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Vintage Thing No.171 - Austin 10 Ripley

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The Austin 10 Ripley. That radiator reminds me of an Austin 7 Grasshopper but chromed or nickel plated This rare survivor of an Austin Ten Ripley Sports appears at shows around the west country following a comprehensive restoration. I had a close look at it at Boconnoc last summer and it especially intrigued me because, years ago, I read about how the great rivals in the UK motoring market place – Austin and Morris – faced each other off with cheap sporty cars. In simplest terms, Austin had the Austin 7 and Morris had Morris Garages. The MG brand included larger sports cars and even saloons but Austin remained happy to let the Austin 7 represent them in the “scurrying kindergarten” the Bentley Boys had to contend with. However, there were little glimmers of sportiness in other parts of the Austin range as represented by the Austin 10 Ripley Sports. The present owner of this particular restored it over a seven-year period after it was recovered from a scrapyard in Callington in the ...
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2026 Land's End Trial

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In the queue for Darracott After the overheating and under bonnet fire on this year’s Exeter Trial, I set out to prevent any of that nonsense happening again. I fitted a new fan switch, a new temp gauge and sender and replaced any dodgy looking hoses. I used generic silicon ones wherever possible but some around the water pump on the Passat engine were bespoke and many branched like baby octopi. Finding the right ones took time and trial and error although I found AI helpful. Parts suppliers want to know my registration number as a starting point. I cut a long story short, I have European Article Numbers for them now, the 13-digit numerical code that accompanies a bar code. I never found out why it overheated on the start line of Waterloo after queueing when the ground was frozen but there you and there it is. I can only assume that wise owl Simon Robson was right. It was one of those things. The rear wheel bearing seals had sprung leaks as well, allowing oil to contaminate the rea...
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Marshalling on local trials (with the Buddha of the re-starts)

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I had a Matchbox model of a VW Fastback. This is the real thing of Tom Coles and Edd Wagner.  Remedial work on the Arkley-MG has taken much longer than I expected but it is now back together and running again. I hope to make the start of the Land’s End Trial at Easter. Experience tells me to keep my expectations low but I remain like that guy in Shakespeare in Love . “Don’t worry. Everything will turn out all right.” In the tranquil mists of the Camel Vale - but wait, what are those cones and markers for? In the meantime, I turned out to marshal on the Bodmin Heights and the Lewdown Trial. My section for the Camel Vale MC’s 2026 Bodmin Heights was Eddy’s Incline on the Eddy’s farm at Pendavey. Eddy’s Branch Line has featured on the classic Land’s End Trial for the last few years but Eddy’s Incline was a straight up blast and turn off the MCC section. Despite the wet winter the conditions were friable and, after a spectacularly misty start across the Camel Vale, the sun came out. ...
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Novel news

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I’ve finished the Soul Trader trilogy and will be re-relaunching The Horsepower Whisperer very dreckly. Possibly soon than that. This means new covers, ebooks and audiobooks. The Wormton Lamb will probably re-launch first. This is not part of the Soul Trader trilogy but a spin-off featuring some of the same characters. The reason this refresh might happen sooner is I want to check for consistency across all three parts of the Soul Trader story.
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2026 Exeter Trial

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  Wot no air filter? After a great deal of re-work on the Arkley-MG I felt – for once – adequately prepared for the 96th Exeter Trial. Sally and I actually completed the one Tamar Trial last October and since then I’d had the powertrain apart to address leaky gearbox and axle oil seals. Finding the right oil seals took some time. The novelty has worn off somewhat when parts people ask me what the car’s registration number is. Even if the car shows up on their system, they’ve never heard of an Arkley-MG. In fairness, I shouldn’t expect them to have. For me, part numbers have never gone out of fashion and I am building up a list of them for my Arkley-MG Ford-VW special as developed by Professor Adrian Booth. AI has proved surprisingly helpful. The non-starting issue that stopped us starting the Land’s End Trial last year stopped after I’d cleaned up all the earth connections and fitted a new battery as a precaution. Sally had also bought me one of those glove box sized starter ...
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Musee D'Art & Industrie, Châtellerault

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The Musee is part of a complex of industrial buildings that are far more pleasing on the eye than the corrugated steel sheds we get nowadays. Earlier this year, my road trip in France through the Vienne region coincided with a public history day with free entrance to museums and my hosts recommended this museum in  Châtellerault - not to be confused with Chateauroux not far away. I couldn't decide if this was a wooden frame or metal painted to look like wood Châtellerault was more of a centre of armament production but you can have too much of swords and guns. Le Grand Atelier includes a history of the famous nineteenth century Black Cat shadow theatre and the Auto, Velo, Moto collection of cars, bikes and motorcycles. Godier Genoud monocoque framed Kawasaki I appreciated the building. It’s elegantly plain and outside are two massive chimneys that shout power although they actually pumped smoke into the atmosphere. All is clean and quiet now – one advantage, I suppose of a post-ind...
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World's first motor race medallion

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The "engraved" side of the commemorative medallion (Photo : Wikimedia) Regular readers of this irregular web log may remember the thunderous silence surrounding revelations over the world’s first motor race. It wasn’t when you first thought it was! Unless you read about here of course. Or here . In short, its was a race between two steam engines in 1867 when the Red Flag Act was in force. That slight legal technicality may have resulted in it being conducted covertly and no-one would have heard about it had not The Engineer magazine published a short paragraph about it after it had occurred. I tried to stir things up in 2017 as the 150th anniversary approached but interest from anyone in the Old Trafford area of Manchester amounted to a big fat zero. They seem to have no interest in historic sporting events whatsoever, even - or especially - if the first ever motor race finished on their doorstep. Steam car builder and researcher Karl A. Petersen was who first put m...
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