Vintage Thing No 11 - the Weeny Leaper

It failed the clear the section at Warleggan but raised many smiles. And a little outrage

On Easter Saturday 1992 I was marshalling at Warleggan on Bodmin Moor, during an MCC Classic Trial, the Land’s End. This includes motorcycle combinations and trikes and these run in the motorbike classes that precede the car classes.

We still had many bikes to pass through the observed section when through the woods and around the lower corner came a high revving Allegro.

Oh no, we all thought, somebody’s skipped a few hills and is too far down the running order. However, as the car went by some of it seemed to be missing…

This was my first acquaintance with the notorious Weeny Leaper. It failed the section, along with many others, and I had a quick chat with the driver and constructor, that affable automotive anarchist, Ed Holloway of Bexleyheath in Kent. Entered as Number 66 and running in the Class D for three wheelers, he told me that he had only completed the car that week and had entered it in support of the RAF Wings Appeal. He had also just been stopped by the police due to its arresting appearance.

It cropped up on a couple of subsequent events and then disappeared. However, during a subsequent Land’s End Trial, I spotted one Ed Holloway in the entry list. A quick letter to the MCC membership secretary and I was able to ask Ed about the Weeny Leaper.

Ed has been trialling for many years and the original Weeny Leaper was based on a Ford side valve V8 chassis with aluminium panels cunningly fashioned from scrapped Short Sunderland flying boats. The name was inspired by an NCO that Ed knew from his time in the RAF in Singapore. Corporal Johnny Weaver drank Tiger beer and, having over indulged, suffered from the DTs. He would run about shouting that the Weeny Leapers were after him.

Ed liked this name so much he used it for his special. When Corporal Weaver was sober, the expression Weeny Leaper meant nothing to him but, when he wasn’t, apparently the Weeny Leapers were small and green.

The Weeny Leaper I saw was based on a two door 1100cc Allegro that had sustained some accident damage to the rear. Construction began about three months before the Land’s End Trial and the car was MOTed on the Thursday before the Easter weekend. Ed is an RAF Wings Appeal fund raising officer and that Thursday night, 24 hours before setting off on the Land’s End Trial, he went round to his local association and gained some sponsorship. This was more of a bet, really. Everyone was so convinced he wouldn't make it, they gave him a fiver. Each. Sure enough, he did make it and he told me afterwards it was like taking sweets from a baby. In the process, it surprised a lot of people and neatly divided everyone who saw it into two camps - those who hated it and those who liked it because it was funny.

I was curious as to how Ed had linked up the Hydragas units. The simple answer was that he hadn’t. Each individual unit had been re-pressurised independently to stiffen the suspension and increase the ride height. Despite some severe shocks in three years of trialling adventures, the Weeny Leaper never suffered any suspension problems. He also said how stable it felt even though it had a much shorter wheelbase.

The shortening exercise was also quite straightforward. Ed blocked the car up level, disconnected the battery and then cut along carefully measured lines with an air hacksaw. He then cut the sides and roof. The floor was cut from pillar to pillar, severing petrol pipes, Hydragas pipes and the wiring harness in the process. After sweeping up the Hydragas fluid, the whole of the rear of the car was pushed away.
A bracket was fabricated out of channel section steel to mount on the A pillar seat belt mounting holes. Two further holes were drilled further down each end of the fabricated bracket and this was mounted at floor level and welded in.

One of the rear suspension units was then mounted onto the rear face of this bracket and centred up along the wheel. The Hydragas unit itself was, of course, set to one side.

The gaping hole behind the front seats was filled by sheet metal welded to the roof, the body sides and the floor. A Ford Cortina shock absorber was used to assist the rear suspension with 2” x 2” bracket feeding the load into the back panel.

The Weeny Leaper was not competitive enough to gain any awards in its trialling career but it did gain many finishing certificates, which is no mean feat in itself. It was runner up at the 1993 Leicester Street Rod Show for Best Custom. However, the best event for Ed was that Land's End when people saw it for the first time.

When originally constructed, it retained the 1100cc engine fitted but later a 1300 unit from an MG Metro was fitted. This made it go very well but, whilst attempting Norman’s Hump, another well-known trails hill in the West Country, the revs suddenly soared and Ed and his son Les came to a halt. The pinion drive had shattered. The following five cars all failed, too, and everyone present spent most of the day rebuilding a 2CV gearbox to ease the traffic jam.

The rear end after later modifications. Could this be an MOD prototype? The jerrycans are not spare tanks. (Photo Ed Holloway)

The only other modification that Ed made to the Weeny Leaper was to shorten the rear end. This was made to follow the line of the rear window in an attempt to reduce the weight over the rear wheel. At about the same time the car was resprayed in sandstone over a dark green called NATO green.

Soon after repainting Ed was approached by a rather pompous commentator while attended a car show at Brighton. He asked Ed about his car and said that he had never seen one before. Ed then spun him a cock and bull story about it being a hush-hush MOD prototype for a desert field car and that it had been mothballed until the Gulf War before being sold off at auction. The whole story was later relayed over the public address system, word for word.

He attended the Allegro’s 21st Birthday event at Gaydon where it caused something of stir. It was filmed by a TV company and featured on the front page of the local Birmingham newspaper. In his interview with the film crew, Ed was asked why had he made it, to which he replied, “Because I only have half the Aggro!” The director said, “Cut!” and they loved it.

Returning from Gaydon, he noticed a Le Mans Frazer Nash coming up behind him. He let it pass but then followed it at speeds of up 100 mph. Every time the driver looked in his mirror, he saw half an Allegro on his tail – the stuff of nightmares. They subsequently arrived in Greenwich in one and a half hours, including crossing London.

Ed kept it for 3 years and sold it at a car show for £1000. It was subsequently used for publicity stunts. Ed went on to create further trials specials but the Weeny Leaper is probably the most memorable.