Engine Punk

At a holding control on the 1999 Land's End Trial. Note Siva Llama in the background This car resembles VT No.49 in many ways but has a Ford Pinto engine. Listed as a 2-litre in the entry for the 1999 Land's End Trial, it was built by built by Martin Harry to be driven by his wife Julia and boy did she give it some stick! It proved to be very effective and impressed me when taking my Siva Llama out for the first time. I don't know it's constructional details as we were running late and pushed for time when we eventually caught up with it. I have a feeling a Beetle gearbox was used and someone told me it also used Beetle rear suspension. Not seen on the hills for a while, I believe it stills exists way down Camborne way and will one day take to the hills again.

What have you got in your shed? Other people's work-in-progress is always fascinating Ever since dropping in on this pioneering society's museum last year, I've wanted to visit their open day when they open up the big doors and drive their buses all around the city of Lincoln. Not only that but a load of their mates bring their buses and coaches over as well. In the end I got a good deal on rail travel (two singles were cheaper than a return and way cheaper than driving up) and went up for a couple of nights to get my fix and see the Imp in the cathedral. As a supporter of lost causes, I was very pleased to see that someone else cares about the Austin Gypsy. The Lincoln Vintage Vehicle Society have been setting the standards of commercial vehicle restoration for decades. Looking around their workshops was particularly interesting for me. There was an early Austin Gypsy with rubber suspension - later ones had cart springs and fell victim to BL's post-merger rati...

On my way back from the Goodwood Revival I thought I'd drop in on Sammy Miller's museum at New Milton. I'd been to the old one (at Old Milton?) years ago and thought I'd be there half a day. In the end I was there all day and could've stayed longer. There's so much to see. This Moto Guzzi is just one of the treats in store at Sammy Miller's Museum It was as I was examining this lovely Guzzi - even before entering the museum proper - that a chap in a blue coat asked me to lend him a hand in the workshop. Of course, I knew it was Sammy. Even if I hadn't, he'd been racing bikes at Goodwood a couple of days earlier in leathers with his name across the shoulders. I think he was working on the recently re-discovered works Ariel and just wanted me to rest it on some axle stands while he lifted it, so I naturally obliged. I could also see he was busy so didn't try to distract him with idle banter. That's the way I am when I wanna get on but as ...

At  a very early age I was dropped on my head in a Ford Anglia like this so it's a mystery why I don't have one of my own. My parent's car was 119FBP. If this car had been re-registered I wouldn't have recognised its it significance. It's taken me a while to get my thoughts in order about the 2010 Goodwood Revival. I enjoyed it very much and adapted to my self-appointed role of 1950s cad with relish but there was something about the event that left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I reckon it was the split paddock with its exclusion zone penetrable for people on various corporate entertainment deals and members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club. Not being part of either, I found myself barred from some parts of the paddock. Hooray Henries and Henriettas could freely waft stylishly in and out and not take the slightest interest in the rolling sculpture around them. They fact that they were there was all that mattered. Merchant bankers could catch up with conta...

Similarities in layout to the Trojan split single are clear but the conrods of the EMC 350 aren't designed to bend. I've written about Trojan engines on this blog before, wondering if they could have had any sporting potential. I've a soft spot for two strokes and supercharging them sounds very exotic - almost impossible - and something to crow about if you can do it right. Dr Josef Ehrlich came from Austria and settled in post-war Britain to develop his take on the DKW blown two strokes that had made such an impression before the war. Unlike the Trojan, which used a flexible single vee-shaped conrod for the two pistons, Dr Joe used a stiffer one with an articulated link that allowed the pistons to travel happily in their separate cylinders without the need for said spindly vee-shaped conrods to flex. Based in Isleworth in the London borough of Hounslow, EMC never entered quantity production but were available from 1947 to 1952. After that Dr Ehrlich concentrated on...

Restored with only a brochure as reference material this Levis 600 has a pushrod tube that masquerades as a camshaft drive At the 2010 Great Dorset Steam Fair, I heard a great story about this very rare bike. The owner and restorer was looking round the autojumble at the 2009 show for Norton parts and saw a curious oil tank that might have been a Norton one. He asked the vendor about it and he said that it that it belonged to Levis 600 and that he had the whole bike under the bench - not the bench at home but the bench at the show. Levis are often confused with jeans manufacturers and the parent company latterly traded as Leviss to avoid this although this was long after motorcycle manufacture had ceased. Founded by the Butterfield Brothers in Old Station Road, Stechford, Birmingham, in 1911,  Levis were TT winners in 1922 with a 250 two stroke and went on to build a range of ohv four strokes in 30s until World War 2 ended production. They were always pretty rare machines and...

If Mr Jo-jo does not still exist, something very similar ought to be created. Photo provided by Phil Peters. Back in June 2008 I waxed lyrical about Mrs Jo-jo , probably the most highly developed of all Brooklands Austin 7s. Last week, Phil Peters got in touch about Mr Jo-jo. He'd been given a photograph of it by an elderly friend and neighbour and liked it so much he's put it on his blog . In his search for info on Mr Jo-jo he found my comments on the distaff side of the equipe but all I know about Mr Jo-jo is what I've been able to glean from The Austin 7 Source Book by Brain Purves, in which a copy of this very photo appears. Mr Jo-jo was an Austin 7 Gordon England Cup model, Gordon England being an aviation pioneer and Austin 7 racer who subsequently offered his own sporting bodies on the baby Austin chassis. The Cup model was a very neat Austin 7 two seater introduced in 1925 and named either after the Goerges Boillot Cup at Boulogne or the Rudge Whitworth Bi...