Engine Punk

Steampunk Summer 2012 I will be reading excerpts from The Horsepower Whisperer at Steampunk Summer 2012 at Woodland Valley Farm, Ladock near Truro this Saturday (September 1st) and talking about my work. I might even read some of The Wormton Lamb, too. Tickets are available from Limelight in Truro and Tanya's Courage Trust in Penzance. It's not just me, you understand, there's also a huge line up of steam punk activities and something like a dozen bands. Should be brilliant if previous ones are anything to go by....

Pemtillie Castle makes a great venue for a speed hillclimb. It was wet, though. This Alfa Dana 500 was using Castrol R so smelt divine. This is a new event based at Pentillie Castle on the western bank of the River Tamar and centres on a speed hillclimb up to the house from the river and into the estate beyond. Pentillie Castle featured on the telly a few years as a country house in need of rescue and has become a prestigious wedding venue. Unfortunately, the tarmac drive to the house showed signs of wear sufficient to make the blushing bride bounce out of her bodice in the backseat of the nuptial Bentley limo. Actually, I just made that up but the potholes were so bad that the Coryton family had the whole drive re-surfaced. Then, local enthusiasts said lets have a speed hillclimb on your lovely new road and after a lot of preparatory work the first event was held today. Another fragrant competitor using Castrol R was Stuart Evans in his MG J Special Unfortunately, it ham...

Sarah Blackwood (who rocks) (Photo : Last FM) So you already know that I enjoyed The Creepshow with their new line up. Since then I've become aware of the circumstances that led up to the changes in the band. Sarah "Sin" Blackwood has left to concentrate on her other projects and the rest of The Creepshow will continue in a slightly different direction. I don't know how the dynamic in bands works. Her older sister and founder member of The Creepshow, Jen "Hellcat" Blackwood, left on maternity. If The Creepshow was a corporation maybe she could come back? And surely being the little sister of a founder member must give Sin some security of tenure? I'd seen the video footage of The Creepshow with Sin in action and would love to have seen this little blonde piece with the big guitar rock out live (in a graveyard by a swamp somewhere) but that's not going to happen. Fortunately, The Creepshow can still cut it so I wasn't disappointed. Just ...

There's now five in The Creepshow (Photo : Creepshow Facebook page) I couldn't quite believe it when I heard that Canadian psychobilly rockers The Creepshow were going to play at The White Rabbit at the bus station in Plymouth. I still bought a ticket and went along though and - yup - it was them alright, freshly bussed in from Newcastle no less (a mere hop, skip and jump for these hard touring, hot diggeddy-dawgs), complete with a new guitarist and a sparkly new lead singer. Kenda Legaspi is only little but she belts out the choons and ably fills the boots of Sarah "Sin" Blackwood. The extra guitarist allows Kenda to concentrate on vocals, although she did a great job of  The Garden, and I don't usually like the slow ones (but this one's really good) We also saw her joining us in the mosh pit! This was on purpose, I should add. She clearly lurves to rock out but needed a helping hand to get back on stage again - no, really. On the other hand, being...

If Cooper had made Coventry-Climax front engined cars, this is how they might have looked I'd heard of this car several years ago from a brief article in the Imp Club magazine and especially liked the ally panels created on an English wheel and the use of a front mounted Imp engine . This is a Hillman Imp special par excellence . The RBN actually uses the Chrysler Sunbeam block, a 928cc version of the Imp block used in entry level versions of these rear-wheel drive hatchbacks.The RBN also uses the Avenger derived gearbox from the same source. I think that feature line that runs all the way round the car works especially well However, the chassis is Triumph Spitfire, shortened by a foot and clothed in aluminium bodywork hand wheeled by its constructor, Philip Robinson, who took 18 months to build it. The 928cc Chrysler Sunbeam engine responds just as well to tuning as the Imp engine. The bulge in the bonnet was for an earlier single carb The engine is highly modi...

The architect of this fine engine house is long forgotten, like so many others, but many people comment on its design, often remarking that it looks like a town hall. Finding this place was a very pleasant surprise. Not being in a Hillman Imp for the National Rally this year, I couldn't really join in the trip into the Crich Tramway Museum so poked around Matlock Bath in my own so I toured around for a bit and noticed a sign for High Peak Junction, which I already knew was where the Cromford & High Peak Railway met the Cromford Canal. There's a small museum and a very interesting shop at High Peak Junction The sewage works nearby niffed a bit but the footpath was well signposted and led me to the canal and the foot of the quaintly named Sheep Pasture railway incline. However, there was a vaguely smokey quality to the air and, picking up an air scent, I ran along the towpath, passed the trans-shipment shed and saw a chimney through the trees on the opposite ban...

Stuart runs up the SKR outfit, which is not a 4x2 or a 4x4 but a 4x3. This extraordinary device turned up at the Imp Club National Rally on the Sunday afternoon and completely distracted me form the awards ceremony. I saw this gaggle of people onbviosuly looking at something pretty low and then heard an engine start up. That roll bar thing at the front is actually the frame that goes under the car/sidecar/trike to lift the wheels and allow it to be started Imagine my surprise when I saw what they looking at. It pretty much defies description but here goes. This is how you start it It's a racing sidecar outfit with a Hillman Imp engine and transmission. Although it has four wheels the rear two are considered to be close enough to be considered as one. And of those four wheels, three are driven. From the side, you can see the upright Imp engine. Note the SU carb and intake arrangements. Underneath the zorst cowling is also an Imp gearbox. It was built by ...

The pump engine house at Magpie Mine Just before attending the Imp Club National, I camped for a few days at Monyash in the High Peak. This was a good choice because within a few miles was the site of an abandoned mine. I'd already researched the area and discovered that there was a Cornish engine house at Magpie Mine, reputedly the best preserved lead mine in the country. I'd never been to the Peak District before and was very pleasantly surprised by what I found. It's quite beautiful and not at all crowded. It made a pleasant change to find a part of the British Isles that I did not know at all. When I approached Magpie Mine, though, I felt back at home. You can see the engine house for some way off and it had all the hallmarks of a Cornish engine house. It was built by Captain John Taylor who operated mines all over the UK, as well as in Mexico, and he brought a team of about twenty Cornish men to Sheldon to There were other mine engines of this type in the...