Something for the Weekend?: Twenty Cars in Twenty-Five Years – and Each with a Story

Copyright © 2010 by Alwyn Brice.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[email protected]

300571

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE: Miniature dreams

CHAPTER TWO: Roadworthy

CHAPTER THREE: The French connection

CHAPTER FOUR: Oxford blew

CHAPTER FIVE: Essex toy

CHAPTER SIX: Pretty poly

CHAPTER SEVEN: Ally pally and a seventh heaven

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Metropolitan Line

CHAPTER NINE: Norfolk mustard

CHAPTER TEN: Another French affair

CHAPTER ELEVEN: No more The Prisoner

CHAPTER TWELVE: The Adams family

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: I’m backing Britain!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Back to basics

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Wizard—from Oz

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: 4 x flaw

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Flying lessons

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Historic hybrid

POSTSCRIPT

PREFACE

Why buy a book that charts the buying and selling of an individual’s cars over a span of 25 years?

A good question.

After all, this volume is not only extremely personal, it is all about whim and wisdom (although not in proportional quantity), and the fun and the follies of buying cars that have, in the main, not been mainstream at all. Equally, it’s about chance conversations, odd reminiscences and sometimes downright unfathomable behaviour that has seen the author acquire yet another example of what is colloquially referred to these days as a set of wheels. As his long-suffering wife, Helen, is fond of saying, I’ve pushed most of them at some point.

This book is dedicated, then, to her, along with the thousands of other partners out there who willingly (or otherwise) are sucked into that all-devouring Charybdis that is the world of classic car ownership . . .

For Helen, Charles and Emma

(and their tolerance)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My grateful thanks go to:

Sherilee Clinch and Jason Taylor for the cover design

Tom Sharrad, for the dire task of proofing

Gary & Julie Simpson for Escort memories

Phil Homer of the Standard Motor Club

CHAPTER ONE

Miniature dreams

In the beginning there were no cars at all for the author, himself a product of the baby boom years, who was simply content to play on the carpet with his treasured Matchbox toys, along with a smaller selection of Corgi and Dinky vehicles. These latter were the stuff of Christmases and birthdays, for they were not cheap compared to the 1s (5p in new money) or so that afforded a Lesney product. This continually augmenting fleet was no different from that of any other boy growing up in the late 1950s. And whilst not every hearthrug experience turned its occupant into a car-obsessed collector, I guess that psychiatrists would readily form a link between this early behaviour and that which would manifest itself in later years.

I can’t really recall a defining moment in my life when I realised that cars would be a passion for me. I grew up in Norbury, just outside London, and to be quite frank, there weren’t many cars at all in our terraced street. I never, from memory, saw anything remotely interesting on my daily walk to school (these, remember, were pre-4x4 school drop-off days with mother at the wheel), aside from a dark green MGBGT that was habitually parked near the playground. It was all rather dull, in fact. My sole reference to that big wide world of the motor car was the Observers Book of Cars, the 1965 edition.

I have it still.

An early interest in the automotive world came courtesy of Lesney,

Corgi and Dinky

I was about 10 when we moved to Biggin Hill, in Kent. Since I was approaching the Eleven Plus examination age, somehow my parents managed to keep me on at the London school although I was living in another county. This necessitated a lot of logistical problems that were solved through my father’s car, helpful neighbours and, on many occasions, a bus trip to New Addington followed by the best part of 4 miles on foot. No-one batted an eyelid at such behaviour in those carefree, halcyon days and if nothing else, the frequent exercise built up my leg muscles to a degree that would have been envied by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On the days that I walked over to my father’s place of work in Mitcham, I’d spend time in his office, waiting for him to finish work before taking me home. There I’d draw and play with sundry bits and pieces that his engineering company had turned out. A rather benevolent colleague of his, one Charlie Rose, occasionally brought in an old copy of Motor Sport, which he passed on to me. I don’t think that I ever read much of the content but the pictures were interesting enough, showing scenes from the Monte Carlo Rally and the like. Also of interest were the advertisements for all manner of motoring paraphernalia, notably those of Les Leston. Car-themed cufflinks, string back driving gloves, lapel badges . . . all this fired my imagination.

Shuttling back and forth in the traffic each day in the passenger seat of my father’s Dove Grey Austin Cambridge, seatbelt-free, I quickly came to recognise all the cars on the road; in fact, I could tell any car by its tail-light. Admittedly, there were fewer cars about then but even so, there were myriad varieties when it came to lenses, for we were in that glorious pre-computer age when individuality was a fact of life. It was a red letter day when I saw something out of the ordinary. Again, for some reason, I don’t ever remember anything exotic doing the Croydon rounds but one evening I espied a Bond Equipe, something I’d never seen before, and it took me a while to find out what it was. The I-spy Cars book of the time, a magnet for people like myself, was dutifully filled in although certain vehicles proved highly elusive – in fact, I began to doubt their very existence.

This kind of reading material was to slowly form the habits of my later life

It wasn’t all about tail-lights, though, for if it was, I’m quite sure that by now you’d be putting this book down and reaching for a stiff drink. The 1960s was a decade of change, one of throwing caution to the winds and an escape from the lingering effects of the austerity years. It was also a decade of merchandising, as witnessed by any self-respecting filling station. Petrol giveaways were something foisted on every motorist, whether he or she wanted them or not. There was a time (and still is, for aught I know) when every householder in the land had one or more of those free glass tumblers in his kitchen. It didn’t stop there: decals from Esso, Regent, BP et al were all lapped up. Tiger Tails, Esso oil drop men (and women – for times were liberated), collectors’ cards and even models were all churned out to an increasingly mobile consumer base. For my part, I was desirous of an Esso oilman on a chain and I pestered one my father’s drivers for an example on the rare occasions that he picked me up from school. I never did get that particular memento until much later on in life.

The same year I recall devoting an inordinate amount of time to a drawing of an E-type Jaguar convertible in my school diary. The car had been pictured in the Daily Mirror at that year’s Motor Show and I was captivated by its sleek styling and sheer flambuoyance. I’ve never owned an E-type although I have driven one: it’s the kind of car that remains etched on one’s memory. So it’s interesting to note that my young son, 11 years old at the time of writing, has been a Jaguar devotee for some years—and has an equal admiration for this vehicle.

Around 1964 was the time that I bought my first camera, a simple Hong Kong-made Binaflex product that cost the princely sum of 10s 6d and was made available through collecting some tea tokens from Primo, I think the brand was. My first film, in glorious monochrome, was largely (un)focussed on cars that I saw around the roads of Biggin Hill and included a Triumph Spitfire and a 1950s Lagonda.

Looking back, I guess that the seeds had been sown . . .

CHAPTER TWO

Roadworthy

Between the ages of 11 and 18, my life followed the traditional male adolescent pattern that involved music, females, experimenting with hitherto unknown substances and all manner of other interesting sidelines. I spent a great deal of my time making kits, doubtless a genetic inheritance, since my father had been an engineer and had an acute eye for detail and workmanship. Aircraft, and not cars, were my principal interest during that time although, like all red-blooded males, I had a Scalextric racing car set and devoured periodicals such as Model Cars and the Airfix Magazine. I never got into the scratch-building side of slot cars that was a hobby of some of my contemporaries in the late 1960s, but I did enjoy building car kits and racing slot cars. On the car kit front, I recall buying the Triumph TR4a, the E-type Jaguar (that car again!) and, for some inexplicable reason, a couple of vintage cars plus an American dragster. I’m not sure why I purchased the latter: my interest was really rooted in British cars of the 1960s by then. I found, however, that to build car kits meant that you’d need to be able to spray the bodywork, since hand-painting just didn’t work. As that skill was beyond me, I veered away from cars, preferring instead tanks and soft-skinned vehicles that didn’t require such niceties.

As for the real thing, I began to take more interest in what was on the roads. The odd Sunbeam Alpine and Austin Healey lived locally, but there wasn’t a huge number of what I’d term interesting vehicles. By 11, I was at grammar school in Bromley and I recall my PE teacher buying a new silver-blue Mk1 Ford Capri, which was something a little different at the time. It looked quite sporty but I knew nothing then about the modest 1300cc engine that lay under the bonnet.

A couple of years later we decamped to Buckinghamshire as my father had been obliged to change his job. A new house, a new school and new friends all followed in due course. My mid-teen years were probably a period of fertile growth insofar as cars were concerned: I found other pupils interested in this subject and we’d pore over car magazines (notably Custom Car and Cars and Car Conversions) as well as send off for car company brochures. Cars and Car Conversions was a real oddity at the time since it carried all manner of bizarre stories about mechanical changes and transformations. Readers would write in about the thorny practicalities of mating a certain gearbox to a certain axle whilst others would be seeking the best way to shoehorn a V8 into something like a Hillman Imp. I well recall one complete lunatic who’d somehow acquired a Merlin aero engine and squeezed it into a Rolls Royce. It seemed a mad thing to do back in the 1970s but upon reflection, he was probably only aping those great pre-war racers who used to attend Brooklands in such outlandish confections.

Kit cars were also in vogue at the time; in particular, the Beach Buggy was gaining a following, although this product of California was rather ill at ease when transposed to the likes of Clapham or Clitheroe. Other types of kit were also being offered, many of which were based on VW running gear. For my money, the only one that merited attention was the stunning ADD Nova,