Vintage Thing No.109 - Old Spot Piglet

Duncan Welch told me that the 1996 Testing Trial was where the Old Spot Piglet first appeared

I was sorry to hear of the demise of this rare breed.

At the Bridgwater Control on the 2012 Land's End Trial I got chatting to fellow competitor Duncan Welch who was campaigning his cunningly disguised Austin Healey Sprite. It seems that the Old Spot Piglet, one of his earlier creations, has been cut up.

You've had sheep dog trials - now you've got piglet trials

He built the Old Spot Piglet around 1996 with the intention of creating the ultimate Class D special for use in classic trials organised by the Motor Cycling Club such as the Land's End, Exeter and Edinburgh Trials. For those who don't know, Class D caters for three wheelers below 1300cc and includes motorcycle and sidecar combinations as well as three wheelers of a more symmetrical disposition. Duncan got a Gold award first time out with the Old Spot Piglet and in a brief but brilliant career with this three-wheeler became notorious with rivals who either claimed he was running a "three-wheeled Class 8 special" (not quite true) or who were at last delighted to be offered some stiffer competition (much more true).

Duncan approaches the end of the Land's End Trial in his Old Spot Piglet at Blue Hill Mine.

The Old Spot Piglet was a Reliant Regal chassis stretched by 9 inches to take a 1275cc Morris Marina engine and gearbox. This stretch was necessary to allow the use of the Marina gearbox, which is very long. The rear axle was also Morris Marina. Vestiges of the Regal bodywork were re-cycled into an anything but regal open two-seater body with the front wheel poking provocatively through the front panel, complete with forward mudflap to prevent clods being flung up and over the bonnet onto the intrepid crew.

Painted a subtle dark olive drab it looked like some hush-hush military weapon and divided people into those who loathed it on sight and said it should never be allowed and those who thought it was a highly effective trials machine disguised as a cunningly brilliant joke.

Since Reliants are nick-named Plastic Pigs, Duncan christened the Old Spot Piglet after a rare breed of pig.

I really liked it and to think it's gone for ever makes me sad. I can't think of anything better to do with the guts of a Morris Marina and the still warm corpse of a Reliant Regal.

I am reminded of another porcine special, fortunately still with us. This is Dorcas, the vintage hillclimber, named after the biblical lady who was "full of good works".

But for me Dorcas means the Beatrix Potter character Aunt Dorcas of Piggery Porcombe, who together with Miss Porcas (a good name for an overweight special, I suggest) was aunt to Little Pig Robinson, who travelled round the world.

Duncan sold the Old Spot Piglet (jiggetty-jig to market) after a few years of trialing success and the new owner painted it a startling shade of yellow. Another alteration was to hack the fibreglass panels about even more to improve access to the running gear because the standard Regal bonnet is more of a flap really and in Old Spot Piglet guise the position of the vital organs had changed to almost out of reach.

I never found the Old Spot Piglet's appearance objectionable and - look - it's raised a smile for this chap in green wellies.

However, the colour change (Duncan reckons olive drab allowed the Old Spot Piglet to fade into the scenery) and the new yawning panel gaps were too much for the MCC organising committee who banned it. There was also the incident where the new owner spontaneously endowed it with a roof for a particularly rainy Land's End Trial made out of a butchered roof box supported on odd bits of metal and the roll bar.

Look closely - there is no windscreen, just sidescreens. Also note the mudguards on the side - not mudguards for the wheels but mudguards for the elbows of the crew.

Its sole role in life now denied it, its new owner broke it up.

Shame I say, for it was still part of our motoring heritage and trailing history, even though some people would much rather forget it.

It could have been prettied up a bit, just so long as it didn't end up like some bourgeois show ground queen that gets trailered everywhere. Okay, that couldn't have happened to the Old Spot Piglet but a neater bonnet arrangement  would probably've helped its cause.

I don't think the roofbox helped very much, either in looks or in water deflection. I always thought the Old Spot Piglet just needed a little curly tail to finish it off. In the background is the start line to Hoskins in Cardinham Woods.

As someone recently lamented, this sort of motorised anarchy (e.g. the Old Spot Piglet and Weeny Leaper) simply doesn't happen any more.