent car helped. On arrival at the test centre I was told to stay in the car and the examiner would come out to me.

I did that which was necessary and on return to the test centre i was told that I had passed. I was to stay put and my instructor would come out to me.

The instructor came out and asked if I had passed. Yes, I responded. He then told me that there were 4 females taking their test at the same time. They all failed, demonstrating that males are better drivers than females. I dare not shout that too loud in most environments!
Anthony Osborne
Failed my first test for laughing at the examiner. He was a known miserable old sod. Anyway, midway through my three-point turn the little rear view mirror used by the instructor fell off. It his the right knee of the examiner and he made a right old fuss - you’d have though he’d been hit by an axe. I laughed at him - which was in hindsight a mistake. 
Alex Valvasurra
😣
My mother drove lots of things during the war (ambulances, buses, mobile operating theatres, etc) but didn't take a test. She didn't renew her licence post-war as the family didn't have a car.

Fast forward to about 1970. She decides to drive again and 
after a few 'test drives' in the old man's Zodiac (where he said she appeared to drive as though she had a bell on the front of the car) she books a test.

Come the test day she cruises round the circuit and the rather familiar looking examiner hands her a Pass certificate. She looks at it and sees his name: he is a guy who partnered her in the ambulance on occasions during the war, and who never drove except for one occasion when she needed to be in the back of the ambulance!

When they eventually arrived at the hospital he apologised for the slow journey as he had only ever driven a traction engine before and didn't know about changing gear! 
Mick Brabrook-Norman🤣
Lad at work was taking his HGV test. After waiting to pull away out of the test centre,he saw a gap,let his foot off the clutch,........in reverse!
Michael Foster
🤪
Failed first time in 2015, was queuing for a roundabout stationary in the right lane while a car was inching forward in the left lane a bit too close and scraped my left wing mirror. Any contact regardless of fault is a fail!
Peter Walker

I failed in a Morris Minor with a fierce clutch and stalled it on an uphill start. I was told I failed not because of the stall but I just dipped clutch fired it up and set off holding it on foot brake heel and toe - I should have put handbrake on put it in neutral and started from scratch.
Richard Shaw

Passed my bike and car tests first time and whilst I know that's not the point of the thread, I just wanted you to know 😂😂
I do have a funny story; my late aunt took her test (many years ago) and the examiner near the end said, "You know where you are now then?" (being a local lass) she replied "No, I've had my eyes shut"... i don't actually know whether she passed or not...
Steve Broughton
I was a distracted mess on my test after the examiner got in the car as she was stunningly attractive and wearing a fashionably short skirt; not at all what a hormone-addled 17 year old needs!

I ended up speeding in a 30 zone and completely fluffed the sign recognition questions, s
o it came as something of a surprise when she handed me my pass certificate!
Andrew Spittlehouse
I failed my driving test after being put in a car I'd never driven. My driving instructor - an ex-Brooklands racing driver, Police driving instructor and Jaguar test driver - age 82, had rolled his Escort on the way to get me for my test practice.

I ended up being driven in a spare car at high speed straight to the test centre without practice beforehand!
Andy Jones
0 Comments

Embarrassing motoring moments

28/5/2020

1 Comment

 
by Admin

A fine collection of embarrassing motoring moments from our members - thanks to you all for sending them in!

Picture
Finally realising what that knocking noise was as the front wheel came off and bounced across the road while I came to an undignified grinding halt.
Steve Favell
Back around '81, I attended a family funeral in hilly Bath with my (now ex) wife in my '67 Cortina 1600 GT.
We were invited to follow behind the funeral cortege up the steep hill towards the cemetery ... and as I pulled away, a hole appeared in the silencer - leaving me to continue VERY noisily all the way up the hill behind the hearse. Oh, the shame ... 
Paul Sweeney)
When I took my 13/60 Herald into central London one Saturday night in the ‘80s, and the horn decided to sound everytime I turned the steering wheel...
Charlie Jeffreys

I have another equally embarrassing story 1981 I was riding across the Greek island of Kos when me and my mate stopped at some road works we were on mopeds. It looked like they were spraying the road with tar and throwing down some surface gravel. I had a mad moment and decided to ride across the fresh surface. Unknown to me the surface was soft and 3 inches deep and I rode about 30 meters ploughing a trough the width on my moped tyre. I was glad to get to the end and all the Greek road workers just stood mouth open unable to believe what i had just done to their new road. I rode off quick with a 30mm layer of tar all around my moped tyre. It took me ages to get it off the tyre and I sprayed my mate with tar who was following me. I threw lots of dust over the moped before I took it back to the hire shop. I kept a low profile for a few days it was a small island.
Carlo Gambardella

Brake fail towing a caravan down Porlock Hill many many years ago. Ended up in some ones front garden while they were in it. OMG as I sat there with smoldering brakes I got the bollocking of my life. Luckily no major damage just extremely dented pride.
Gary Martin

I just bought a Honda Prelude with the 2.2 litre engine and 200 Bhp and was going down the Autobahn at 248 kph, (Full throttle) as a freaking Beetle just left me standing and my fiance at that time, just was laughing her head off!
Lewis Williams
Was driving through Birmingham city centre in 1980s and cut in between two car the driver waved at me, I thought he was waving me through but unknown to me they had a very long tow rope between the two cars. When the car in front moved off my car cut the rope leaving the other car stranded. I drove off quick.
Carlo Gambardella

Bike rather than car. First time bump starting, jumped to far, fell off the other side. I did laugh at myself a lot before I had a second try.
Alan G Garrett

I pulled the handbrake lever out while on the hill start section of my driving test , it was a Peugeot 205 and bent the mounting plate 90 degrees
David Ford

On honeymoon in the Land Rover. Rural Ireland. Snapped the exhaust in 2 atop a old mining road in the mountains (great day aside from this)

The slow & noisy return to our accomodation featured a pass through Bantry town centre.


The funeral cortage & mourners were not impressed with the rapid cannon-fire effect of a 2.5n/a diesel being caned up the hill past the church in 3rd OD. !!

We drank outside of Bantry that evening.
Joe Farrow

Another 1 was only a few years ago with the Cortina i had to get a new rear silencer and it wasnt the right length to meet the middle 1 properly so anytime i hit a bump it would separate which i still get reminded of now thanks to a certain Richie Moore lol
David Aikman

During my Moped driving test (1974) around Clifton The Raleigh Supermatic handlebar suddenly folded (a very large split appeared around one of the bends). Fortunately I was temporarily out of sight of the examiner so I took a firm grip and pulled them back into some kind of normal position... and carried on. I passed the test but the handlebars never made it home and I had to push the last bit.
Robin Spencer

I do not. want. to talk about it.
Michael Smyth

Picture
Taking a friend Mike Halloran to the chemist because his car was broken down, I executed a one-point turn in my Herald estate saying, "You can't do this in your Marina". It dropped the front suspension, Saturday afternoon, on the main road in the busy shopping area, I had just finished work and was stood in full AA patrol uniform...........
Chris Allen
Took my wife’s Capri 3.0 Ghia to the local jetwash, with a friend, getting it ready for a show.
Applied Gunk, covered dizzy, air filter etc. Washed all over, under bonnet. Looked a million bucks.
Got in, turned key...nothing!

Not even a click!
Checked all connections.
Lights worked.
Stereo worked.
Everything worked...except the starter.
Mechanic from local garage walked by...looked in car...laughed...walked off.
Me and my mate were going frantic.

About 10 minutes later, mechanic passed by again...reached into car...put it into ‘park’.
Started first turn of the key!

I’d switched her off in ‘drive’, and hadn’t moved the selector before trying to start her.

Red faces all round!
Phil Golding

I had a bit of a disaster in the late 70s with a Bedford CF van. I was working as a computer service engineer and needed to pull a large piece of equipment from a customer site. This horrible little van had a tail lift, but the equipment was so heavy that in trying to lift, it compressed the rear suspension and almost got the front wheels off the ground. That created quite a crowd. Then, having got it loaded, i couldn't get more than 20 mph out of it. Not fun driving along the M4 out of London in the rush hour at that speed.
Kevin Warrington

Reminds me abit of my 2nd mini the gear selector stabiliser rod bolt fell out so had to drive everywhere with just 1st and 3rd
David Aikman

Got one for trying to avoid embarrassment, heading back from Harewood house classic car show in 1985 in our beloved Morris Minor (balanced 1100 A series, MG head etc...but standard to look at) 1/2 way back a Citroën Dianne appears someway back but gaining, so I upped the speed until clear then back to 70, damn thing starts catching me again, not Avin this! So nailed the poor Moggy to within an inch of its life for about 1/2 an hour to be sure.🤪😂. I was young!
John Stockdale

I got beaten in the traffic light GP by a Vauxhall Nova. I was driving a Jag XJ40. My mate hasn't let me live that down. I don't think the Nova had the original engine somehow!
Matt Fowles

Mine was also in Brum, I decided to take the GT6 for a ride into the city, on route, actually just as I hit the Bristol Road, it developed a horn malfunction, the horn would sound with any movement of the steering wheel until it was straight again, normally a simple fix, but not at that point in time. I got some attention anyway, and a few angry looks from drivers and pedestrians!
Paul Steel 
😂
In my first car, a rather tatty Renault R8 (which I loved), with my 14 year old brother in law to be, the near side lower ball joint failed in dramatic fashion. I managed to safely guide the car to somewhere safe, thankfully. The only saving grace was that literally 2 minutes prior, I'd been flat out on the A20 at Swanley. Dread to think what would have happened if it failed then.
Dave Lang

I had a Mini 998. Auto. What a stupid idea that is, sharing engine oil with an auto box. I got quite competent at setting up the clutch bands, but the torque convertor or one of the two extra oil pumps was playing up and as soon as the oil got hot it wouldn't engage. A few times I couldn't pull away from traffic lights on slight gradients, it just sat there squealing at me.
Matt Vallins

BSA Bantam overtaken by a house...
Dave Veart
I was in a Bond Mini 3wheel convertible aged 16 with two mates and decided to go the 70 miles to Cleethorpes . We had the longest tailback ever. Well it was only 197 cc.
Nook Elliott

Back in my biking days I had a Suzuki GSXR600 and was attending a big ride-out in respect for the fallen.

Arrived at the meeting point and shortly after we were told to get ready. Hit the starter and got the bike running but it would not rev and would die if I put it into gear. It had full fuel and freshly charged battery and had ridden there fine.

A friend came over and tried helping but was scratching his head too, nothing we did would get the bike running properly, I had to watch as hundreds of bikes filtered past me.

Worst thing was that I had a camera on so the whole thing was captured in glorious HD. 
Callum Tooey
My wife was overtaken by a tractor pulling a hay wagon in our old Volvo 340. Even the sheepdog on the trailer looked as though it felt sorry for her.
Peter Smith
Towing a Holden Commodore in 8:30am traffic, and the tow-rope breaking in the middle of a roundabout - an interesting exercise retying the rope and trying to get the traffic moving on.
Shannon Stevenson

Driving a mini van on Dual Carriageway and was about to overtake a large vehicle ahead waited whilst a big vehicle overtook me and pulled out behind it. Realised the vehicle now behind me was his trailer and I was under the large bridge section he was transporting.
Irvin Mehlman

One night driving along in my moggy van it spluttered and stopped. I eventually came to the conclusion that the petrol tank had fell off so being inventive I had a spare can of petrol and filled it to windscreen washer and to the carb it only took a few hundred squirts to get me back home 35 miles.
Gordon Davis

Putting diesel in my TR6 last summer on way to Stratford on Avon. Car smoked the whole weekend
Derek Carroll

Was being towed with me in a Chevette and an ex girlfriend driving a Land Rover when we got to a roundabout, came to a stop. And when my ex spotted a gap in the traffic, she accelerated hard forcing the nose of my car to violently bounce, which continued half way round the roundabout. When we got to where we were going I asked if she had noticed the bouncing and no she hadnt!
Jan Olin

Driving my Austin Seven Ruby in a narrow lane and met an E type Jaguar. He decided to back up and I couldn’t keep up with with and never saw it again!
Frederick Emery

Company Honda Acty van and badly slipping clutch. Battling a strong head wind on A19 it became obvious what little clutch it had , had now gone. Unfortunately I was about 5 miles from where I was supposed to be. Came off at next exit and discovered it went better backwards than forwards. Reversed about 3 miles to get to phonebox , near to where I was supposed to be, to ring boss , and tell him there was something wrong with the van
John Eden

Descending the Honiston Pass in a TA MG...drum brakes just do it !
Peter Rhys Thomas

 I've reached the stage where I've been stood up, both feet on the pedal pulling myself down on the steering wheel, eyes watering with the smoke...

Only once - it was when a S2 diesel started running on it's sump oil - I'd pulled the engine stop, to find effectively I was running with the throttle wide open & no way of stopping.


Drove it into a ploughed field at 40mph +, and the damn thing stalled. Walked home.
Joe Farrow

Based in Germany, my first trip home on leave for Christmas '68 on the ferry to Hull. I was in "pole position" at the pointy end ready to be first off. In those days you had to leave your keys in the ignition in case the crew needed to move cars during voyage. So as soon as the bow doors opened I was ready.....then found I'd locked the doors before leaving the car and couldn't get in. So NOBODY could move. It took half an hour before a crew member used a wire coat hanger forced down the quarter light to unlatch the internal door lock. There seemed to be an awful lot of disgruntled passengers watching me.
Dennis Weatherill

I had a 2.5 88 Landy with a Disco on a trailer when I had to pull on to the hard shoulder to let 4 artics by with wind turbine blades on overtake me
Still got home all intact.
John Newbury

Back in the 80s I bought a fiat 500 that had been stood for many years, brakes partially seized and a fair bit of rust in the floor pan, so I thought i would tow it home after dark, only around 3 ml, so hooked it up to my 3.0L Cortina and basically dragged it down road, it towed ok with my brother driving as if I slowed down so did he as the brakes were partially sized, we turned the last corner to my house and in the wing mirror I could see my brother waving frantically and a massive shower of spark coming from under to fiat, so I stopped and had a look, couldn't stop laughing, the floor collapsed and the drivers seat was on the tar filing the rails away, he was stood on the door sill with the door open and the other foot on the gear tunnel, so we threw the seat in the back and did the last mile like that, got home though, he said never again haha, wish we had camera phone back in the day.
Bryn Thomas

Driving a 2CV, tried overtaking a truck. Spent so long in his slipstream I fell asleep. Fortunately the cross wind at the finish shook the car and me awake...
Graham Jones

3 up in a mk1 Mini coming back from a night fishing trip and the wipers packed up in the pouring rain so we jerry-rigged a shoelace through the windows and the front passenger operated them , then to make matters worse the throttle cable snapped so out with the string a boot lace and that was operated by me on the back . I thought it would be funny to mess around revving the engine out of sync with the driver! A few miles from home we were stopped by the Police for ‘understandably’ erratic driving. We politey explained our situation and they let us go , this was before in car computers so they didn’t realise we had not tax , mot or insurance and only one provisional license between us!!!
Andy Elias

Not me personally because I was used to it being slow, but I came back from holiday once, and the foreman said to me, "That lorry of yours is no good is it?. "I was going up the hill from Bulwark Roundabout to the top, (A48 Chepstow roundabout), and a cyclist went past me !!! " We had several 4 wheelers with the 75 engine in them, but my Trader 6 wheeler was older, had a smaller engine, a four speed gear box, and was two and a half ton overweight if loaded with 3000 of Derv/Gas Oil. (And still had room for another 300 galls on top). It would do 40 flat out, and was down to bottom gear at every pimple.
David Hunt

Driving my MK C Bond Minicar. Had lifted bonnet to kick start and drove off without locking bonnet. Hit about 25 mph when it shot up, snapped off and flew across the road barely missing an elderly lady on a bicycle. Picked it up and apologised.
Clive Matthews

When crossing an intersection in my wife's Hillman Imp the engine sub-frame dropped onto the road pulling the car up instantly - if that was not bad enough my passenger was the Sales Manager of the company i worked for as a junior representative!
Robert Bothwell

The nearside wheel lower balljoint coming apart pulling the driveshaft out of the diff and me scraping the road with the hub for 50 yards. The garage recovery guy sent by the RAC said his chains would smash my front bumper until I suggested we use some tyres he has on board for protection!
Andy Jones

Early 80s in a Mk2 Escort Ghia 1600 (flash!) was taking my sister to look at a car, went over a hump back bridge and the front wing fell off right in front of two policemen! One of them lectured me on road worthiness while the other one helpfully put the wing in the back seat!
Richard Hunniford

Moving the car from the road to the drive, late at night in my Jim Jams. Saying hi to Jane my neighbour, then realizing my todger was out! 
Tony Franklin

Can't say too much .but it involved the back seat of my Jag..a young lady and a Policeman's torch..!!
David Waters

In my Fiat 126 racing a Citroen 2CV off the lights. We were neck and neck, giving it our all as we went screaming up through the gears. Then I glanced in the mirror and saw the queue of bored drivers stacking up in both lanes behind us.....
David Church

1970 Hillman Husky cost me £65. Head gasket basket case. Had head skimmed, & checked block was 'true', new gasket & rubber grommet, lasted two weeks! Took 1/2 hour to climb "Tarmac Hill" (B4111 Nuneaton) - approx 1/2 mile - white smoke / steam filled the cabin, had to open the tailgate to clear the fumes. Took it straight to the scrapper!
George Dodd

Driving MkIII Cortina in Haverill Essex at a roundabout when the gear lever came out in my hand. Copper started to tell me I needed to move the car now! I got out handed him the gear lever and said "You F***ing move it". That shut him up!
Nigel Champken-Woods
1 Comment

Blog - My First Car

8/10/2019

0 Comments

 
by Nick Arthur
My passion for motors is intertwined with lots of different stages in life, so here goes!

School wasn't really for me. I learned stuff, but it wasn't the curriculum that was planned, more a series of life lessons, so I left at 15. My bedroom walls at my parents house in Warrington were covered in car pics- e types mainly, spitfires and mgbgt . I dreamed that one day I'd own an e type roadster. 
Picture
Other kids had pop stars or footballers. I had some from my beloved Liverpool F C but mainly cars. My dad offered me some stark choices when I decided I was leaving school. I had to go to work, earn money and pay rent, or go and get educated.

I opted for the latter, it seemed easier. I went to further education college. I like to think I learned lots in that year. I learned to gamble, I'd buy and occasionally steal ex juke box singles and I'd sell them on the coach going home. I saw myself as a budding if not slightly drunken entrepreneur . College expelled me. My dad offered me some familiar choices. This time with a bit less patience!
​
I went to work after lazing around for as long as possible. I was 17/18 by now, doing bar work mainly. Then a job on shifts when I was 18 . It was an aluminium smelting factory. Real life kicked in. Job was hard, tough folk work hard in hot and sweaty conditions. It was rightly well paid. I was on shifts and I had plenty of time on my hands and, as I was often reminded, I was living in the cheapest hotel in Warrington.

I needed a car. I badly wanted a car. My dad had company cars so I wasn't allowed near them. My mum had a very faded Red Austin 1100 - I wasn't allowed near that on my own. I wasn't responsible enough apparently. Probably right.

I changed jobs as I was made redundant - I was being taught practical lessons in politics. 'Don't mess with the unions '- as they will strike. Quickly followed by 'Don't mess with the management ' or they will stop investing and make you redundant. Strikes = redundancies, last in first out !
​
I got a job in a warehouse, stacking pallets, picking loads, brushing up and making tea. It paid poorly, but I got overtime and worked in a pub as well. I got by, I still had the red e type roadster on my bedroom wall. 

 I got in a fight, admittedly not my first - I was beer brave! Me and two mates took on a group of less drunk, much harder scouse guys in a chippy. They were mucking about, we took them on, Warrington vigilantes - we got badly beaten up. Me a bit more than the others, so enjoyed the hospitality of Warrington General Hospital.

The Coppers took our side as they were sick of Scousers coming to our town and causing trouble. I got to go in a brand new police rover SD1 and bled all over it ! But I'd been in a SD1 nonetheless . I got awarded criminal injuries and I had some savings. I could get a car, my very first car of my own - criminal justice ?
Picture
DWB 686H - a very second hand Cortina 1300 deluxe, pale blue, 4 doors, MOT. It had a few corners knocked off it but I loved that car. I did loads of stuff to it. I filled the dinks, sprayed them badly and then did it all over again. I put a 'stick on' heated back window!
Picture
Picture

​I painted the wheels and meticulously cleaned the engine bay. I put a centre console in and fitted switches that kinda just switched on lights as opposed to really doing anything ! I had spot lamps with bright white covers on the front. I had a whip lash aerial.

​
For the first time in my life I was very nearly cool. I had a job, worked in a bar so I met lots of girls and I had a car! ( I was still a ginger so obviously unable to ever really be cool) . Me and DWB went everywhere.  


I learned to drink shandy not beer anymore so we could go places. Me and my mates could go places outside of Warrington. Lock up your daughters Cheshire set, the Warrington boys were upwardly mobile. Knutsford, Nantwich, Alderly edge - even camping weekends in Anglesey. I loved DWB, it never once let me down , what could possibly go wrong?

About 6.30 am one foggy morning I was on my way to work and an uninsured driver came straight out of a junction and took me out. It was a big hit, I was ok, but DWB was in a bad way. Insurance write-off, way beyond my skills of redemption, it was towed away to a sad and lonely place.

​I got about £200 insurance and at the age of 18 was back riding my old push bike to work.

​Not cool. Time to find a new motor!
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A brief history of the cars of my life - Part 3

1/8/2017

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by Jim Lodder
​My second Mini was not quite as old as The Bomb – this one (5577 HP) was a 1961 model! Not quite as expensive as a 1959 one these days, but not far off. It was a real bargain though. A bit tatty and rough round the edges, with both front wings in Red Oxide primer, but it was only £35! Another 850cc model, I originally intended to “do it up” but a change of job and a lack of finances prevented this, so I just had to keep it maintained.

Around this time my parents had bought a holiday caravan in mid Wales, so most weekends I used to head for Wales with a mate or two in the Mini, whilst the parents sped ahead in the GT6. They used to do it in around 2 ½ hours, I used to take nearer 3 ½ ! One weekend the exhaust manifold cracked whilst in Wales – I “repaired” it with a baked bean can and 2 jubilee clips. It stayed together as far as Warwick, almost home!
​
Shortly after this, my parents returned from Wales one weekend to announce that they had decided to give up their well paid jobs, sell the house, and move to mid-Wales permanently where they were going to buy the shop on the caravan site and make their fortunes. Did I want to go with them, or did I want to buy the house and stay there?

With hindsight probably should have done the latter rather than the former, but hindsight is a great thing! So armed with the knowledge that I was going to be living at the seaside in the near future, I sold 5577 HP and bought…………….. an ex British Army Austin Champ!
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Not my Champ - a stock photo
The Champ was a real hoot, limited to 55 mph despite having a 2.8 litre Rolls Royce engine under the big bonnet. And around 15 miles to the gallon! To get from Coventry to mid Wales required a tankful of petrol plus the reserve in the jerry can on the back; plus it took most of the day. It only sported a canvas hood, no side screens, so the horizontal Welsh rain soaked me through to the bone.
​
Once settled in my caravan with the Champ proudly parked outside, it started to unexpectedly earn a living! The slipway down to the beach was quite steep, with a bit of a drop at the bottom during low tide and the beach was mostly shingle. Once word got round that the Champ was mine I started to get lots of people asking me to tow their boat trailers down to the sea, and subsequently back onto dry land again, for a bit of “petrol money”. Turned out to be quite a lucrative hobby.

Plus on one occasion I dragged a stranded Vauxhall Cresta off the beach – never did get to the bottom of why the owner thought it was a good idea to try driving onto there in the first place though. Of course I soon found out how much fun could be had actually driving the thing in the sea! As it had a 5 speed box with a transfer box that selected forward or reverse motion, it was possible to drive as fast backwards as it was forwards. Changing gears whilst reversing was a bizarre experience!
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Not my Champ - a stock photo.
​Inevitably within a few short years the body tub disintegrated because of the salt water and the poor old Champ got scrapped. In the meantime my Dad had bought an Austin Maxi that then became my daily transport. It was an early one, with the cable operated gear change……………
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A brief history of the cars of my life - Part 2

22/6/2017

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by Jim Lodder
The Herald was a very different animal to the Mini when it came to driving! After the go cart handling of the Mini, cornering like it was on rails, the Herald’s tendency to tuck those rear wheels under and try to catch up the front end was quite a frightening experience. I mostly got used to it, but could still get caught out on wet bends!
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My Herald hiding behind Dad's GT6 on holiday in 1973
Although the girlfriend (now officially fiancée) couldn’t understand why, I immediately began to personalise the Herald just as I had done with the Mini.

​I made a centre console from aluminium, covered in black vinyl, that sat on top of the gearbox tunnel and housed a radio and an 8 track tape player. Speakers fitted into each front footwell trim panels. The radio aerial was a fibreglass whip thing, mounted on the rear offside wing and clipped in a big arc to the front of the rain gutter. Occasionally it became unclipped, and whipped around quite dangerously!

I also had fake sheepskin seat covers, topped with matching front headrests that slipped over the seat backs. Weird! One evening whilst parked up in a multi storey car park whilst I was at a night club, I returned to the Herald to find that someone had got into it, stolen the seat covers, headrests, and radio aerial and then locked it again! They left all the 8 track tapes and the £3 / £4 in loose change in the tray on top of the tunnel. Thieves with bad taste I think!

Around now, for reasons lost in the mysteries of time, the girlfriend / fiancée became the ex girlfriend / fiancée. Her mother never did like me! To celebrate my new found single status, 4 mates and I set off for Minehead in the Herald for a weeks jolly holidaying at a caravan park.

Around halfway through the week, as we were cresting a rather steep hill, we came to a sudden and immediate stop. Opening the front end of the Herald we were met with a pool of oil on the road, and a con rod sticking out of the side of the block! Curses! At the bottom of the hill we spotted a traditional garage / petrol station so we jumped back into the Herald and coasted into the forecourt.

The sympathetic owner allowed us to push the car round the back into his compound, on condition that unless we removed it within a month he’d scrap it for spares. We got a bus back to the caravan park, finished our weeks holiday, and went home on the train.

The following weekend, my long suffering Dad and I drove down to Minehead in his GT6. It had a towbar fitted to move his speedboat around, so with an AA approved tow rope we proceeded to tow the Herald back home, me sat in it and concentrating 101% on braking and turning. I was completely exhausted by the time we got safely home.

Then one particularly rainy evening, on my way home from the pub, I went into a sharp right hand bend far too fast, and made the classic Herald mistake of lifting off the throttle half way round. The rear end inevitably spun round, and the car left the road, spinning sideways down a grassy bank until a large oak tree stopped it by getting in the way of the front nearside wheel.

Fortunately I was shaken but unhurt, and there was no one else around, so I managed to pull the dented wing off the still inflated tyre, got back in and somehow managed to drive back up the wet grassy slope onto the road, and nursed the car back home. In the cold light of the following morning, the true extent of the damage became obvious. The bonnet was really damaged beyond repair, so that came off first, to reveal a slightly repositioned front suspension unit, and a decidedly redesigned steering rack.

Still don’t know how I got it home that night! Fortunately I had a mate who had a 1600 Vitesse bonnet going spare, but it was in blue. And I got a second hand steering rack from a scrappies, although I had to remove it from the donor car myself. Those were the days of proper scrap yards!

I took the steering rack, wrapped in old newspapers, home on the bus, to many odd looks! Having rebuilt the Herald, I flatted the blue Vitesse bonnet and managed to press the rather useful paint spraying uncle into action again. But this time he also provided the Conifer Green paint!
​
By now I’d had enough of the Herald, especially as it had never really been my choice, but that of the now ex girlfriend. So it was duly sold, and replaced with …………….. a red Morris Mini Minor!
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A brief history of the cars of my life - 1 - Mini

8/6/2017

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by Jim Lodder
A long time ago, in a city far away, this 17 year old had just spent 4 days in hospital after coming off his motor scooter (Italian, so not to be identified here) on his way to the school 6th Form. Not my fault by the way, although the scooter was a write off.

So the parents agree that he will be safer with four wheels, plus his car driving test is imminent. Having had to resort to the bus to get to school, which admittedly was considerably easier in those days; just walk to the bus stop and wait for the next one to arrive; I used to come home every afternoon, turn the corner into our road, and hope that there would be a nice shiny Mini Cooper S parked outside our house, bought for me by my generous caring father! (He was actually neither of those things, but that’s another story). 

Having passed my test first time, the nice Co-op insurance man (who else remembers the insurance man calling each week to collect premium instalments?) explained patiently that there was no way on I’d get cover on a Cooper S, why didn’t I aim lower and get a basic 850cc Mini? Sensible chap!

So trawling the classified ads in the evening paper – Thursday was the car ads night – I found a 12 year old Morris Mini Minor in beige with a brown roof – registration 659 BOM. Several previous owners but seemed to be in reasonable condition, and £135, which was the equivalent of around 10 weeks of my wages at the time.

Of course, back then a 12 year old Mini was just an old car. Now of course, realising that “then” was 1971, that 12 year old Mini was an early 1959 model complete with floor mounted starter, dog leg gear stick and floor mounted dip switch. Worth a small fortune now, but sadly I suspect long gone to the great scrapyard in the sky.

​Shortly after getting the Mini several mates and I came back from the Racing Motor Show with lots and lots of stickers – Castrol, STP, Esso, Duckhams etc etc which I proceeded to cover the Mini with! I thought it looked really cool; my manager at the bank where I worked was less impressed and asked me to park it out of sight of our customers.
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Apologies for the "glamour model" - that's me looking cool in 1971!
Over the next year or so 659 BOM (affectionately known as “The Bomb”) provided regular service with only the occasional breakdown, usually during heavy rain. Anyone who’s had an early Mini will understand why!

Then one day, on the way to the girlfriend's house, I lost all gears except reverse. The nice AA man towed me home, and at the weekend my Dad took his brand new Triumph GT6 Mk 3 out of the garage (it only usually came out at the weekends) and we pushed the Mini in backwards. To cut to the chase, bonnet off, front subframe unbolted, we lifted the front of the Mini and pushed the body to the back of the garage. Engine and box separated, we rebuilt the gearbox on the garage floor over many long evenings and weekends with guidance from the Haynes manual.

Whilst sitting on the garage floor with the ‘box at my feet, I began to ponder tidying up The Bomb. So off came all the stickers and the paint was flatted (mostly to get rid of all the adhesive residues). Now at that time I had an uncle who worked at Standard Triumph as a paint sprayer, whilst my dad worked at Massey Ferguson as a maintenance electrician. So when The Bomb finally hit the road once more, it was now Tractor Red with a matt black bonnet and boodlid (and a few new stickers!)

Sometime later I added a black vinyl roof, bought as a kit from the girlfriends mother’s Kays catalogue at 50p a week! I used to spend every Saturday morning at the local scrappies, climbing through the wrecks looking for anything I could add to the Mini. I got lucky one time with a newly arrived Mk2 Jaguar and along with the switch panel I took most of the gauges as well. These I fitted to a plywood dash panel in the Mini along with other toggle switches, most of which did nothing! I also fell lucky when someone I worked with at the bank, who also had a Mini, offered me a set of five reverse rim Mini Cooper S wheels that just needed a repaint. For free!!
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The Mini provided a further year or so of fun transport, including holidays to Wales and Cornwall (that journey used to take over 12 hours!) The girlfriend and I slept in it on a Welsh beach once, did “other” things in it (it is possible in a Mini, but only if you’re young and flexible) and generally had good times with The Bomb.

However, the girlfriend decided one day that “we” needed something bigger (she didn’t drive) following our recent new status as “engaged”, so the Mini was sold and I bought a C reg Herald Estate in Conifer Green with a white stripe. But more on that next time!
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2. "That's Living Alright"

16/4/2017

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by Nick Arthur
​So after the brutal demise of of my first love, my faithful pale blue MK 2 Cortina, or just plain DWB as it had become known, I was left as a 19 year old with a pushbike, a kinda homemade push bike , not much cash and a poorly paid job. 
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Things got better, I got promoted to Fork Lift Truck driver, then Supervisor then full time delivery driver. Don't under-estimate the pride of being a full time driver - even if it was a derated class 3 . A professional driver.

I would take out 4 ton deliveries on the back of a very tired old Bedford as new drivers weren't allowed anywhere near the sparkling new Bedford TK's. Mine was a very faded red massively high mileage abused wreck of thing that was just waiting to be traded in or sold off .

​It had nothing in the cab, no radio, no creature comforts- it would just about make 50 mph flat out. It had a tail gate and canvas flap for access to the load. It had air brakes and a sitty up driving position that felt like you were sitting on the rusting cow bars on the front . 
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It wasn't an easy beast to work with. No side doors, so everything got loaded and unloaded by hand. No pallets on and off as it had wooden floor boards and couldn't take the weight of a pallet truck and a fully loaded pallet without splitting the floor. Tell tale holes showed me where other had tried before me! Those holes proved useful if you were caught short and a long way from a W.C, if you follow my thinking.

I loved this old red truck. We had a couple of years covering 1000's of miles. We new the streets of most North West towns. No sat nav then, just a box of Ato Z's and a Collins road map. I loved my Bedford, can't just recall the full reg- FED was the starting point.
​
During this year I saved enough money for another car. A maroon 1500 avenger. Much more modern in looks than my mk2 cortina. I'd love a mk 2 now, but back then it was considered very boxey after the shapely mk1 and the American looking mk3 - went back to being boxes in mk4 times

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I contemplated putting a "Starsky and Hutch" stripe on my Hillman Avenger but my friends reminded me that this was early 1980's Warrington, not downtown Manhattan. I settled for black louvres on the back window, mud flaps that said 'dirty mean and nasty ' on them and sheepskin seat covers.

​The car regularly jumped out of third gear, but that wasn't an issue to a boy racer. My maroon Avenger gleamed when polished. The black vinyl interior came up a treat. It was dark inside with those louvres. Black on black - my very own voodoo lounge!
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Eventually I got to drive the New Bedford TK at work. It had sliding loading doors , a radio and a heater that worked. Oh yes, I was no longer the newbie. I was sad to see my old truck getting sold to the gypsies. Not sad cos they were getting it, just sad that in a strange way we'd become attached ! In its latter days I'd wired a cassette player into it and put a speaker in the box. Earth Wind and Fire booming out of the back, that's living alright !

Anyway I got a shiny new big red Bedford TK. Essentially I was nearly cool again (albeit still ginger) and I got to pick my deliveries.  I also got to drive the managers' cars when emergency runs out were required. They had Marinas, all mustard yellow in colour.

The boss had a Wolsey Ambassador wedge in red , with black vinyl roof - It was top spec, fully loaded. It was different to the Austin variant. This beauty would do over 100 mph on the Widnes to Speke by- pass - sorry Mr Turner! I'd never driven a car that had velour seats and smelled brand new. A proper privilege that of course as a 21 year old was seriously abused!
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​They promoted me to warehouse manager, but they laughed at me asking for a company van. The status quo remained, then it dawned on me- to get a company car, you had to be a salesman.Salesmen had mustard marinas - One day I would have a mustard marina !!

There was a whole hierarchy that I wasn't previously aware of that would come to really matter.

​Some had Marina coupes, some had 4 doors and some had a better spec. Not just old and new like vans and trucks. Like I was used to The senior had more add ons than the junior. You could tell rank of the man by the car, it was a whole new world!

The salesmen came to work later than me, went home earlier, earned stacks of wonga, they worked in clean smart clothes while I had second-hand light blue overalls. They had mustard marinas and just signed for their fuel - an epiphany moment. "I will be a salesman", I decided - what could possibly go wrong?

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TALES OF A GREASE MONKEY - part 4

16/3/2017

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by John Simpson
Moving on a few years, about 1970, and the introduction of the Citroen GS. The first models were equipped with a flat four cylinder air cooled of 1015cc and were fitted with cambelts, something of a novelty! They were a lovely little car and fitted nicely in the middle of the Citroen range of vehicles, selling for just over £1000 they proved very popular.
​
I remember working on a GS, I was going to change the front inboard brake pads and reached into the car to start it up and put the suspension on full height, they were hydro-pneumatic like the DS, but the customer had left it in gear and the car started off across the workshop with me hanging on to the 'B' post trying to stall it before it ran into the wall, which I managed, phew!!

Also I can't be the only one to have drained the oil out of a car and refilled it without putting the sump plug back, messy!!
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Citroen GS
One of my jobs was cleaning out the pit, which used to flood regularly, and it was common for the rest of the lads to put the pit boards back and drive a car over, trapping me, we used to get up to all sorts of tricks, bolting tool boxes to the bench, making and throwing water bombs and setting fire to rags mechanics used have in there boiler suit pockets, don't try this at home, it's very silly and dangerous, especial if the rag had petrol on it!!!

1974 and the first Citroen CX's arrive in the country, a totally different car to the DS and I always thought a backwards step, the early ones had an enormous steering wheel and no power steering, they also got through front brake pads at an alarming rate! I went on a technical course for the CX at Citroen's British headquarters in Slough and with other trainees we were able to lift the body off a CX in 20mins, never did it again at work.
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Citroen CX
Going back to when I bought my first car, around 1972 when I was 19 years old, it was a 1966 Vauxhall Victor 101 Estate, it was a bit rough and ready, but I went miles in it, a special fitment was a mattress in the back, say no more!
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Also about this time I started racing a Ford Anglia 105E on the grass, I used to buy the shells from the local scrapyard for £15 each, but I had to remove the interior, glass, fuel tank and engine, but I could keep the gearbox.
The engine I used was from a Ford Consul Classic, 1340cc with modified head and Weber carburettor, off a Citroen DS, the crankshaft was a hollow cast assemble not suitable for high revs, but I regularly used to take it to 7000rpm and it lasted several seasons. It was fun for a few years but I met my future wife so it had to stop!!
​
Next time, the Citroen dealership loses its franchise and turns Japanese!!
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TALES OF A GREASE MONKEY - part 3

1/3/2017

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by John Simpson
After I'd been employed for a while, and gained a bit of confidence, my boss, Mr 'R', gave me first big job to do on my own - ​strip a V8 engine out of a Plymouth Fury. ​This was something I could get stuck into, learning all the while. Suffice to say that another mechanic, Dougie, reassembled it!
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Plymouth Fury
By this time I'd got my own tools which consisted of Britool A/F, Metric & Whitworth ring & open ended spanners, screwdrivers, pliers, hammer etc., in a barn type tool box, how much did it cost? The princely sum of £19 11s! A bit different to my toolbox today, full of Snap On tools, worth about £10,000!!

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Reliant Regal
A job I remember working on a Reliant Regal, changing the brake master cylinder, which is located under the vehicle, similar to a Morris Minor. It was over the pit with the front wheel on two pit boards and me working underneath, I needed to get at the brake pipe union, so without thinking pushed the car forward, crash bang wallop! You've guessed, the front had dropped down the pit causing slight damage to the fibre glass body!! Another telling off!!

While working on a Citroen Dyane I had an embarrassing moment. It was stood outside the workshop doors, gently ticking over. I opened the bonnet and revved it up, panic it lurched forward pinning me against the doors, I shouted for help and it caused much amusement with my work mates.

​Some Dyanes were available fitted with a 'Trafficlutch', which was a second centrifugal clutch much like a lawn mower, which enabled you to drive in traffic without depressing the clutch when stationary, so I'd left the car idling in gear and when I revved it lurched forward!!
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Citroen Dyane
Baitstrand of Kirton - that was the name of the garage I was working at - were well respected in Citroen circles and we used to get cars from all over the country coming in for their annual service, which took a full day to complete.

We also had a lot of customers from the RAF (there are a lot of RAF bases in Lincolnshire) with their DS's which most had purchased in Germany. I got to meet some very interesting people.
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The Apollo Story - Part 2

21/2/2017

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by Tony "Tosh" Brooks
  • “Apollo” The 1969 Rover P5b Coupe 3500cc V8 Auto Camper
  •  Registration Number MBF 132H
  •  Owners/restorers: Tony “Tosh“ & Alison Brooks, Garry “Gus” Brooks.
  •  Special thanks along the way to family helpers Tim Brooks, Claire, Carl & Tim Wilson, Julie & Mike Brooks, Kurt Lawrence.
If you read Part 1, that was the good bit!
 
As we got going and came to the first roundabout, I seriously thought the thing was going to turn over, the steering was that vague and the weight on the back wallowing about so badly that I thought all four tyres must be flat. When we finally found a petrol station, we filled up and checked the tyre pressures, and to my dismay they were about what we thought they should be, which meant it wasn’t go to get any better, all the way home!!
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Apollo with a dodgy-looking gang during "Carry on Crich"
After going for a couple of hours or so on the motorways at what seemed like a fair pace but turned out to be only 30 mph, I could take no more. I had pins and needles in my hands, my face was wet and freezing and my stress levels were through the roof. I honestly thought if I carried on I would have a heart attack.

The car seemed to want to throw me into every ditch on every camber in the road, and started to wander across all three lanes as soon as I lost concentration for a second. I couldn’t take either hand off the wheel, otherwise I found myself over correcting the sway, and taking out any passing vehicle or road sign that got in the way! How on earth the old boy who owned it used to do the London to Brighton Rally I’ll never know, he must have had nerves of steel!!
 
I forgot to mention - it’s three speed automatic, which set off fine in first, but had no second gear, so it would scream it’s nuts off until finally finding third and then settle into motion. But as soon as you slowed down to stop it would not tick over and cut out - then take forever to re-start, so I had to keep it running at all cost! Great fun!
 
So we pulled over at a service station and my brother kindly offered to take over the driving seat for the rest of the journey home. He thought I was exaggerating, but soon found out that something major had to be done to make this a safe and roadworthy car.
 
I’d like to say my wife Alison was pleased to see me when I got back, but we were so late, and I’d just spent £3500 on an old banger that she wasn’t expecting, that she was actually a bit “miffed”!
 
The next morning didn’t get much better. When we had a chance to look round the car properly, we realised it was a lot worse than “just a bit rough round the edges”. Although it only had two doors, two wings, a bonnet, and half a roof, every panel had holes and rough repairs that would need to be addressed. The engine was running as rough a pig, the gearbox was shot, the sills and floor were rotten, (despite it having 6 months mot!)

The cab interior was manky, with split seats, ripped headlining and door cards, rotten carpets, cracked and rotted wood dash and door tops, perished rubber seals, no door seals, rotten fur flex etc, and that was before even looking at the camper side of things!
 
Really the only saving grace with the car so far was that the chrome bright work was in really good shape, nice and straight with very little pitting. This probably gave the initial impression that the car was better looking than it really was - and the fact that it was white, which is a very forgiving colour, fooled us into thinking it would be easy!
 
So we were at the point where we had a choice to either scrap it, break it up and probably lose most of our money, or go for it and carryout a full restoration job. I know which choice my wife would have preferred, but my brother and I, who still loved the car decided to go for it!
 
Alison asked me what we were going to call it, and is it a he or a she? After giving it some thought, and discussing several options, we decided it had to be a “He” - it was too big and brash to be a “She”. I then thought about his build year being 1969, the same year as Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, and the NASA Lunar Lander vehicle being called the Lunar Rover. So there really was only one option, he had to be called “Apollo”!
 
That then gave us a theme for the interior. It was going to be as far away from the sort of interior people would expect to see as we could possibly get. There was going to be no flowers and twee Kath Kidson type décor for Apollo! But it would be many months before we started fitting glittery wall paper, carpets and worktops!

Next time - the restoration begins
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The Apollo Story - Part 1

20/2/2017

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by Tony "Tosh" Brooks
  • “Apollo” The 1969 Rover P5b Coupe 3500cc V8 Auto Camper
  •  Registration Number MBF 132H
  •  Owners/restorers: Tony “Tosh“ & Alison Brooks, Garry “Gus” Brooks.
  • Special thanks along the way to family helpers Tim Brooks, Claire, Carl & Tim Wilson, Julie & Mike Brooks, Kurt Lawrence.
So it all began on the 28th  of March 2015 at the Classic & Restoration Show at the NEC Birmingham, when myself, (Tosh), my elder brother Gus & his daughter Julie, my daughters husband Carl & his dad Tim, and our friend Paul, went for a great day out together. We had no intention of bringing anything home - little did I know there was a Silverstone Auction on at the show that day!
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Apollo at the group's Crich meet in 2016
I saw this very unusual looking Rover P5 with a camper type conversion on the back of it lurking in the corner of the auction area. On closer inspection, and after reading the write up, I saw it had no reserve, and decided there and then that I had to have it!
 
My wife and I have been converting panel vans to campers for the last few years, and my brother Gus is a top mechanic, so I knew from the start that we could make this into something special.
 
Unfortunately the camper was the very last lot to go through the auction, so I had a long but very enjoyable wait wandering around the show before my “dream machine” would be up for bidding! I drove everyone mad, going on and on about this camper, and everyone thought I was joking about actually buying it, (including my wife Alison, who I’d phoned to tell her about it), but I was deadly serious.

​The bidding started slow and I actually thought I was going to get it for £500, but someone else must have had the same idea as me and a bidding war ensued, which neither of us wanted to lose! It was back and forth at £100 increments until the other guy caved in at £3100. With the fees I paid just over £3500 for it, but it was mine!!
 
Once I’d won it, I was discussing what to do with it with my brother Gus, and we decided to go halves and restore it between us. It looked ok from a distance but was very rough round the edges and the interior was horrible, damp and old fashioned.
 
It had a current mot, was taxed, and I had insurance to drive it, so we decided to take it home that very evening, although that meant us waiting around until the show had closed before the organisers would allow us to remove the vehicle. By the time we got out it was pitch black, raining and blowing a gale outside, and the thought of driving this strange car 80 miles home filled me with fear, but little did I know exactly HOW much fear, or should I say blind terror, the journey home would bring!!

The drivers window was down and there was no handle on it, so I couldn’t wind it up. The wipers - once I managed to find the switch - were worse than useless, and did absolutely nothing to clear the torrential rain from the misted up windscreen (because I couldn’t find the blower, or it didn’t work!).
​
The headlights were like using a bicycle lamp, and the interior dash lights were non existent. There’s obviously no rear view mirror and the wing mirrors were so small and badly set, that I had no idea what was behind me either.

So all in all I was getting soaking wet, I couldn’t see further than two feet in front or behind me, I had no clue where I was heading and the fuel gauge was on empty, in a 3.5ltr petrol automatic - and that was the good bit! 

Next time - getting Apollo home.

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Tales of a grease monkey (Part 2)

15/2/2017

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by John Simpson
I was 15 years old when I started work. My first wage was £2.16s (£2.80!) per week - the labour rate was 19s (95p) per hour. Unbelievable, but true.
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Every morning I would sweep the workshop floor before being given another task. One such job was greasing the wheel bearings on Mr R's boat trailer, a straightforward enough but messy job. He used to keep his boat in the back of the showroom; a Parker 505 I think it was.

Eventually I was 'allocated' to a mechanic, Mick who was about 25 years old. He taught me a lot in my first year. My job usually involved changing oil and greasing. I remember one incident when greasing a Citroen DS using a power greaser, the customer was watching me working when the gun slipped off the nipple and hit him, covering his jacket and trousers! Whoops - another telling off!!

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It was quite common for customers to come into the workshop (Health and Safety?) and watch us working on their cars. This is something that's missing today, because we'd build up a good rapport with our customers and it helped to talk to them to find exactly what their problems were. Today’s service receptionists don't understand and are unable to communicate it to the technicians.

In 1969 I was signed up to a 4 year apprenticeship and I started day release at my local technical college. Now I wasn't the best student at school, but excelled at college due to being interested in the subject. Once a month my boss used to quiz me about what I'd learned. He expected a lot but when I got my exam results his expectations were realised with me gaining distinctions in my exams and gaining my City & Guilds certificates.

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​We were a Citroen main dealer, selling new and used Citroens, one of my messy jobs was removing the wax off new cars using a rag soaked in petrol - no steam cleaners back then - it was a terrible job.

After a while as well as dewaxing new cars I was allowed to help with pre delivery inspections. This involved well, checking everything really, all nuts, bolts etc. As well as fitting seat belts, number plates and radios, fitting roof mounted radios aerials to the Citroen GS's involved removing the windscreen! Doing a P.D.I. correctly could take all day!

Keep looking, more to come.

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TALES OF A GREASE MONKEY (part 1)

14/2/2017

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by John Simpson
It all kicked off on Monday 16th September 1968 - a date firmly embedded in my memory -when a young, naïve 15 year old boy turned up for his first day of work at his local garage, (whisper this!) a Citroen dealer!
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Standard 8
I was wearing a white boiler suit, which caused much amusement and leg pulling by the other mechanics.

Anyway down to business; my very first job in the trade that was to become my way of life for the next 49 years at least (still on the spanners!) was to get a Standard 8 started.  It had broken down on the forecourt at the weekend; the boss, Geoffrey Rennoldson was a fearsome but fair man. He handed me a socket and told me to remove the spark plugs and clean them.

I duly did as instructed, refitted them and went and told Mr 'R' (that's what staff called the boss) it was done. He came to the car and tried to start it but no luck. He tried again, again no luck.

Mr 'R' came round the front of the car to look under the bonnet and wasn't happy with what he saw. "You haven't fitted the plug leads boy!!" he exclaimed.  I replied " Sorry Sir, I didn't know which way round they went!". Anyway with the leads fitted, the car started. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the day was spent with a broom sweeping the workshop floor!
​
More tales from my life in the motor trade when I can remember them!

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Cars No. 4 & 5

2/1/2017

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by Mark Smith
The Morris 1100 Traveller stuck in my mind as a result of its idiosyncrasies. Given the spectacle it make as it bounced over the campsite field in Norfolk with smoke erupting from every orifice and the engine sounding like thunder as I waited for the exhaust pipe to vibrate its self back into the remains of the broken bell-end, I am sure there are still people in East Anglia suffering trauma to this day. This car eventually went the way of its predecessors and met its end in the local scrap car dealer’s crusher.  ​
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I am sure there are many of us that remember our past cars as a result of the experiences we had with them but we do not always remember them in the order in which we owned them.

So it is with me. I could have sworn that the Morris was car number three but after my last Blog offering was published, I remembered to my horror that this was not actually true. Car number three was actually a Triumph 1300 front wheel drive. From the reader’s perspective, this makes no difference at all of course as the events described did actually happen, just not in the order I had assumed. Describing these events out of chronological order will not have affected how much activation your ‘tickle bone’ as Ken Dodd describes it, was activated. You will not suddenly be thinking ‘I should not have laughed so much as the fool told the tale in the wrong order and I must now re-read it and laugh less’ for instance. However, put yourself in my position; I have had a memory lapse. I have had a Senior Moment. In essence, my brain has become muddled.

What’s more I have to face the truth of the matter which is……I’m getting old! Oh it’s no good being patronising and saying ‘It doesn’t matter….could happen to any of us.’ You see, it does matter! It’s perfectly normal to forget your anniversary, the wife’s birthday (in my case that’s a double whammy as they’re both on the same day), or even the birthdays of your children….but to forget the order in which you owned your cars, well that is SERIOUS!

So we will move on. We will forget car number three was actually car number four and car number four was actually car number three and talk about car number three as if it was car number four. Car number five, you will be pleased to know, is actually playing itself in this narrative so no confusion there…I hope.

Right then, car number four, the Triumph 1300 Front Wheel Drive. This in itself is confusing because for all these years I have been telling people ‘I once owned a Triumph Toledo 1300 front wheel drive, the one with the rubber doughnuts’ only to discover recently that in fact it wasn’t. The Toledo was rear wheel drive. So my car was just a Triumph 1300…..with front wheel drive and rubber doughnuts. One thing I am absolutely positive about though, is that it was maroon. ‘Does that make a difference?’ I hear you ask. Well, to you no, but to me it makes the world of difference, it means I have remembered something that was correct! And that is a good feeling.

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I purchased this car as I did with many of my heaps, though an advert in the local paper. This was convenient as I knew I would never have to travel too far to look at it which made life easier as the reason I was looking for another car in the first place, was because the last one was now residing in the local scrap dealer’s yard.

​In fairness to the Triumph, despite its high mileage, it wasn’t that bad. The paint was knackered which saved me lots of time as there was no point in polishing the thing but mechanically, it was not that bad. Of course it did suffer from the usual Achilles Heel on these cars - perished rubber doughnuts. So these had to be changed. I purchased new ones and talked a friend into helping me change them one Saturday morning. After all, difficult could it be? Well very actually!

Oh, if you have access to a workshop lift, I should think it is reasonably easy but we were attempting the job with the passenger side of the car on the pavement and the drivers side on a scissor jack laying on the road on our backs under the car! Health & Safety ?  What’s that! I recall it was a real struggle but we did eventually complete the job. Beyond that, the car never really gave me any trouble…until it eventually died. It used a bit of oil but then all my cars did and in any case it was a heck of a lot less than the Morris had done so a good result all round.
 
During the time I owned the Triumph, my friend had just passed his driving test and purchased a lovely Triumph 1500 in white. It was a stunning car and reliable too. We joined the local branch of Club Triumph and attended their monthly meetings at the Enfield Golf Club.  We would take it in turns to drive so one of us could have a couple of pints. The evenings would usually involve some rally films or a quiz and a raffle. The first meeting we attended, one of my raffle tickets was drawn out of the hat. Brilliant I thought! OK, it was the last one drawn so the prize was not going to be great but hey, my ticket was drawn out and I never win anything! It turns out I didn’t this time either. I joined the queue to collect my prize and by the time I got to the front I saw that the table was strangely empty. ‘Sorry’ I was told, ‘We drew out one too many tickets’!
 
During our time as Club Triumph members we attended a few Auto Test’s, even acted as minor Marshall’s at one. We never took part in any actual events as my friends felt his car was too good to risk damaging and mine was too rubbish to risk damaging….especially as we needed to drive home in them afterwards! It also became clear that many members didn’t actually compete in their road car. Most it seemed, had stripped-out Minis that they towed on an A frame behind their car. It seems you could tow another car behind on an A frame and it would be classed as a trailer as long as it was under a certain weight, hence the stripping out of any unnecessary weight. This usually meant that there was only the shell, driver’s seat, engine and transmission left. We did see one young woman who competed in her Spitfire and was extremely good at it too but we just felt it was too much of a risk for us to attempt it.
 
 One summer our Branch of Club Triumph had made arrangements with one of the West Country Branches to have an inter-Club Auto Test competition. The venue was to be on the Plymouth Hoe. My friend and I decided to go down and watch. We went in his 1500 as it was too risky in my 1300. We took a tent to sleep in but couldn’t get a campsite on the Plymouth side of the Tamar so ended up on the Cornish side. This allowed us to make an evening visit to Polperro on our first night which was very enjoyable.

​On another evening, we headed on to the Moors and found a high spot to park up. Back in the late 70’s, CB Radio was the in thing. Of course, people had been using the American AM system for years (not me I hasten to add) but by the late 70’s the Government had legalized a British FM system. This one was not as good as the AM one I am led to believe as its broadcasting distance was quite limited and in a built up area, you would be lucky to reach someone in the next street!

However, I had bought a set and we set it up in my friend’s car. My friend was an apprentice electronics engineer with the BBC (he worked on a number of the Top of the Pops recordings of the period) so he thought we should find the highest spot in the area and see how far we could reach. Due to the height and the openness, we thought 10 to 20 miles would be possible. Imagine our surprise when we picked up someone in Scotland! The signal was weak but we were able to confirm his position and he was just as surprised to know he was talking to someone in Cornwall!
 
We were very lucky with the weather, the sun shone for the three or four days we were down there. We went on the Friday and travelled home on the Monday I think. Anyway, on the Sunday morning, the day of the Plymouth Auto Test, we were woken about 5:30am by the sound of a motorcycle engine. It went on and on and was getting very annoying. We imagined it must belong to one of the other groups camping near by.

​We opened the tent door to see what on earth they were playing at and were surprised to see that it wasn’t a motorcycle after all, it was a huge blower being used to inflate a Hot Air Balloon prior to igniting the burners! We decide to get up and watch them launch the balloon, which was very exciting.

​Once the balloon was airborne, the rest of their group took to their cars to follow it and prepare for the landing. They all arrived back around breakfast time. We set off for the Auto Test just after they arrived back and when we returned at the end of the day, they had broken camp and left. 
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I kept the 1300 for a couple of years but eventually it went the same way as all my cars at that time. It seemed to be that I was the last of the line for all these vehicles! I left Club Triumph after the car had gone as I felt there was little chance of me ever having another. In fact I did get another…..around forty years later! I now own a Dolomite 1850HL and a member of Club Triumph once again. As I explained at the start of this Blog, things have got a bit muddled and the Triumph was actually car number three, followed by the Morris 1100 Traveller and then car number five, a Ford Cortina Mk1 1500GT.
 
The Cortina belonged to a rather fierce woman I worked with. She had owned the car for many years. It was red with the cream flash down the side but had never had a proper wash in all the years she had owned it so the paint was very grimy. The car only had 55,000 miles on the clock.

Beth was not a car person, it was just a mode of transport, wheels to get her to work. Her husband didn’t drive and so also had no interest in cars. As I said, Beth was a fierce woman, scared the life out of me for sure! At the time she owned the car, Starsky and Hutch was THE programme to watch on telly.

One day Beth was sat in her car at a set of traffic lights and a couple of lads pulled up next to her. Being the type of person she was, she would not be intimidated by anyone so she sat there blipping her throttle. One of the lads wound down the passenger window and shouted across to her, ‘Who do you think you are…..Starsky’s mother?’

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Anyway, one evening on her way home from work, someone rear-ended her as she waited to pull out from a junction. Her husband said the car was not worth repairing and insisted he would get her another car. She didn’t want the bother of finding a replacement car but he insisted so she had to sell the Cortina. I said I was interested and she sold it to me for £55!

​When I had a closer look at the car, the only damage was to the driver-side rear wing where the light cluster sat. The light was undamaged but there was a crease in the metal. My friend with the Triumph 1500 and I spent a Saturday morning stripping the light assembly off, bending out the metal as best as we could, applied a bit of filler, repainted the area and refitted the light assembly and unless you knew, you would not have known it had ever been damaged. The car was then washed and T-cutted before being polished and looked brilliant!

​I kept the car for a few years and loved it. The son of another woman I worked with eventually said he wanted to buy the car off me if I decided to sell it. Looking to buy my first really good car from a dealer, I found a lovely Ford Escort Mk1 1300 Saloon in red. It was a gorgeous car. I took my father to look at it with me and he thought it was nice too so I raised the £650 to buy it and sold the Cortina to the lady’s son. He had not long passed his test; a price was agreed….and he wrote the car off within two weeks by wrapping it around a lamp post. He was unhurt luckily but I was devastated, the car was already rare back then, just think how rare it is today and what it would now be worth. To the lad, it was just an old banger and didn’t matter. 

 
I don’t have any tales to tell about my time with the Cortina but I loved it and in hindsight, should have saved my money and kept it, but the Escort was the newest car I had ever owned (it was on an ‘L’ plate) and it was a beauty.

​How strange it is that back then, all I wanted was a newer car, a ‘better’ car and today I would rather have an older car, a car from the 1970’s or earlier, a car that most people still think of as poorly built and yet both my Lada 2101 and my Triumph Dolomite 1850HL have what a modern car lacks….soul.
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1955 Humber Super Snipe

11/12/2016

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by Brett Richardson
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The car we speak of in hushed tones.
​I'm not sure when I first bought this car but the above selected photograph was taken in 1984. I think my mother may have taken this photo as I'm sure that's me in the background.
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When I first fell in love with this car it was for sale in one of the towns rougher areas and it's image would have been right at home there. It was a very pale shade of yellow with some patches of brown thrown in so that it wasn't totally invisible. I just fell in love with the stretch of the bonnet in front of you and the Snipe perched on the bonnet like the 'Sword of Excalibur' ready to pierce the hearts of heathens, that dared to step from the footpaths of Dunedin into your path.

One of the high points as far as i was concerned was the 8 foot aerial (or at least I think it was) that was attached to the side of it. It was important that it be fully extended, not to increase the joy of the music or it's quality, but only for the cool factor. I had interesting ideas then as now, to what cool actually means, as anyone who saw me wearing my 'rasta hat' recently would attest.

I piloted this car carefully around the roads until the boredom of owning something so wonderful got to me and it was time to pass it on. Who would buy this once proud beast? Well, as it turned out, pretty much no-one. Not one to be beaten I decided it had reached the end of the road and was only fit for the tip. Off I went.

​The plan was to remove the wheels as they had new tyres on them and just leave it there. I was in the process of taking the wheels off when along came a knight in shining armour to save the car from this ignominious fate. Better known as Alan Davis he offered me a small sum of money and duly drove it away.
This car served Alan and his family very well for quite a while and received a nice shiny paint job under his care. They had wonderful holidays in it but eventually he too tired of the old girl. I don't recall quite how I heard of its sale but suspect it may have been an ad in the local rag. I trotted out to see it, fell in love, and of course being the car loving mug I am, bought it back and at no surprise to those that know me, at a much greater cost than I'd sold it. Prouder than ever as this green colour made it look a million dollars I once more proceeded to drive this car around.
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If you recall the heading you'll see 'the car we speak of in hushed tones'. How come you ask? Well it just so happens that during my second tenure with this car my brother decided to get married to his first wife, Roslyn, or at least I think that's how it's spelt. We dare not mention that this occasion ever occurred but there's photographic evidence as produced below. I'm the handsome male that is not getting married. It would be many years before I made the same mistake (just kidding!).
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Anyway, time being what it is, ambled by until once more my love waned and the car was up 'For Sale' once more. This time we did find a willing buyer and once more it was adieu. The car went off to have many exciting adventures as a staff car for the 'Waitati Militia' which was once one of Dunedins great warring factions. Toilet roll swords and water cannon and lots of riotous fun followed and then I lost sight of the old girl. I caught odd glimpses over the years until eventually the trail went cold.

Long years passed then I went off to the old 'Seacliff Asylum' when they had an open day. There I spotted a car very similar to my old one, took some shots and thought nothing more of it.
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A year or two later I went up there with a group of car guys and this time i took a little more notice of it. I walked around the back of it and instantly recognised the number plate. I then had a look under the front bumper and saw that it was still painted yellow.

​Sure enough, it was my old love, back from the dead, well not quite, as I couldn't afford to do anything about it, but I know it's housed and warm for the time being and I'd love to see someone restore it. It's sat here for about 15 years after being rescued from a paddock.

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An Englishman Abroad (and Mabel!)

3/11/2016

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by Graham Hemsley
Some of you may have read my previous blog that covered my accident in France in 2014 in Mabel, my 1960 Riley 1.5 and how that summer was a non-starter in terms of motoring around in France.

Thankfully, that is all behind me now albeit it's still a painful memory and my back still bears the scars......not that I can see them but if my wife says they're still there then that's good enough for me.
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So fast forward a couple of years and I thought I'd just put a few words together on how Mabel and I get along out here in France.
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Just by way of background, we're fortunate enough to have a small cottage just outside the village of St Mathieu in the Haute Vienne department of the Limousin region. We're a stones throw from both the Dordogne and Charente departments and we're classified as being in the South West of France albeit in the northernmost part.

Mabel is unceremoniously dragged down on the back of the trailer (the fun starts getting her up there) in May when I leave Bristol and is then taken back in October. Why not drive her down I hear people ask. Quite simply, I need a day-to-day car to do day-to-day “things”. Not sure Mabel would cope with being loaded to the roof with “stuff” to go to the dechetterie (the tip) and other chores.

Also, we go out quite a bit in the evening and as my wife is 99% teetotal she provides the taxi service and doesn't really like or want to drive Mabel. Hey, means I can indulge so I'm not complaining. But yes, I do go to the shops, vide greniers (boot fairs but so much better), friends houses like I would in the UK.
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Back in England I use Mabel as much as I can between October and May and in the UK it's not uncommon to see classic vehicles out and about during the week. Out here in France however it does seem that unless you're going on a dedicated drive or to a show then classic cars are seldom seen. I could be wrong about that but can only talk from experience in our area.

As a result of being out and about and not on an official run or whatever and being a British car that few French people have seen or heard of, heads often turn when I pass by. Occasionally, in supermarket or builders merchants car parks people will come up and ask what it is. Oh a Reeeleee they say and seem genuinely pleased to see her.

There's quite a few Brits in the area where we are based and as in the UK I get the comments that I always get back home......”my father/uncle/relative of some description had one of those”. And as I do in the UK, I then say “I'd like a £1 for everyone that has said that”. Nothing different there.

Classic vehicle shows are a bit different out here though. I'm loosely connected with a car club called the “Rétromobile du Périgord Vert”. I say loosely as I attend a few of their events but do not pay the annual fee. That seems to solely fund the end of year meal and as I'm not there for that they seem quite happy for me to tag along. Most of the events are not their own events but larger organised events that we pitch up to.

Being France, food is inevitably high on the agenda. It's quite often the case that a meal is provided for the driver by the event organisers but any passengers have to pay whatever the going rate. Also, an aperitif is sometimes provided. As I never, ever drink and drive I am looked on quite oddly at times when I just ask for water.
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On the other hand the club are going to an event after I've gone back to the UK and where they've decided to go for a meal, presumably in a restaurant as it's €35 a head for car and passengers! Now it would need to be a very good meal to justify that outlay.

Even if I were here I'd not pay that as without knowledge of which restaurant we were going to and what was on the menu (I eat anything but Julie, my wife, doesn't) it could be a serious waste of money. So the free meal will do me even if it is just melon for starters, sausage and chips for mains, a piece of cheese and a yoghurt for pud. That'll do for me.
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On the day of an event we meet at the President's house. Now, that's not the President of France but the President of the car club which is about 20 mins from where we're based.. We then go off in a convoy to the event picking up members en route. Once at the event, it's then quite usual to go on a balade. That is a trip round the local area for as many or as few of the classic car owners that want to.
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On a recent trip (Mabel was back in her barn in disgrace after deciding to leak copious amounts of petrol from the carbs) I went to a friend's house – he has a 1960s Volvo Amazon in superb condition and with around 28,000 kms on the clock from new.  I'd like to say and show pictures of other Rileys but I've yet to see another out here.

Anyhow, after a 90 minute drive from the President's house with about 10 cars from the club, we
pitched up at what clearly wasn't the event but a holding area for about 100 cars. The balade then commenced – all 100 or so cars fronted my a Model T Ford and other ancients. This time we were accompanied by motorcycle riders who went ahead at breakneck speed to block roads and turnings so that all 100 or so cars could serenely pass by. What the locals and other drivers on the local roads thought I have no idea. I just kept thinking about what would happen back in the UK and the reactions that might occur. Road rage could well be the order of the day.
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Anyhow after a couple of hours (remember we'd already driven 90 minutes to get there) and going down minor roads and quite a few rough, rutted tracks that managed to cause a bit of damage to a few cars and a diversion through a horse-racing track (yes, we wondered about that as well) we arrived at a château. Ah good, the show I thought. But no. This was just a stop for aperitifs – cue wine and pineau (google it – it's lovely) being served. Not sure why, but here were adults dressed as pixies, elves and fairies there as well. All very surreal.
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We then depart in the, by now, searing heat to the show. This was only a few minutes down the road but took ages owing to the crowds as it was a Vide Grenier (boot fair only way, way better) and car show combined. Searing temperatures meant rising car temperatures and the Volvo was so, so close to over-heating. However, we got there..........parked up and went for lunch. As I was a passenger it was €12. Food was only OK.
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Once lunch had finished we wandered around the Vide Grenier and as it was so hot very few people were looking at the stalls let alone the cars so off we went home for the 90 minute drive back after being there for around about 90 mins. I'll not be going to that one again and neither will the club.
 
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Back to the Mabel and her naughtiness – this is where I hand my head in shame – loose banjo bolt at the rear of the carb. A quick tighten up and all would have been OK........well actually it wouldn't as Mabel doesn't like the heat and temperature gauge rises and I'm sure I'd have been on the side of the road waiting for her to cool down. That's something to look into over the winter when we're back in Brizzel. The radiator is clearly past it's best so that may need to be re-cored and a good back flush is probably in order as well.
 
On the whole it's great driving around in France as the roads are so empty we often wonder if we've missed a Road Closed sign.
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My French misadventure 

21/9/2016

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by Graham Hemsley
"Aaarrgghh", I cried out - or most probably something less polite along with the aarrgghh.
 
Lying on the side panel of the passenger side front door of Mabel (my 1960 MK 1 Riley 1.5) and realising I was in a ditch with my back, leg and fingers in a great deal of pain, I realised things could have been a lot worse. No, really they could have been. I count myself fortunate that apart from the scars to my back that my wife Julie reckons will be there forever, I’m here to tell this sorry tale.
1960 MK1 Riley 1.5
Mabel, "dans le ditch"
We’re fortunate to have a cottage down in the Haute Vienne department of the Limousin region in France and the day before I’d pulled Mabel down there on the back of a trailer. Longish drive from Bristol to our hamlet but no problems whatsoever experienced. Couldn’t have gone better in fact. Got her off the trailer the night before and went over to see friends for supper and realised on the way back that the rev counter had packed up as had the panel lights but hey, that’s very minor to what happened the following day.
 
There I was on the way to a charity garden party (very British) on a lovely May day in an area that reminds you of the English countryside and looking forward to the strawberries and clotted cream when it happened. A car was coming towards me. I veered to the left. He veered to the left and we missed each other by a gnat’s doodah. He ended up in the middle of the road. I ended up down the ditch. Yes, you’ve probably guessed. For a nano-second, my mind thought I was in the UK and as such driving on the left-hand side of the road…….as was the French driver of French car on the French road coming towards me. I’ve driven thousands of miles all over Europe and beyond with no problems so why then? I’ll never know.
 
I lay there. Nothing was burning. Couldn’t smell petrol so that was, at least, a positive. Ooh ah, my back hurt but I could move so nothing broken. On the basis that the passenger door was wedged tight against the bank of the ditch I managed to haul myself over to the driver’s side door and out on to the road. The owner of the French car was kind and understanding. Not so his wife but then again I had given her one hell of a shock. Once they realised I had a phone and had called the friends who I was due to see at the garden party, they said their “adieus” and “au revoirs” and went on their way.

​I was more than happy that didn’t want to hang around as neither car had hit each other and I guess they wanted to get to the local dechetterie (the tip/recycling centre) before it closed. 
It then struck me that had Julie been in the car (she was still back in Bristol) I would have crushed her and hospitalised her, if not worse. However, had she been there she would have pointed out in no uncertain terms that I was driving on the wrong side of the road so bloody well get back over. On balance though I’m glad she wasn’t there as I’d rather have a damaged car and ego than a damaged wife. The car is just a bit of metal that can be repaired. I also became a convert in having seat belts fitted in an instant but more of that later.
 
Phone calls were made and Gerald and Anthony (who I was going to see along with their wives) came out from the garden party as quick as a flash. They took me back to our house and I asked Jerome (our French neighbour) if he would come out with his tractor and haul me out of the ditch. He duly obliged and received a very nice bottle of malt whisky for his trouble.

So, Mabel was now on the side of the road and I was not really conscious of the pains in my back, arms, legs and neck that I would certainly know about the following morning but was more concerned as to what would happen next. A young lad on a bike stopped. French I thought, but no he was English and spoke fluent French as well. He leapt into action and went into our local village and brought out Guy Brandy and his breakdown truck from the local Renault garage that he runs.

Now, having Guy around is a bit of a bonus as he organises a car event for all things old and new in our village each year and so had an interest in seeing a Riley. (Something it transpires he’d never seen before but then why would he?). So, Mabel was unceremoniously dragged up on to the back of his breakdown truck/transporter as given that the passenger side front wheel had a mind of its own, clearly it wasn’t going to get up there under its own steam. Mabel was then taken to Guy’s private workshop along with various Renault Dauphines, old Peugeots and a Land Rover based fire-engine and there she stayed for a few weeks.
 
Didn’t do much the day of the accident (or the next couple of days) as I clearly wasn’t in the right frame of mind or OK physically to do anything. However, the first thing I did even before phoning my friends was to call Julie, tell her what had happened and that I was OK. Her reaction………you’re OK, it’s OK, we’ll get Mabel running again. At the time I honestly wasn’t bothered but later on I’m just so glad she said it.
 
Spent a night in pain at our friends Gerald and his wife Sue’s house as they wouldn’t let me go back to our cottage on my own and for that I’ll be forever grateful. Not sure how I managed to get dressed in the morning and nearly had to call on Sue to help me out and to put my pants and trousers on. Not that she would have but at least it lightened the mood at breakfast…….not that I was all that hungry.
 
Right, what to do next as there were clearly both mechanical and bodywork issues to be addressed. Not having appropriate tools or even decent facilities in which to work meant trying to find someone who knew and understood the vagaries of old cars. As luck would have it I had previously hooked up with a local Google Group in our area where people advertise events, items for sale and services etc. Sometime before a chap (Paul Richfield) had advertised on there to say he had had a lifetime of working on vintage and classic cars and I had saved his details.
 
These read as follows.
 
“In 1961, Paul had his first vintage car. Too young to drive, many hours were spent on
stripping and rebuilding in time for his licence. This was followed by the usual Austin 7, Riley Specials and many others. Eventually turning to full time restoration he was a partner of Fergus Engineering, Lincs, working on such cars as Hispano Suiza, Bugatti, Bentley, Mercedes, Maserati etc.
 
Head hunted to look after a private collection on the Mediterranean coast, has spent the last 40 years maintaining European-American and English Classic cars. During the last 12 months has repaired cars ranging from a 1932 Cadillac V12 to a 1960 Morris commercial van.”

 
Sounds like he could be chap I need so contact was made and so glad that I did. He’s an interesting chap and has an historical association with pre-war Rileys but more of that later.
 
Paul came over in his beat up Peugeot 205, conversed in fluent French with Guy Brandy and it was agreed that on a temporary basis he could work on the car in Guy’s private workshop. What this in reality meant was arranging for some sort of wheel arrangement to be made that would allow Mabel to get up on the back of my own trailer and be transported over to Paul’s place for suspension and brake rebuilds to take place.
 
Various attempts were made and finally a Renault 5 wheel was adapted by Paul and held in place, how I’ll never know, but at least we finally made the back of the trailer after only once having the steering collapse in the main road before going up on the trailer. Mabel was then taken over to Paul’s workshop for the next stage to take place. The reason for the new smaller wheel was that the original assembly and lower suspension arms had been bent back so far that the original wheel was fouling the wheel arch.
 
Here’s Paul’s summary of the works that took place.
 
“After removing front left hand wheel the following damage could be ascertained.
The two lower arms of the suspension were badly bent towards the rear of the car. The arm connecting the shock absorber to the top links of the swivel pin was also deformed. In addition, the rubbers holding the tie bar to the chassis fixings had been torn away and the bar was now unsupported.


The main elements were provided by a specialist suspension components supplier and the Riley Motor Club in the UK. Sundry small fixings, lubricants, grease etc. were provided from stock. The chassis fixing (Eyebolt – lower arm to body [No. 62]) was not damaged and no deformation of the chassis could be seen in this area. Nor could any damage be found in the mountings of the shock absorber. There was also an electrical problem caused by the shock of the impact.

The car was supported and wheels removed – the following works were carried out on the L/H side of the car only:
  • Brake drum and hub removed
  • Hydraulic system disconnected, back plate and brakes removed, track rod end disconnected, front arm unbolted from inner and outer pivot arms and rear arm, tie bar disconnected.
  • Torsion bar disconnected at rear chassis mounting
  • Rear arm disconnected from our pivot pin, torsion bar freed from seized up mounting in chassis and drives to the rear of the car. This allowed the rear arm to be removed after cleaning up splines
  • Shock absorber arm disconnected from upper limb, protective panel removed from bulkhead and still with damaged arm in place removed via the engine compartment
  • Damaged arm removed from shock absorber body. Rear adjustment of torsion bar disconnected (seized up) stripped down, repaired, reassembled and bar painted with Hammerite
  • New suspension elements were rebuilt on to the chassis with all new fixings etc. and body height adjusted and brakes bled
  • Rocker box removed and breather pipe re-soldered in position.
  • Non-starting electrical problems traced to battery cables and bad earth of solenoid
  • New and second hand units for the Front Suspension Components used to repair accident damage
  • A lever arm from an serviceable shock absorber was also used."
​
I now had a working car but now needed to get the bodywork attended to, as since re-locating to the area in which we have our cottage, Paul no longer has the room or facilities to undertake this work. Shame, as I’m sure he’d have made a fantastic job.
 
As I mentioned I’m a member of a local Google Group down in France so I put out a call for recommendations for someone who could work on old British cars and understood the needs of classic cars which, let’s face it, are different to the cars of today.
 
Various suggestions were received and we narrowed it down to just a few although for logistical reasons I was favouring a chap (Franck) who was only about 20 minutes or so from us. Paul and I visited him and with Paul seeing what was going on, his facilities and looking at the quality of his work it was agreed he could do the necessary.

​There being repaired was a Porsche, Jaguar XJS and a couple of piles of rust which turned out to be a pair of Mustangs being rebuilt. The chap (Franck) was clearly very good at his craft and had a passion for getting it just right. Sort of chap that wouldn’t let a job leave his premises less than perfect as it may affect the reputation he was building for himself.

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Some of the other cars in Franck's workshop when we arrived
So, it was agreed that on 1st September, Mabel would be delivered and he would get on with it. No point in trying to get anything done in France in August as the whole country just seems to shut down.

Now parts were required other than what Franck might do with new metal as the front panel, wing and bumper were beyond repair. OK, they probably could have been repaired but the labour costs associated in trying to get these into an acceptable condition was going to be greater than replacement parts. These would also be stronger than my damaged rusty versions.
 
A replacement front wing came from a fellow Riley 1.5 owner along with a bumper and good old eBay came up with as good a second-hand front panel as you’re likely to find. The front panel was sent by post and arrived in first-class condition.
 
The front wing and bumper were taken by my friend to a Riley Motor Club council meeting (along with various parts from Riley Motor Club Spares) in Kenilworth and brought back to the Bath area which isn't that far from where I live by the of chair West of England Centre for the Riley Motor Club. Now, how to get these to France?

​Again, I put a note out on the previously mentioned Google group and eventually it came to pass that a chap living not far from where the parts had been taken to i.e. the Bath area and who is renovating a property very close to ours in France would bring them out. Not sure what the locals thought of a couple of chaps swapping bodywork parts from one car to another in the car park at Limoges airport but it didn’t seem to matter.
 
Franck had said it would take about three weeks (I guessed this would run into four weeks) and so I popped back from time to time to monitor progress……….the problem was apart from moving position in the body shop, not a lot seemed to be happening.

It all came down to a language issue and a communication breakdown but Mabel was eventually ready and looking so much better than she ever had been since I’d taken ownership of her. The trouble is she wasn’t going to be ready until after we were due to come back to the UK for the winter. My wife had to hastily arrange a flight back to the UK for work and I rearranged our sailing.
 
The upshot was that I’d crashed Mabel within 24 hours of arriving in France and she was ready to take back two days before the rearranged sailing. That wasn’t quite what had been planned before taking Mabel on her French adventure.
 
Now, there’s a few people I need to thank……
 
My friend for supplying the wing and bumper, the local area chairperson for fetching and carrying and especially to the chap running the Riley Motor Club spares who contributed greatly in getting parts that were on the parts list and some that were not out to France speedily in order for Paul to carry out the mechanical repairs. Paul and the chap from Club Spares were on good speaking terms by the end of this saga and the number of emails that were going backwards and forwards between all of us was quite a sizeable number. .
 
More on Paul Richfield - and this will appeal to pre-war owners and enthusiasts in particular. I mentioned he had owned a pre-war Riley………well this happened to be the Cuthbert Special which I understand to be a famous model and which came up for sale recently through the Historics at Brooklands auction but didn’t sell as the reserve wasn’t met. I think he’s still kicking himself as to why he didn’t keep it but it was a long time ago that he sold it. I’m sure that if anyone is compiling data on pre-war specials that Paul could provide additional information. If so please get in touch and I’ll see what can be arranged.
 
Seat-belts……..if they had been fitted my body might well have been less damaged than it was. For instance, when I was thrown from the right to the left I managed to shear off the door handle with my back. That's ¼ inch steel by the way. Yes, much pain and huge blue, green and orange bruises followed. Seat belts have now been fitted to Mabel. I couldn’t give a jot about their not being “period” and that the originality of the car has been devalued. For me, safety is vitally important and who knows it might not be me that is the idiot next time, it could be some other idiot and I’m not prepared to take that risk. Yes, I’ve heard all the stories about if I’d being wearing seat belts then this and that wouldn’t have happened. However, they do save lives and I consider mine worth saving.
 
Lastly, I know that if I were reading this I’d be asking myself…..”How much did all this cost?” I know that as I’ve kept a log of all direct and indirect expenditure and it’s………well, I’m the only one who knows the cost and that’s how it’s going to stay!
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Cars 3 & 4

11/9/2016

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by Mark Smith
​I shall bundle cars three and four together. There is a good reason for this…I can remember little about car three! This is very strange but I have thought about car three until my brain hurts and still I cannot summon up that much information about it. I do recall that it was a Triumph Toledo.

​I can’t remember how I found this car, where or who I bought the car from or what happened to it but I’m guessing (based on previous history, that it was scrapped). I can recall that it was maroon and had a 1300cc engine that drove the front wheels. I seem to recall that the body was not in too bad condition but beyond that, nearly all other memories have disappeared in the mist of time. There is one thing that I do recall though and that was changing the rubber drive couplings on the front half-shafts.
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These cars were one of the few that Triumph produced with front wheel drive. However, instead of using universal joints, they had opted for rubber doughnut couplings of the same sort as used on the Lotus Elan. These couplings were fine when the car was new but as a car aged and as a result of the stress they endured, they had a habit of splitting. Those fitted to my car were holding on by a thread. I ordered a new set and decided to change them myself.

​This is a fiddly job at the best of times, but the problem was made worse by the fact that I had to swap them at the side of the road and on a jack. I managed it after a struggle and the car lasted me for a couple of years. It also brought me into contact with Club Triumph for the first time and a friend and I used to attend some of the Auto Tests held around the country, as spectators not competitors!
 
As I said, I cannot remember buying the car or how it met it’s end but its replacement is an entirely different matter! Being car-less yet again and desperate for wheels, I saw an advert in the local paper for a Morris 1100 Traveller and discovered it actually belonged to a chap at the other end of our road who I vaguely knew, so I gave him a ring.

​He explained that I was welcome to come and have a look at the car but don’t expect too much! I was at the stage where as long as the car started and moved under its own steam and was cheap, it was the one for me so I paid the seller a visit. ‘Traveller’ was a rather posh title for what was a rather slab-sided grey and non-descript old banger. 
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The car started and it did actually move; these were its good points. The bad points were that it seemed to burn oil a bit and the hydraulic rams that should have stopped the rear door falling on the back of the neck anytime anyone attempted to put anything in the car just didn’t work but hey, it moved under it’s own steam so I bought it for the £150 asking price. I say it burned a little oil, I was soon to find out that it was a bit worse than that!

​The A series engine as used in the Mini was a great little engine but when it was bored out to give more power for the 1100 range, it had an Achilles Heel in the form of value stem guides that wore quite badly as the engine aged. My car had been around the clock. The valve guides had not just worn, I think they had dissolved! When the car had been used and once the engine was hot and everything had expanded, the oil that was left on the rockers would drain down the valve stem guides and go to sleep on the top of the pistons.

​The first I knew of the problem was the first morning I started the car from cold. Some of the people that live around where I live now complain about the smoke created by the steam engines on the Great Central Railway as they pass the back fence of their homes. Compared to a cold start of my Morris 1100, these people don’t know they’re born. I have never seen smoke like it before or since! In those days I was working as Postman in Harrow and had to be in the Sorting Office by 6am. This was a good thing as there were very few people about at that time of the day. I would start the car and by the time I reached the bottom of our road (which was about a quarter of a mile long) I couldn’t see the top end! James Bond would have been pleased to have had a smoke screen like this car could produce!
 
Petrol wise, the car was actually surprisingly economical. I am not exactly sure how many miles to the gallon the car did but it did about as many to a gallon of oil! OK, that may be a slight exaggeration but I think it would be safe to suggest it did use a pint of oil to the equivalent miles per gallon of petrol. This oil problem also had another side effect; the engine would actually run OK when the car was being driven but once I arrived home and turned the key to the off position, the situation was very different. I could get out the car, lock the door, let myself in the house and make a cuppa and the ruddy engine would still be chugging away, the over-run was that bad!
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All of this led to another failing that these cars were prone to. The engines of course were transverse which meant that the exhaust manifold was at the back of the engine in the middle of the bulkhead. The exhaust pipe then dropped down low enough to then run under the car to exit under the rear bumper. Where the pipe bent, it had a support clip that bolted to the gearbox.

The banging and thumping as the engine rocked back and forth on the over-run, put added strain on the exhaust pipe that in turn put even greater pressure on the union between the pipe and the manifold causing the bell-end to snap off the top of the pipe. This was such a big problem with aging 1100’s that someone produced a replacement bell-end on a short piece of pipe that was made to be flexible. The original exhaust pipe would just slip inside the new fitting. I am not sure if the pipe was supposed to be welded to this adaptor but it wasn’t in the one I ended up fitting. But that was in the future.

In the meantime, I persevered with a broken bell-end. This meant that when I started the car in the morning, the exhaust pipe would jump slightly out of line with the remains of the bell-end that was still attached to the manifold. This of course increased the noise of the engine but I found that by the time I reached the bottom of our road, the pipe had realigned its self and all was well…for a while. As the problem got worse, I found that the bracket holding the bend at the bottom of the exhaust pipe to the gearbox, would work loose and the pipe would drop. The solution to this was to get under the car, loosen the bracket some more, shove the pipe back into place and re-tighten the bracket and all would be well again…for a while.
 
Life carried on in this fashion quite happily. I saw no point in forking out for a new exhaust as it wouldn’t last very long and having the head of the engine rebuilt was financially out of the question. Anyway, the car drove quite well once under way and clambering underneath approximately once a week was no big deal to a lad of nineteen or twenty. I never had to go too far in the car anyway so if I did get a major breakdown, I could always walk home or get a bus.

​And then one day, two friends decided we were going on a fishing holiday in Norfolk. We were to camp but they decided they wanted to go on their motorbikes; one of them had a Triumph and the other a Norton. As I was not a motorbike-ist, I was to go in the 1100 and take the bulk of the gear, including the fishing tackle. They would go up the day before and just take their tents and basic needs that could be fitted on the bikes.

​We were to camp on a site in the grounds of a pub on the edge of Ormsby Broad. Despite the fact that I was under no time pressure to get there the following day, it was still going to be a fair old trek in a car that was, if not on its last legs, certainly on borrowed time. Surprisingly, the knackered old Morris completed the journey in both directions without breaking down once! However, that was not the whole story.
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Once I arrived at the site and found the other two, I set up my tent and unloaded the gear before the three of us headed for the pub. The next day was spent doing a bit of sightseeing using the 1100 so by the next day I needed to fill up with petrol. I checked the oil level and discovered that it was low, in fact it was so low that it barely registered on the bottom of the dipstick, let alone reached the “Minimum” mark. I set off to the local filling station with the usual problem but by the time I reached the edge of the camping field, the uneven ground had assisted the resetting of the exhaust pipe and all was well. I filled up with fuel and oil and headed off for an uneventful day.
 
The next morning things were a lot different! Topping up the oil had resulted in there being much more floating around in the rocker box when the car had been parked up the night before. This in turn led to far more draining into the cylinders, which in turn led to far more smoke being generated on start up and the usual jumping out of position of the exhaust pipe.

Now, picture the scene; it was a warm sunny morning, I had both door windows wound down and the ground was uneven. I started up the car and straight away the exhaust pipe parted company with the bell-end on the manifold. This instantly drew looks of displeasure from other campers and caravanners due to the sudden noise shattering their tranquil breakfast and causing them to choke on their bacon butties.

I should have been conscious of their displeasure but was in fact oblivious to it as I was instantly enveloped in a thick cloud of acrid bluish black smoke as the oil in the cylinders mixed with the ignited fuel from the carburetors! In order to mitigate the situation and stop the racket blasting out from under the bonnet, I slipped the gear stick into first gear and let out the clutch.

The car leaped forward, much to the horror of my fellow campers who didn’t know whether to sit still and hope for the best or grab their bacon butties and run. As the 1100 picked up speed and kangaroo’ d across the field, the resultant up-draught forced some of the smoke up through the air vents and out the open door windows, the rest being blown under the car and out under the wheel arches. There was now smoke blowing through every orifice and every gap around every grommet through the dashboard etc and still the exhaust pipe had not re-found its correct position.

As I neared the edge of the field, the exhaust finally jumped back into place, allowing the smoke to regain its correct path through the pipe and out the back and giving me a clear view ahead as the last wisps of smoke exited the car’s cabin. Meanwhile, my two mates who had never seen anything like it before, had collapsed on the ground with tears rolling down their cheeks and never again worried about the small oil leaks their British made motorbikes suffered!
 
After I got home, I read about the bell-end fitting specially developed for aging 1100’s and ordered one.  It made a lot of difference to the exhaust problem and I found that I could reduce the amount of smoke emitted by reducing the amount of oil I put in the engine. As long as I kept the oil level above the “Minimum” mark, all was OK.

​Somehow, I managed to keep that car on the road for about three years before it failed the MOT due to rear sub frame rot, after which it joined my previous ones in the breakers yard.

​Looking back, I think this car gave me more fun than probably any other just because it was SO bad! 
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Misty water-coloured memories - Part 9

9/9/2016

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by Brian Allison
Been a long time since my last blog, so a quick catch up, in fact it might be better if you read the previous one first - you can do that by clicking here.
I've passed my driving test and for the princely sum of 6d (old pence) have become the owner of a non running 1934 Morris 10/4.
 
With the Morris safely in the basement of Trinity garage it was time for me to embark upon my mission to restore it to the road. First job was to determine what exactly was wrong in the rear axle department , so up on stands and under I went to turn the prop-shaft by hand and see what happened. This gave me quite a surprise. I was expecting to find a normal prop-shaft with Universal joint at each end as on every other car I'd worked on.

​Instead, I was amazed to see at each end of the shaft what I later learned were called Layrub couplings. The drawing shows the idea better than I can describe it. The idea's the same but instead of strengthened rubber with bushes, the ones on the 10/4 was made from rubberised fabric similar to that you would find in a conveyer belt but about 3/4 of an inch thick with mounting bushes riveted in place to it.

​The rear of the gearbox and the nose of the diff., plus each end of the propshaft were fitted with a three legged spider instead of the normal flat flange. Anyone familiar with the Hillman Imp or later Triumph Herald/ Vitesse/GT6 Rotoflex drive shaft couplings will immediately know the type of thing I mean. Turning the propshaft had no effect whatsoever  at the rear axle, so off came the wheels, closely followed by the half shafts and finally out came the diff. to reveal one completely sheared tooth on the crown wheel, proving David's diagnosis was indeed correct.
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I was under no illusion that I could just pop along to Mitchell Bros (the local Morris agent) and get the parts I needed, so set about making all the measurements I could think of in the hope of finding some other diff or even complete axle that I could make fit. the next job was to trawl around the local scrapyards in the hope of finding a axle that might fit, whilst praying that if I did find one, that I could afford to buy it.
 
Was I a lucky boy! The first yard I tried was probably the oldest one in the area and as such had pile upon pile of parts that had been stripped from cars of all ages. When I asked about a diff I was directed to a pretty large shed and told that if they did have one it would be in there.

One corner of the shed had a vast pile of diffs for me to sort through, and joy upon joy within half an hour I spotted a very familiar looking spider attached to a very familiar diff, all of which appeared to be in perfect nick. Fairy Godfather David had done it again, now I just had to pay for it. The owner must have been feeling generous and I walked away a mere £2-10s (£2.50) poorer.

Apart from fitting the new diff the only thing I found to do was the rear hub oil seals which were leaking slightly but had not contaminated the brake shoes. I did have one fright however when I was checking the lights. I had the headlights on main beam, and when I flicked the dip switch I heard a loud clang as if something had fallen off. It was the dipping mechanism. When you dipped the lights the offside one went out and the reflector in the nearside one was moved by an electromagnet, it was this mechanism I'd heard.
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The MOT test had just recently been brought in which meant because the Morris was over 10 yrs. old I needed a test certificate for it. No problem, Eric said, Trinity was a testing station so one of the lads could do the test free, although he did say that they would not pass it unless it was fit for use. In the event I needn't have worried; it sailed through.

The next hurdle was tax and insurance. Again I was blessed. Clarry, one of the stores men worked in the evening as a salesman for a local used car dealer and said he would fix me up that evening after work. This he did giving me a cover note for a month in exchange for a £5-00 deposit. Funny thing is whenever I enquired about the actual policy he always said "It's in progress", then he'd give me another cover note. This went on for the whole time I owned the Morris.

The road tax was, if I remember correctly, about £15 for the year, more than the total cost of the car, repairs and insurance, some things never change, the government were a set of robbing b..... even then, but I didn't care, I was MOBILE!. OK, it was 8 yrs. older than I was, with nearly 140,000 miles on the clock, built by people who thought heaters were for wimps, and had this reddish patch on the nearside rear corner of the roof where the undercoat showed through due to over enthusiastic polishing but to me, even now, she was beautiful.

​The ash framed body was as solid as the day she was built and the doors shut with the same sound you used to get with the old railway carriage doors, more a click than thud, and not a rattle anywhere. And being a bit of a forward sort of old girl she even had hydraulic brakes. And like today's cars she had a multi-function steering wheel. On the wheel boss you had, the horn button, ignition advance lever, and the dip switch. And full flow ventilation. Open the rear window and the windscreen and there you are.
At the same time all this was going on , again due to David, I'd been persuaded to take part in a panto at the youth club. This was my first foray into amateur dramatics and I found I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that along with carol I joined a group who staged a production every 3 months. After the last night of each production the older members of the group took it in turn to host a party, the first of which we attended taught me a lesson which probably saved me a lot of grief and which I've never forgotten.

The party was at a house about 5 miles out of town and was very enjoyable indeed, so much so that it was about 4 o'clock in the morning when we left. Carol lived virtually exactly on the other side of town which meant a run of about 7 or 8 miles to take her home, no problem in my trusty conveyance. On the way we realised that if we parked in a lay-by we had a fabulous view of the ICI works, so we decided to stop for a while and admire the view.

After about an hour or so of serious "sight seeing" we got back on the road, only to find when we arrived at Carol's that her mother had waited up for her. I expected the worst, but far from going berserk her mother thanked me for getting her home safely, and, "Would you like some breakfast". Silly question. So after bacon and eggs I finally wound my way towards my bed, but before then I had to put Betsy away. The garage I had actually belonged to a friends uncle but wasn't being used. It was basically a wooden shed, inside it was wide enough to allow plenty of room around the car but the door in one end  was only just wide enough to fit Betsy through with about 4 inches either side. I had three attempts to drive in, hitting the door frame each time, and eventually decided to leave her outside. DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. A valuable lesson learned.
 
I ran Betsy for the best part of a year, by which time her drinking along with the smoke screen was getting to be a serious problem. I tried but there was no chance I was going to be lucky enough to find another engine the way I had a diff, and I certainly couldn't afford to overhaul the engine. Frank, who manned the petrol pumps had often expressed an interest in Betsy and when I was telling him my tale of woe again offered to buy her, promising that he'd get the engine done and keep her on the road.

​He paid me £25 for her and true to his word employed Willie, one of the younger apprentices to do the work, again in the basement. After a rebore and new pistons she was soon to be seen parked in the corner of the forecourt. I almost wept every time I saw her but within a matter of days I'd bought a Triumph Renown, another non-runner, or more correctly, it ran, erratically. "I've changed the plugs and points and fitted a new condenser, checked the coil and it still won't run right", a quick look and for £20 I had a Renown. One distributor cap later and I was in business.
 
Betsy meanwhile hadn't fared so well. Within a matter of weeks she threw a con rod. I don't think Frank ever spoke to Willie again, and Betsy was consigned to the scrap yard.
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Triumph Renown
A sad postscript to Betsy's tale came about a year later. I was in a scrapyard in Bradford looking for parts for my mates Fordson van when I came across a complete engine in a corner. "That was done up and never fitted, been there for years".

​If only I'd known in time.         
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Car Number 2

6/9/2016

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by Mark Smith
LadaMark - not wearing a yellow bowler hat!

​It was sad to stand and watch the hydraulic claws of the grab-arm on the scrapyard recovery truck as they pierced the windows of the Morris 1000 and lifted it unceremoniously onto the back of the truck. It had been my first car and had done its job of ferrying me around very well over the last 10 months or so after I had passed my Driving Test. 

We had enjoyed some fun moments like the time I had taken part in a Pike fishing competition as the guest of some friends at an old gravel pit. The service track around the lake was rough to say the least and after the heavy rain of the previous week, it was impossible to see where the potholes in the surface were. As a consequence, when we eventually finished at the lake, I discovered that the Morris had no brakes! The linings of all four drum brakes were soaked through. The drive home was ‘interesting’ to say the least and it took a few days for the linings to dry out.
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And then there was the time during that previous winter when we had a significant amount of snow that then froze solid and lasted for best part of a week. The Morris handled the conditions very well but it was hardly a powerful motor. However, on the second day of the winter conditions, my preferred parking place at work was taken and I was forced to park in one of the turnings around the corner.

​I worked at a domestic appliance store in the old Pinner High Street at the time and was forced to park in Grange Gardens, a turning in front of the lovely Pinner church that is situated at the top end of the Elizabethan High Street. The problem though, was that the gutter areas were covered with frozen ruts. I couldn’t actually drive the car tight enough to the kerb to park it and had to get out and slide it in by pushing on the passenger side until it would go no further. Getting it out at home time was even more of a problem.

​I had hoped the cars in front would have moved and I could then drive it out but sadly they were still there, blocking my way out. I tried to push it out but I was working against the camber so it wouldn’t shift. As I stood contemplating my next move and whether I would have to catch a bus home, a gentleman came around the corner and offered to help. Between us we pushed the car far enough out to allow me to drive it home.
 
Well, it had gone now and I was left with the prospect of finding another car. Eventually, I saw a Sunbeam Rapier MKIV in our local paper and decided to go and have a look at it. ​
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Stock photo of a Rapier MkIV
The Sunbeam was a great looking car with a wooden dashboard full of dials and pillar-less front doors. The rear side windows could be wound down into the bodywork and with the front windows downs, it left the whole side open which was great on the odd hot summer day.

​Of course I knew nothing of any of this at the time, I had been attracted by the £95 price tag! When I saw the car I thought ‘this is the one for me’ and bought it there and then despite the fact that it came with four slick tyres that were so bald the canvass was clearly visible in places! Four remould tyres sorted that problem and I was ready for the open road again.

​A friend came to have a look at it and spotted a spot of rust on the top surface of the passenger side indicator / sidelight pod. The indicators and sidelights were mounted on the front of a pod fitted to the body just below the headlights. I think this spoilt the lines of the car. In my opinion the lights should have been fitted flush to the body and I can only imagine the designer had had one too many G & T’s one lunchtime and thought this was a good idea ta the time. Anyway, my friend was not content with pointing out this rust bubble and insisted on investigating further by thrusting a digit into the area. Now I had a hole! Out with the plastic padding and spay can of British Racing Green paint and I was ready for the road…again.

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Not Mark's actual Rapier - Ed
The car drove very well and didn’t use any oil despite the high mileage and the cabin was a lovely place to be. The wooden dashboard was in great condition and the dials all worked. The seats were very comfortable if a little worn and it was like driving around in a gentleman club on wheels.

​Before I passed my Test, my father was the only one in the family that drove and had never owned a car that was anything like the Rapier so polished wood was a novelty for me. Two of my friends (twin brothers and old school friends who were into custom cars by this time) were quite impressed too and decided that this car would make a great cruising machine.

​In the late 70’s, there was (might still be for all I know) a big cruising scene in London and the two of them along with one of their other friends, decided we should take the Sunbeam on a cruising trip the next weekend. My old and fuddled brain can’t recall the full details of this event but I think it was held on Chelsea bridge on a Saturday evening. Being summer the evenings were nice and light and this particular Saturday was warm too.
 
The other friend was a bit of a twerp, for want of a better and printable term. He had what had once been a rather nice Vauxhall Viva HC in a dark blue but had jacked up the rear end, flared the rear wheel arches and shoved on grotesquely wide chrome slot-meg wheels. He had spent a fortune on the add-on’s and totally upset the geometry of the vehicle to the point that is was plainly dangerous!

He had offered me a ride in this death-trap on a number of occasions, but I had graciously refused citing health reasons…I wanted to live! Anyway, this character went to the cruise in his car and my friends came with me in the Rapier. The evening passed without incident, despite the Police interest in the event. I parked the Rapier somewhere nearby and my friends and I watched the custom cars go by from the safely of the bridge wall. The pillock with the jacked-up Viva joined the cars as they slowly drove over the bridge. After he had finished looking a twit, we all drove home. So ended my brush with the custom car scene of the 1970’s.
Picture
Some standard Vivas
The Mary Rose was eventually lifted from the silt of the Solent in 1982 and was lying under a tent-like structure in Portsmouth Dockyard near to HMS Victory. The Mary Rose Trust were having to keep the remains of the Henry VIII’s flag ship drenched with fresh water to wash out the hundreds of years of soaking in salt water and to stop it drying out and becoming a pile of dust.

It went on public display in October 1983. By then, the girlfriend of my Morris period had dropped by the wayside and another girl was lurking on the horizon. The problem was that she had a boyfriend but he was a radio operator in the Merchant Navy and was away a lot of the time. I got on well with them both and one day he suggested I look after Susan whilst he was away. I thought this a rather odd suggestion but decided I wanted to go and see the Mary Rose on the first Sunday it was on display, so asked Susan if she would like to go with me in the Sunbeam. She readily accepted.

The day turned out to be quite a nice early Autumn day. I picked Susan up and we headed for Portsmouth. This was the first time I had attempted a long journey driving a car of my own since I had passed my test and just hoped the car made it there and back. The car ran very well and despite a long wait, we did get in to see the Mary Rose (they were only letting a few in at a time every hour on the hour). However, I soon discovered why the boyfriend had suggested I ‘look after’ the girl….she didn’t stop talking ALL day! The Chase and Dave song ‘Rabbit’ was written for her!

​Not only did she not stop talking, she was also a fanatical fan of Boy George. Now I have to admit I liked his first hit, but this girl seemed to know more about his life and family than he did himself! It was Boy George from Harrow to Portsmouth. It was Boy George in the queue to see the Mary Rose and it was Boy George all the ruddy way home! By the time I dropped her off, I had the mother of all headaches!  I did the only thing I could…I left her to the boy friend. At least he could get a break and give his ears a rest at sea!
 
The Rapier was a good car and I enjoyed driving it. The only problem I had found was on the yearly family pre-Christmas visit to see two Great Aunts in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Usually my father had driven but on a couple of visits, I offered to drive us in the Sunbeam. The car went well as usual….until we came off the M40 /A40 (the motorway finished before Headington in those days) when something very strange began to happen, the gauges went mad.

As we drove around the ring road to pick up the road to Banbury, we passed some electricity supply cables running along wooden pylons. The gauges in the Rapier had a voltage regulator to smooth out the voltage supply but the magnetic field around the power cables was interfering with the delicate mechanisms of the gauges and the needles in all of them shot across to the far right. Once we had passed the power lines, the needles settled back to their normal positions. This happened every time I drove past those power lines but the first time it happened, it was very disconcerting.
 
 The car gave good service for a number of years but eventually it started to play up. It would start fine but once I had driven around a mile and a half to two miles it would suddenly cut out and would not restart until it had cooled down again. This was very odd because the engine had not overheated. I changed many parts but could never cure the problem so that car had to go.

​Looking back, it was sacrilege to scrap a car like this but money was short and all a car meant to me then was transport - a way to get to work but still, it was sad to stand and watch the hydraulic claws of the grab-arm on the scrapyard recovery truck as they pierced the windows of the Sunbeam Rapier and lifted it unceremoniously onto the back of the truck…..
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