Engine Punk

Tim Kary in the Imhof Special and Rob Robinson-Collins in the ex-Imhof Allard J1 at the Heritage Trial on 4th July 2021 I was delighted to re-acquaint myself with the Imhof Special at the Heritage Trial in 2021. Tim Kary is the current owner and really knows how to drive this historic car which I first came across in 1993.  I had recently started a new job and moved to sunny Andover in Hampshire. Having checked out the local car club, I arranged to meet the club president at the club workshops during his lunch hour. Picture the scene – an old army Nissen hut on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The interior is dark but orderly. This is the workshop of the local car club. And there he is, Il Presidente!  He wears overalls over his office clothes, complete with shirt and tie. He’s sitting in the bare framework of a very small sports car while he files some tubes in the cockpit. He may have been making engine noises before he heard the door open. Binky (aka Mr Robert Robinson-Collins)...

Long before I ever became a Candid Provocateur, I stumbled across the Imhof Special. One of my best friends at school gave me The Book of the Motor Car , published in 1952 by The Naldrett Press Ltd and approved by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, no less. My favourite chapter was Building Your Own Car by A Godfrey Imhof, in which our hero made a competition car out of parts of Ford 10 and Austin 7 gleaned from scrapyards. HRK55 was the first version of the Imhof special as described in The Book of the Motor Car   (Photo : Naldrett Press) Who couldn't be inspired by such Boy's Own DIY initiative? I later discovered that this A Godfrey Imhof was actually the Godfrey Imhof, or Goff Imhof, one of the original Candidi Provocatores who’d raced Singers before the Second World War prior to rallying and trialling Allards in the immediate post war period. He built the Imhof Special using his experiences of trialling the big V8 sidevalve engine cars and ushered in a new ...

  The Gregory Special and Cannon of Ian and Nigel Moss The first ever Heritage Trial took place on the 4 th of July this year at Blackmoor Farm, near Woolminstone, south west of Crewkerne in Somerset. This event is intended to tempt out the older types of trials cars that could still give a good showing in ACTC and MCC trials but with a much lower risk of damage. The Alf Foster Special is just the ideal sort of car for this event. Sorry about chopping off the top of your head, Richard but you suddenly stood up straight Recent changes in the trials class structure put the Candidi Provocatores Allard J1 in Class 5 instead of Class 7. This would mean less restarts which are punishing on elderly drivetrains. It would even be in Class 2 if the Allard ran on cross plies but the available treads don’t offer much grip and are expensive. Also, we damaged the Allard’s axle on Warleggan on the John Aley Trial, completely without a restart. Still managed to finish, though - stance! Tony Mar...

In this picture of the Allard in the queue at Warleggan, you can just make out the end of the axle before  the end of our John Aley Trial That last cliffhanger left your brave boys with an immobile Allard at the top of Blue Hills. We couldn't go forward. We could roll backwards but had no drive in any gear. Gareth White was spectating after losing his Marlin’s rear electrics soon after the start and he noticed the end of the axle going round without driving the offside wheel. The horrible clicking noise was the snap of the key and then it moving against the hub as the axle turned. Willing hands bounced us around so that we could get towed out by a JCB.  In these circumstances, I remember the end of Spike Milligan’s TV show, where the cast would shuffle forward, repeatedly saying, “What do we do next? What do we do next?” Binky lives near Andover. I live near Liskeard, which isn’t quite on the way. If we could get the car recovered to Binky’s place, the driver probably wou...

I think the new white wheels really suit the Candidi Provovatores Allard My John Aley trial experience began with a rail journey to Andover near where Binky lives. Ever since we broke a perch bolt on the 2018 Lands End, he’d been chasing down parts for his Allard J1 to sort out the damage and engineer a better solution in keeping with the character of the car. At last! The only thing he needed to do on the day of our departure was drill holes for split pins for the hub retaining nuts on the freshy rebuilt rear axle and we’d be off! Imagine his disappointment to discover that the headlamps and front sidelamps didn’t work. Imagine, then, my disappointment to discover not only that but the prospect of missing the trial and having to make an alternative journey back home to Cornwall. However, maximise the positive. If Binky waggled the headlamp relay, the headlamps worked. This was regardless of the headlamp switch position. I tried a similar waggling technique and succeeded in sto...