Engine Punk

The Coates Orthoptera just before last year's President's Trial On the 35th Launceston trial earlier this year, many people were frankly amazed by the performance of Roger Ashby in his Coates Orthoptera. It sounded so crisp many of my friends thought it was running a Ford cross-flow engine and it nearly won the event outright. I’d seen the Coates Orthoptera before and, in chatting to Roger in the past, discovered that, although the components are fairly commonplace, they are put together in a very effective manner. The powerplant of the Coates Orthoptera at the Launceston trial featured a single downdraught 1.5" SU. This followed experiments with twin 1.25" SUs and Roger says the car ran a lot better. The Coates Orthoptera is essentially an Austin 7 chassis with a Ford side valve 1172cc engine. This was quite a common combination during the fifties and typically used an E93A engine but the Ford motor in the Coates Orthoptera is a later 100E. These offer many advant...

  The Gregory Special and Cannon of Ian and Nigel Moss The first ever Heritage Trial took place on the 4 th of July this year at Blackmoor Farm, near Woolminstone, south west of Crewkerne in Somerset. This event is intended to tempt out the older types of trials cars that could still give a good showing in ACTC and MCC trials but with a much lower risk of damage. The Alf Foster Special is just the ideal sort of car for this event. Sorry about chopping off the top of your head, Richard but you suddenly stood up straight Recent changes in the trials class structure put the Candidi Provocatores Allard J1 in Class 5 instead of Class 7. This would mean less restarts which are punishing on elderly drivetrains. It would even be in Class 2 if the Allard ran on cross plies but the available treads don’t offer much grip and are expensive. Also, we damaged the Allard’s axle on Warleggan on the John Aley Trial, completely without a restart. Still managed to finish, though - stance! Tony Mar...

As it is today, lovely and clean in a climate controlled garage Ian Headon died in 2018 but I had the good fortune to meet him a couple of times. He was a true enthusiast and created a series of cars that he designed and built himself. On his way to another clean of Blue Hills (Photo : Louise Ransome Headon) The IRH2 is one the of the known survivors in the series and it's returning to competition thanks to the active involvement of Ian's daughter, Louise. Ian gets some air in the IRH2  (Photo : Louise Ransome Headon) I know Louise through the Hillman Imp Club and was interested to hear she shared my interest in trialling. Literally, a few days after our exchange of trialling tales, I stumbled across this photograph in my jumbled up collection.  Louise Ransome Headon piles up some zeds on the 1987 LET I very rarely write on the back of my photos but this occasion I had written Miss L Headon, Ford 1172cc Special .  Talk about serendip...

Nimbus was, and is, low. Note the great scallop cut out of the bonnet to allow hot air from the front mounted radiator to escape. I'm not into personal plates but TOY711 seems quite appropriate. Nimbus is a very low hillclimber built by Don Parker and powered by a supercharged 1293cc Mini engine and gearbox mounted at the back. The bodyshell is a much modified moulding originally intended for a GSM Delta, a rare breed of kit car that came to Blighty from South Africa in 1960. However, Nimbus pre-dates the GSM Delta by some years (nobody is now sure by how many). As built in the fifties, it had aluminium bodywork to clothe its spaceframe chassis and a front mounted Riley engine, which was subsequently replaced by a transverse Ford sidevalve engine. This drove through a Norton gearbox and chain to a rigid rear axle and apparently was a pig to handle. Must've been that rigid rear axle, I guess. Anyway, by the time I saw this curiosity at Prescott Hillclimb in 1984 (incide...