Engine Punk

September 2014 and Mighty Whitey 's future hangs in the balance I still have my aunt's old C15D van, which she christened Mighty Whitey . It's something of a family heirloom having been supplied new to her by Arnold's of Penryn in 1986. It used to have a dealer's sticker in the rear window that showed Falmouth mis-spelt as Falmoth but it's disintegrated entirely now. My parting comment on VT 44.1 was about sustainability and the intervening 10 years have been a testimony to that.  Following an engine failure on the M5, my C15D van is now a C15TD.  What happened was.... a complete loss of power just the other side of Exeter with lots of white and black smoke. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and when I tried the engine again it span over very quickly. No compression! On a diesel no compression means no ignition. There had been no indication of anything wrong with the engine. I remember a slight whiff of antifreeze going up Haldon Hill but the water temperature ...

The children's TV show Rentaghost had a Sprite in it, called Timothy Claypole, but he was nothing like this... I am partial to Villiers two stroke 250s and so is my mate Colyn. When he mentioned he was restoring a Sprite, I initially thought he'd gone into bug-eyed British sportscars but then an ancient memory stirred of a thin-tubed trials iron and we were able to talk properly and not at cross purposes. Simple but effective. I also like the lines of the GRP tank  Sprite motorcycles are very rare. They have their origin in a special built by a plumber called Frank Hipkin who was a successful scrambler. His machine featured a duplex Cotton frame with an extra down tube running from headstock to engine mounting, effectively making it a triplex frame. With Norton front forks and an Alpha bottom end with a Greeves head and barrel, it proved a winning combination and requests for replicas soon followed. The salient feature of this trials iron is the lightweight duplex fram...

This is just like the model I had but with more paint remaining.  Many years ago, at a secondhand toy sale at school, I bought two Dinky Toy model vans. One was a rather sorry looking Morris Commercial J type van in the livery of the GPO and the other was a cheeky Trojan 15cwt Dunlop van. They got played to pieces. The Morris Commercial looked thin and underfed. The Trojan looked much more robust. In the undergrowth at Tinker's Park I was reminded of these two model vans when I stumbled across a scanned image the other day of the remains of a Trojan van. I had found this relic in the bushes at a show at Tinker's Park , near Hadlow Down in East Sussex, in or around 1990. There were many other interesting things in the undergrowth and the only means of identifying it was by the maker's plate on the bulkhead. Only once I'd found that, did I know what it was and that a model of it had brought me so much pleasure as a child. I photographed it as a mem...

The KNW Imposter, in 1999 at Hatton Country World. It still sits on its Cobra slot alloy wheels. The KNW Imposter was built by a chap called Keith Hawley using a Siva Llama chassis as a basis. The car was featured in the December 1977 edition of Hot Car magazine. It turned up on a trailer at the 1999 Imp Club National Rally at Hatton Country World where I also had my normal (normal?) Siva Llama. Keith Hawley hailed from Coventry and must have had some involvement with the motor industry. At the time, obvious comparisons were made with the TR7 and he certainly had a good aesthetic sense. However the design pre-dates the TR7. The KNW Imposter was built in 1972. He bought the bare chassis for £135 and since this used standard Imp running gear front and rear this meant he had an instant rolling chassis. Making a one off body in fibreglass is no small undertaking. Keith made a plaster buck and then took moulds off that, after making a scale model. He used aluminium to make the do...

Best picture of the day. I love the dappled lighting effect on this and it's a red/amber/green! Photo : Graham Beddoe This year’s Launceston Trial was supposed to have occurred on 9 th February but Storm Ciara span out of the Atlantic and the Launceston and North Cornwall Motor Club postponed the trial to 15 th March. The weather on the day was wet to begin with but dried up in the afternoon and was even sunny by the end of the trial. Class 7 line up of Phillip Thomas, Francis Thomas with their Dutton Meloses and Steven Ball with his Marlin. The Launceston Trial is a single venue trial and when I travelled to Lew Woods with Mr Graham Beddoe through the backroads, it was raining and had been for some time. Water was running off the waterlogged fields and onto the road. Conditions once in the woods were very wet. After scrutineering and signing on, we received a beautifully executed map of the woods, similar to last year’s. I believe the map was the work of Warin Kelly. ...