Engine Punk

This post was prompted by a request for information about the GP Centron at the 2009 Exeter Kit Car Show. Somebody had one and wanted to know more about it so they put up a board about it in the designated car park for kit cars. They knew it had connections with Cornwall but not much more than that. I apologise for the quality of the pictures but these are photos of photos. I left my name on the writing pad asking for more info so if I hear anything I'll do an update. I happened to visit the factory at Threemilestone just outside Truro, when the moulds for the Centron II briefly resided there during the summer of 1983. At the time I was an industrial design student and tried to get a summer job out of them but had no luck. The company were called Statestyle and were developing an ultra-violet curing process for woven mat glass fibre. Staff on their experimental production line had very well bronzed forearms - it was a kind of rolling sunbed. The GP Centron was the first Beetle-base...

Despite the recession and continuing economic gloom, the 2009 Exeter Kit Car Show at the West Point Exhibition Centre was still upbeat. Some people pointed to vacant spaces in the exhibition hall and maybe the weather did put some people off but there was still loads to see. This machine is the KZ1 and is a one off, although there are plans for production. Apparently, there has already been strong interest in the car from Middle eastern customers and although the designer is British production will probably be in Eastern Europe. I don't know if there is any link to the Ascari KZ1 but it looks superb. I went with Peter Tuthill, author of (among others) Cornwall's Motor Industry. He's currently working on a similar book on Devon's motor industry and needless to say that I've put my name down for one. As soon as it's out, you'll hear about it on this blog. Peter is another self publisher like me, so has to do practically everything himself but it'll be wo...

The UAZ-452 became the UAZ-22069 Mentioning the UAZ-452 on this blog has prompted some responses but nothing concrete enough to explain how they arrived on Dartmoor. Peter Tuthill, of Motormind fame, has a brochure for one in English. He's promised to get me a facsimile copy and seems to recall that someone in Birmingham was importing them. Meanwhile, my mate Matt, who is a Tavistock boy born and bred and is an off road enthusiast, also remembers these little Russian 4x4's trundling over the moorland. He seems to have a vague recollection of having a ride in one but as this is something like 30 years ago it remains just a vague recollection. Personally I prefer the look of the earlier UAZ-450 While looking for something else, Matt succeeded where I have not by digging up with his folding sand shovel other references to the UAZ-452 on the Internet. On Horizons Unlimited , “The Website Motorcyclists Trust”, someone was asking the question, are these little 4x4 is an...

Calling all Steam Punks! Here is the Murdoch Flyer, a replica of a road locomotive that might pre-date Cap'n Richard Trevithick's engine of 1801. It's been built by a group called the Murdoch boys based in Redruth. Construction was financed by voluntary contributions and grants including sales of a song called "The Ballad of William Murdoch" by Ed Hamilton. As interest in steam punk increases on the back of stories such as Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, models of steam engines inspired by such speculative fiction are being made all over the world. But here we have the grandaddy of them. Or at the very least, one of the granddaddies. Cornwall can justifiably claim to be the birth place of steam traction. In 2001, we celebrated 200 years of Cornish motoring but the Murdoch Boys who have built this replica of the Flyer point to a tantalising account that Murdoch rode around the Cornish tin mines in a full sized development of the models he...

Jack Turner who drew up the body for the Turner Imp This is a Vintage Thing that nearly reached production but didn't. I recently came across an Imp derived car that I’d never heard of. I wasn’t expecting to find one, either, because I was reading Turner Sports Cars by Peter Tuthill. These were sports racing cars of the traditional British front engine/rear wheel drive variety. In fact the Turner 803 was probably what spurred BMC to produce the Austin–Healey Sprite. Unfortunately, the rear-engined Turner sports car never got built. The illness of the company’s founder, Jack Turner, brought about the voluntary liquidation of the company in 1966. By that stage Jack had drawn up an attractive little car with a Kamm tail and what looks like a front mounted radiator. Jack was a personal friend of Wally Hassan the Coventry Climax development engineer. Many competition Turners featured Coventry-Climax 1216cc engines so Jack would have been more than familiar with the Imp engine’s...

As soon as I knew the Giles I was intrigued by it This oddity is mentioned in Peter Tuthill's book Cornwall's Motor Industry . As he expected, its publication is flushing out more information on the vehicles featured, many of which are very shadowy creations. This is the only one with which I could help and even then to a very limited extent. Mysterious back in 1984, the Giles 3 wheeler has since gone to ground again It turned up on an old caravan chassis at a "Superdo", a Vintage Things Show, at Penstraze near Truro in 1984, and that's where I took these photos. It was a very intriguing three wheeler with an air-cooled 350cc flat-twin Douglas engine mounted at the front. It must have just been discovered and acquired for preservation. Somebody removed the bonnet and lo! there was a Douglas engine It wasn't a bad job although a little under powered for my tastes. Douglas did some 500s and 600s. There was even a conversion that stretched the...

Trevithick's road locomotive Hidden away in the steep sided combes of south–western Britain, concealed behind unremarkable facades in market towns and sleepy hamlets, tucked deep down into wooded valleys or crouched against the elements on wind blasted heaths and moors, something is stirring. This is Britain ’s crumple zone against the Atlantic and, against very long odds, Cornwall is still home to an ongoing automotive tradition that has been quietly surviving for over two hundred years. If someone announced that they had written a book on Cornwall ’s motor industry, a very slim volume would probably be the result – not so much a book as a pamphlet. Being able to produce over 150 well illustrated A4 pages initially seems nothing short of remarkable. Having read Cornwall ’s Motor Industry by Peter Tutthill, it’s clear that he has unearthed a wealth of material and some fascinating insights into a surprisingly varied cottage industry. I am also struck by the influence of...

David Hockney made a fortune out of doing photos like this Hidden away in the steep sided combes of south–western Britain, concealed behind unremarkable facades in market towns and sleepy hamlets, tucked deep down into wooded valleys or crouched against the elements on wind blasted heaths and moors, something is stirring. This is Britain ’s crumple zone against the Atlantic and, against very long odds, Cornwall is still home to an ongoing automotive tradition that has been quietly surviving for over two hundred years. If someone announced that they had written a book on Cornwall ’s motor industry, a very slim volume would probably be the result – not so much a book as a pamphlet. Being able to produce over 150 well illustrated A4 pages initially seems nothing short of remarkable. Having read Cornwall ’s Motor Industry by Peter Tutthill, it’s clear that he has unearthed a wealth of material and some fascinating insights into a surprisingly varied cottage industry. I am also...