Engine Punk

Brian Partridge's Ridge-Cannon This is a long overdue series of notes about the car in which I passengered Brian Partridge in the 2016 Land's End Trial . This blog is as much for my benefit as anyone else's. Over time, some details can get lost. I really mean forgotten. I have been wanting to record something about Brian's car ever since the 2016 LET, which we now regard as Lee Peck's stag do. I don't drink but things are already getting a little hazy with the passage of time so I gave Brian  a ring and quizzed him about his car, in between enthusing about Vintage Things, trailling and swapping tales of derring-do with our motorsport chumrades. It's a well-proportioned little rascal even if I can't fit in it Brian has developed his Ridge-Cannon over many years. It started off life as a Cannon sporting trials car with a beam front axle and a Ford 1172cc engine but when Brian got it in 1986 it had a crossflow Ford engine. The chassis pro...

Amid the "scurrying kindergarten" of Austin 7 specials at the VSCC Wiscombe Park hillclimb this year was Simplicity , probably the most famous baby Austin special of all time. Simplicity's reputation was established long ago by introducing many first time drivers to motorsport and these feats of derring-do, mishap and success were chronicled by its creator Jack French, who trail blazed the cause of affordable motor racing in austere post war Britain. I only know of Simplicity 's legendary status thanks to Alan Staniforth's excellent Race and Rally Car Source Book , in which he gives examples of DIY racers. There are also details of some cars produced in factories but only by way of inspiration to the keen DIYer. There are several Austin 7 specials in this book that still fascinate me but Simplicity is the one that inspired and catalysed so much and so many that came later. In his own words, Jack French wanted to "demonstrate that any effective and cheap fo...