Earliest memories
Earliest memories are of my father working for Jowett Cars Ltd, up to their demise and his subsequent career with Rover Company Ltd. When Jowett folded in 1953, father took a Bradford twin cylinder estate car in lieu of payment and this helped us move house and take me to school in rural Sussex. I eventually learned to drive in it and took my test in Leamington Spa, to where we'd moved. It was always a bit of a handful, with barely enough performance to keep up with 1970s traffic, allied to poor brakes and imprecise steering. Needless to say the whole family loved it, though only I was foolish enough to go long journeys in it in the depths of winter – it had no heater and plenty of gaps around the doors and windows. When a stretch of the M1 opened near Rugby I tried it at 60 mph with no problems though everyone predicted that old cars at lengthy high revs would destroy their bearings.
I had been working as an advertising sales rep on The Autocar as my first proper job after a partial apprenticeship at Rover. The Autocar job soon included a company car which made hunting old cars and trucks in fields, barns and scrapyards a whole lot easier. I started with a 105E Anglia which had horribly harsh suspension unless ballasted with passengers or kerbstones. At 6000 miles its distributor drive sheered and bits fell into the engine, after which I was let loose in an Austin 1100.
This was considerably more comfortable and had far superior handling. I covered 80,000 miles in the Austin and it never put a foot wrong. I was so impressed that when promotion meant that my next car would be a Cortina, I managed to persuade my boss Tim Gold Blyth to let me have a Mini 1275GT instead. This was stolen the very first time I used it in London so I was put back in the 1100 for another six months as punishment (apparently it should have been in a locked garage!). Eventually another 1275GT arrived and, so envious were the family men reps that no one would talk to me! Actually the car was a disappointment compared with the Mini Cooper I had tried, not that I told the reps! What it lacked in snarling performance it made up in torque and flexibility – indeed one night I was heading into London on the M4 at about 60mph when the engine started to race. I thought that it had dropped out of gear or had a slipping clutch but in fact the front wheels were simply spinning on the wet and greasy road.
The old vehicle sleuthing had by then become an obsession and I was head hunted by Old Motor. OK, more like needed my head examining as I took a substantial drop in pay and had to supply my own transport! The Bradford did its bit as did Rover's old Series II works fire engine which after a few years managed to sell for my first ever vehicular profit to an employee of Truck magazine who was heading overland to Australia. He sold it for another profit in Singapore to pay for the next leg. That Land Rover started me on a lifelong love affair with the marque and ten or more different models later I now have a TD5 Disco. The snag with checking out ancient vehicles for Old Motor was that so many were on the brink of destruction that I couldn't wait to get them into print so had to save them myself. At one time I had MG SA, Bean truck, Rover Speed Meteor, Standard Flying 20, Lagonda 2.6, Rover Ten, Hillman Fourteen, BSA Scout, 15 cwt Commer, and more in a barn outside Warwick. The whole lot had set me back under £200 but admittedly a new Mini cost only about £350 at the time.
Daily transport was an immaculate Austin Somerset which I'd acquired from the maker of the long-forgotten Short-Ashby car whose story I'd just chronicled in the magazine. Later, I really did buy a new Mini 850 which eventually got breathed on by Oselli. As a result of my burgeoning collection I got to know enthusiast John Hewitt, who ran a garage at nearby Kineton. I swapped a Riley 9 tourer with him for a 14/45 Talbot and we wondered if there were any others in the area with out peculiar passion. A brief story in the Coventry Evening Telegraph produced another half dozen or so and the start of the Midland Vehicle Preservation Society, which is still going strong today with hundreds of members.
Continue my story into the 70's and 80's.
