Engine Punk

Regular followers may remember I saw The Creepshow at the White Rabbit last year. One of their support bands was The Rocker Covers, a trio of automotively literate songsmiths who makeover pop hits to devise the most happily subversive covers of songs you might know. Some might be favourites given The Rocker Cover treatment and others might be on your most hated list that have also been given a similar work over to become simply brilliant! I am assured Poker Face is a Lady Gaga hit but am more familiar with The Rocker Covers version. I know - I have so much street cred. But listen to the way it starts off! That's from Brand New Cadillac by The Clash! (Except theirs was a cover version of some old bloke...) The point is, some versions can't be beat and are the ones you carry with you as your favourite. That's happened to me and so many of these songs on Revved Up. There are so many songs I think would benefit from The Rocker Cover's treatment. I could do qui...

Entered in the 2013 Land's End Trial this year was this Skoda-based Bugrat. It wasn't far away from Binky and I in the running order and at Hangman's Hill (not a section I'd been on before) I took the opportunity to have a closer look. I'm not sure what that black plastic thing is on the front wing. it's not in the other pics so maybe a carefully insulated spot of "croust" for the crew Entered by Rory Pope and Andrew Scarborough of Shaftesbury, it was running in Class 8 with all the other rear engined kit cars and specials. Its crew felt they were a bit outclassed and that they wanted more power but the Bugrat doesn't way much and more power is never enough. Believe me, I know. At around 700kg, the Bugrat was much lighter than the donor The Bugrat was designed by Vince Wright, head of RV Dynamics, and took all its vital components from the old school rear engined variety of Skoda, the one that gave Skoda its reputation that allowed vari...

The Alfa badge caught our eye Here we have another Imp spotted at Tregrehan, this time in the late 1980s. This is how I always remember the paddock at Tregrehan. Muddy. It had plenty of cooling holes, retained the handy rear hatch for loads (engine access as it turned out) but rear arches of questionable aesthetics This Imp had an Alfasud engine and gearbox mounted behind the rear seats. My mate Jerry (that's him with the carrier bag in the photo) was in the process of building something similar (more on that another time) and spotted the little Alfa badge on the front, put two and two together and went to ask some well-informed questions. As so often happens on these occasions the answers were remarkably forthcoming considering it was a competition car under developing but - hey! - that's hillclimbing chaps for you. Look at those Rotoflexes! We were particularly interested to see that the Imp rear suspension had been retained and that standard Rotofles co...

The Allard J1 at Wilsey Down Rest Halt. Everyone else has gone. After being a non-starter in the Exeter due to illness (when Binky got the cold that I had before Christmas), Team Robert looked ahead with (even) extra enthusiasm to the Land's End. It proved cold but dry and we found a rare seam of form early on with a car going better than ever only for this unravel whilst waiting for Warleggan. Still we got going again, and made a big finish by cleaning first Blue Hills 1 then Blue Hills 2. Binky (Mr Robert Robinson-Collins to you) had been fettling the Candidi Provocatore Allard J1 beforehand. New innovations included freshly greased leaf springs in the suspension, new plugs, new needle jet and the removal of the phenolic heat shield under the carb. A quick blast around the block before we set off and the car was pulling better than ever. At Popham airfield, though, a headlamp wasn't working on dip and we had to take the lamp apart under a lamp post. The headlamp had...