Engine Punk

  It all looks so innocent At the 1999 MCC Testing Trial, I took these photos of a Skoda convertible with a difference. These are rare cars and getting rarer but this car was unique. It was based on a VW Beetle chassis. Beetle chassis have much to recommend them and during the sensational seventies many manufacturers used them as the basis for their exotic kit cars. The Nova and Eagle spring to mind. There were many lesser known ones like the Centron and the Car with No Name . The obvious thing to do, to counterpoint all those exotic faux supercars, was to mount a convertible Skoda bodyshell on a Beetle chassis and go trialling with it. This is the Skeetle built by Dave Nash. Dave built a series of trials specials on Beetle floorpans, which used MGB and Reliant Scimitar GTE bodyshells as well as this one with a Skoda body. Beetles and Skodas have a great deal of trialling heritage so combining them in this way seemed to be an innovation that would be assured of immediate success....

VAT 69 caught my eye in the car park of our hotel after the 2022 Exeter Trial The 92nd Exeter Trials people's choice for Spirit of the Event went to Hughie Walker and Angus Frost with their Austin 7 special VAT 69. Their climb up Simms was a tremendous crowd pleaser and finishing one of the wettest Exeters in a machine without roof, doors, sides and windscreens was nothing short of superhuman. From a distance, VAT 69 could be mistaken for a GN special that had eaten its greens. Through the trees and rain it sounded a bit like a vee twin but those cylinders are at the widest vee possible - 180 degrees. This is an engine whose barrels have fallen out. They dislike each other so much they can't be in the same engine compartment. They are horizontally opposed. That power bulge down the side is for the driver's feet I like flat twins. The layout is still relevant today in modern cars for packaging reasons. The term horizontally opposed sounds earnestly belligerent but 180 degree...