Engine Punk

Electric Exeter

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:56:00 +0000

I was particularly struck by the range of electric cars on offer. It seems that the kit car industry, by virtue of its smaller size, is in a position to respond to environmental pressures more quickly than mainstream manufacturers. The Battery Vehicles Society had a stand at the show and featured among the more obvious alternative technologies this Mulliner bodied Wilson, which was built from 1935 to 1936 in Leicester. As built, this car would have had a 40 mile range for every charge and a top speed of 27 mph. Only 40 were made but the owner of this example has another and rumours persist of others languishing in gardens in places like Birmingham. He told me that the realistic range for this car is now down to 20 miles because the batteries are a bit tired. I think that is allowed. A drop-off in performance is only to be expected after 70 years.

The guys on the electric vehicle stand were very excited about the prospect of new power packs. Lithium ion cells offer a significant improvement over conventional battery technology in terms of charging time and increased vehicle range and there is now a mad scramble by all the major motor manufacturers to put this technology into the marketplace. However, most worlds natural deposits of lithium are in Bolivia in the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, high in the Andes mountains and the country's leaders are concerned about the impact that multinational corporations might have upon their country. The Bolivian government is keen to expand state control over its natural resources rather than allow foreign industry to do it, which would almost certainly divert the wealth that this would create back towards the industrialised West.

"We will not repeat the historical experience since the fifteenth century," says Bolivia's minister for mining, Luis Alberto Echazu. "Raw materials exported for the industrialisation of the west has left us poor."

Good luck to the Bolivians I say. Demand for lithium will outstrip supply in 10 years unless their reserves are exploited. Lithium is also in demand as a cure for motor neurone disease so, of all the world economies, the future for Bolivia's looks rosy.

The Battery Vehicles Society members gave me a free copy of their club magazine "Plugged in" (usual price to nonmembers -- five pounds) and I must admit that the prospect of a zero emissions vehicle that will satisfy my shopping trips and short local journeys appeals immensely. The trouble is, at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a reasonably priced solution. The alternative is to make a vehicle yourself and, although I'm quite happy to have a go with things with internal combustion engines, I don't know enough about electronics. The technology doesn't inspire me with as much enthusiasm as the old reciprocating piston engine but if I had a small electric trundler that gave reasonable performance around the country lanes, my petrol powered dinosaurs would have a much easier life. The long-term prospects of such a vehicle have to be good.

All we have to do, is get used to the idea of charging our electric cars in readiness for use the next day. It strikes me as odd that people see this as such barrier to using electric cars where they are quite happy to make a pit stop at a filling station somewhere.

I would have taken more photographs of the exhibits at the Exeter kit car show, including this venerable Wilson. Many of the photos that I did take are slightly blurred through camera shake. This was because I couldn't use the flash within the hall.

And that was because I'd forgotten to charge the batteries in the camera overnight.

2008 Exeter Kit Car Show

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:29:00 +0000

Yesterday I went up to Exeter for the Kit Car Show at the Westpoint Showground. This was my first visit after a lapse for a few years and, considering the economic gloom that pervades the UK at the moment and the fact that kit cars must inevitably be funded from disposable income, I found the mood very upbeat. There was a great variety of machinery on show and plenty of people about, too. Previous shows had consisted largely of Lotus Seven variants -- what some of my friends call Locost Caterfields -- or AC Cobra replicas that this year there seem to be more original designs. The standard of construction was also a vast improvement over what I had come to expect.

I chatted to several stallholders several aspects of the current kit car scene struck me.

I've already mentioned the dramatic increase in the quality of the product. Manufacturers have now realised that well finished cars that result from an easy build reflect well on their brand name they can generate more sales.

"An easy build and fewer nights in the garage make a kit car much easier to sell to the wife," was how one exhibitor put it to me. "It's easiest for people to buy an engine from specialist firms like Powertorque or Omexpower rather than have a go at chewing it yourself."

He was also keen to stress the importance of safety, which was something I hadn't really considered. It's increasingly another area in which customers are unwilling to problem lies.

Another thing I found interesting, was the instead of using the standard induction and engine management systems, most of the demonstrators on show yesterday featured throttle bodies.

"We don't use the standard loom from the Ford Focus donor," designer Gary Gunn told me on the Retoga stand. "There are so many extras that we don't use our cars like adjustable mirrors and electric windows. That's how we can make our car so light. And if we are not using loom, it makes sense not to use the engine management system, either. After market throttle bodies are much easier to set up a rolling road. Although they cost more, they're much easier to set up."

I wasn't sure about this thing. There's obviously still being developed so shouldn't be judged too harshly. The Vindicator F4 is inspired by an F4 Phantom jet fighter and was attracting many showgoers purely from its seating arrangement. I like the concept but it looks quite massive to me whereas and F4 Phantom jet fighter is sleek and purposeful. this looked too tall to me in the exhibition hall but out on the open road it would probably shrink. Maybe bigger wheels would help. It's definitely got something, though.

My absolute favourite car of the show was the GTM Spyder. Styled by Richard Oakes, this is a very good-looking little motorcar and the design and build quality is outstanding -- at least as good as a major motor manufacturer. Nothing looks out of place, either inside or out, and the engine range starts off with a Rover K-series 1.4 and goes all the way up to their 2.5 litre V6 which is an absolute honey of an engine.

Vintage Thing No.34 - the Chevrolet Carry-All Suburban

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:16:00 +0000

It was as we were returning from Andover and making a pit stop for fuel that we spotted this splendid example of a Chevrolet Carryall. The following day was Remembrance Sunday and this Vintage Thing was prompting motorists into remembering the fallen. Just like John Sartain's Dodges, this is a remarkable survivor and is essentially a civilian vehicle that was pressed into service at short notice and without much adaptation. Its full title is a Chevrolet Series BJ Carry-All Suburban. As part of the AK series of light trucks it was rated by the military at half a ton and had the standard 85 bhp 6 cylinder Chevy engine.

I am reasonably certain it's a 1942 model. How do I know? My big book of Chevrolet suggests the tailgates were different. On the '41s, it was split horizontally and the '42s had the option of a vertical split. The sheet steel pressings were essentially the same. Later versions of the Carry-All Suburban lacked the chrome on the grille. Whatever the year, I just think it's a great overall shape, obviously styled by Detroit's finest but still looking good in a shiny version of something close to olive drab. This particular example is an absolute peach. Just look at those hubcaps! According to the sign writing on the door, this particular example was based at Providence on Rhode Island. Obviously much loved, it's been christened "Rhode Runner".

The panel work was also used for GMC body style No. 993 and, according to my rather small book of GMCs, these featured at 95 bhp six cylinder engine with four forward speeds as opposed to the Chevy's three. Like its cousin, it could carry six people in three rows of seats. Passenger-side windscreen wipers were an optional extra but all were side windows could be lowered for ventilation.

Unlike contemporary Dodges, the Chevrolet engine was endowed with an overhead valve design and four main bearings. It had a bore and stroke 3.5" x 3.75" to give a CID (cubic inch displacement) of 216.5. This equates to 88.9 by 95.25 and cubic capacity of 3547. It had been in production since 1937 and the basic design continued in production until the overhead valve small block 265 CID V8 was introduced in 1955. Incredibly, despite the relative sophistication of overhead valves, the six cylinder Chevy engine had cast iron pistons. Officially christened the Blue Flame Six, it was nicknamed the "Stove Bolt Six" on account of its slotted head bolts. It was also known as the "Cast Iron Wonder" and gained an undeserved reputation as a sluggard, although one Juan Manuel Fangio used it to win the 5900 mile Buenos Aires to Lima Road race. By 1941 the Blue Flame Six produced 90 bhp at 3300 rpm on a 6.5 to 1 compression ratio. it continued in production until 1955 when the small block Chevy V8 was introduced, ushering in a quantum leap in performance terms.

Cast iron pistons - that just sounds so wrong! As a child, I remember reading about WO Bentley who made his name convincing the French DFP concern to adopt aluminium pistons. This innovation significantly improve the performance and WO Bentley finished sixth in the 1914 TT. The lighter pistons allowed much higher engine speeds through lower reciprocating weight.

It seems incredible to me that the Chevrolet Blue Flame Six had overhead valve gear when so many of its his contemporaries were side valve flatheads and yet was lumbered with cast iron pistons. I can just imagine the conrods groaning as they cope with the inertia of these heavy slugs at top and bottom dead centre when their weight just wanna keeps them going on as the rods are trying to haul them back down the bores.

Cast-iron slugs may sound like the recipe for an absolute doorstop but Chevrolet passenger cars could manage 85 mph pre-WWII and offered remarkable value for money - but not fuel economy. The old Stove Bolt Cast Iron Wonder was popular, too, as evidenced by having at least two nicknames.

Mind you, I expect some enterprising Yankee made after market alloy pistons for this engine. And maybe cast iron pistons are not as heavy as I think. The aluminium Buick V8 was sold to Rover at a knockdown price because advanced thin-walled cast iron casting techniques had meant that iron engines of a similar weight and size to an aluminium engine could be produced at much lower cost.

This little Chev was another type of truck that my father admired. I can remember him drawing the Chevrolet front-end at the same time as he sketched out the Dodge D15 grille. Even as a military vehicles, the Detroit styling makes them aspirational items of desire and as a people carrier this old bus has more modern versions beaten even before they became the twinkle in their designer's eyes.

Pictures on this blog

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:44:00 +0000

Just in case you didn't know already, to see a larger image of any illustrations on either this blog or my Anarchadia book blog that grab your interest or look like they might fascinate, all you have to do is click on it.

And anything written in purple or blue - like Anarchadia above - is a link to something amazing.

I just thought I'd mention it. Wouldn't want any of you to miss out.

What my scrap buddy has been up to

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:25:00 +0000

I was near Andover at the weekend with my neighbour and tractor man Andrew. We dropped in on my scrap buddy, Rob Robinson-Collins who has a weakness for Allards. Here are Rob and Andrew in Rob and Tina's back garden. If ever Rob rings me up to tell me that he has discovered another Allard, or parts thereof, I don't dissuade him. I encourage him. I'm happy to say that he is rarely in any doubt about the desirability of any Allard or Allard parts so it is not difficult for him to follow my advice to, "Buy it!" We both realise that this is not really what having a scrap buddy is all about. What should happen, is that one of us says to the other, "Look, what you really want is just one car and one motorbike and that's it." Sometimes, one of us might actually say this but it is quickly ignored. Very often, this sentence is not uttered at all.

Here, Rob is explaining the niceties of shortening an Allard chassis to Andrew's boots. You may have noticed that the Allard chassis tapers so once the side rails have been shortened, all were cross members have had to either be narrowed or widened, depending on where they are in the new chassis layout. It's not a job to be undertaken lightly but, fortunately, Rob has done this all before. Unfortunately, he had to move house and sell the chassis that he had shortened but now he has two chassis is to play with and he's cracking with both.

At the moment, Rob doesn't really have anywhere to work on either of his Allards. This doesn't stop of course. He has created a portable folding garage and this is the green thing that you can see in the background.

What we should have done was enticed Tina outside for a photograph. Her presence would certainly have brightened the photographs up a bit. Tina puts up with a lot but shares Rob's enthusiasm for Allards.

Robert and Tina have a garage but it's full of parts and more of a storage area than a workshop. There are at least three motorbikes in this photograph and the second of Rob's Allard chassis, to say nothing of various gearboxes and engines. Rob's plan is to buy Tina a new garden shed but all this stuff in his garage will have to come out while Rob builds a new bigger and better structure. the only place all this stuff can possibly go is Tina's new garden shed.

As Tina said to me, "I don't honestly know who he is deluding more - me or himself - but he always has the best intentions."

That's my scrap buddy!

Vintage Thing No.33 - Dodge D15

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:11:00 +0000

This 1940 Dodge D15 truck belongs to John Sartain and is a companion to his half ton Dodge ambulance (VT No. 32). It has the commercial pattern cab that was superseded by the more easily repairable military pattern and would originally have had a general-purpose steel body and can reverse tilt cover. It was built by the Chrysler Corporation of Canada Ltd in Windsor, Ontario in 1940 and many examples of this type of truck were exported to Russia as well as Britain. The engine was a six cylinder 95 brake horsepower side valve 230.2 cubic inch unit shared with the US examples but those had three speed boxes while this one has four forward speeds.

Due to the large numbers produced, spares are not as much a problem as you would think, even after all this time. John has found some replacement front wings in preparation for a forthcoming restoration. He's also acquired a spare engine even though there's nothing wrong with the one's that fitted. I don't think the chrome air cleaner is original but it shows a certain pride in ownership. There is something very homely about a flat head engine. They are very simple to work on and although they could never be said to be high output units, they offer a award league kind of performance that suggests a big heart. Although these cast-iron lumps are inevitably very heavy, I sometimes wonder how they would perform in a lightweight automobile. Contemporary Ford trucks had 221CID (or 3.6 litre) V8s and these powered all manner of exciting motorcars after the war. Marrying large but low stressed American flathead engines with British chassis and coachwork gave rise to the Railton and Brough Superior cars before the war so British squaddies may have had the same thoughts as me while working on these engines. Michael Sedgewick memorably called these hybrids Anglo-American bastards, which makes me like them even more.

This design of cab and grill was a particular favourite of my late father’s. He served as a Bevin Boy in World War Two in the South Wales coal mines. I can remember him drawing from memory the cross shaped badge in the centre of the grill to describe this design of Dodge to me. I think what appealed to us both about this type of truck was that when it was built it was intended to be virtually disposable. Many thousands of this type were made and made in a hurry for the war effort. As time went by, the similarities with civilian trucks reduced but this 1940 Dodge has obviously been styled in Detroit. After the war, Dodges like this one was sold off as army surplus, and had an equally hard life in post war civvy street. But ex-Allied army trucks such as this one had built up such a reserve of goodwill from their war service that instead of being scrapped they were put to one side for sentimental reasons. It wasn't long before some of them became regarded as collectors items. A relative of mine, Charlie Mann, built up a large collection of ex-Army vehicles at Lamanva in Cornwall, many of which featured in the film A Bridge Too Far. He was also famous for reconstructing German trucks and staff cars, Harrison Ford film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This truck survived the war against the odds and it seemed highly appropriate, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, to stumble upon this fine old wagon, stored in the dry on a rainy weekend. For more survivors, including a wonderful coach built RAF crew coachclick here.

Vintage Thing No.32 - Dodge T215-WC27

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

While on a quest for tractor parts in Hampshire last weekend, Andrew the tractor man and I came across this fine example of World War II Dodge ambulance. It belongs to motorcycle enthusiast John Sartain and dates from 1941. Its official nomenclature is a T215-WC27 and 6422 of this type of ambulance are recorded as being supplied to the US Army and the UK under Lend-Lease. T215 is the model type and WC27 denotes the ambulance body. It has a six cylinder flat head 230.2 cubic inch engine with a 3.25 inch bore and 4.625 inch stroke. This equates to 82.55mm x 117.475mm and 3772cc. This design was essentially a stroked version of the engine in the late 1930's Dodge passenger car range and produced 92 brake horsepower at 3000 rpm and 170 ft lbs at 1200 rpm.

The idea of Lend-Lease was to pull the resources of the Allied forces without a formal engagement of United States of America in the Second World War and the US made available material valued at more than $42 billion to 44 countries. The Lend-Lease arrangements came to an end in September 1945 and were followed by the Anglo American loan whereby the British government paid for these goods supplied at a very preferential interest rate. The final deferred payment was made on 29 December 2006 when Britain's Economic Secretary Sec, Ed Balls, thanked the United States for its support.

The Dodge division of the Chrysler Corporation was the major producer of half ton 4x4 trucks for the U.S. Army but, in 1942, the half ton type was superseded by the three-quarter ton 4x4 truck, which was also produced by Dodge.

I have always been impressed by the enormous number of vehicles produced by the United States and the Commonwealth countries in support of the UK during World War II. The struggle latterly seems to have been an unequal one but in the dark days of 1941, when this machine was produced, Britain's future looked decidedly uncertain. The Axis powers were effectively subdued at last by sheer force of numbers and overwhelming industrial might.

The 1941 vintage Dodge 4x4 particularly appealed to John. Both types share the same engine but the half ton truck looks just a little bit cuter, if an army truck could ever look cute. I like the sweep of its front wings, which are cut away from the civilian pattern to prevent the buildup of mud, and the no-nonsense features of the militarised front end that made repairs on the battlefield that much easier.

I can only presume that in a back-to-back test the half ton type is slightly quicker off the mark than the three-quarter variety but straight line acceleration and fuel consumption were minor considerations when it came to winning the war.

These rugged little trucks were once described to me as being so easy to work on all you need to mend them was a hammer. However, John Sartain, who has had this example for a little over a year, found that someone had tried to adjust the wheel bearings with a chisel. The front wheel tracking was also seriously out of line. This has now all been sorted out and this Dodge is back on the road.

The tire tread pattern on this Dodge immediately took me back to my Airfix modelling kit days. From an early age, I enjoyed gathering any spare pieces of pastry from my mother's kitchen, rolling it out and then driving my army vehicles over the pastry to leave satisfying tyre tracks in it. I asked John if it was difficult to obtain this pattern of tire tread these days but he said there was no difficulty at all. Tyres like these seem to be as effective and popular as ever.

John’s ambulance came with quite a lot of history. For instance, it appeared in the film Memphis Belle and to commemorate this still carries the logo of this famous bomber.

Initially, I mistook this ambulance to be a Dodge Power wagon but John explained that the Power Wagon was the civilian name for the later three-quarter ton Dodge Weapons Carrier. These were known for a short period as Jeeps. The origin of the name Jeep has been fiercely debated over the years but is generally accepted to come from a character in the Popeye cartoons, a creature who was neither fish nor fowl but could do anything and knew the answers to most everything. Subsequently the Dodge Weapons Carrier was christened the Beep, which is believed to be a contraction of beefed up Jeep.

The prototype for both the Dodge T215 and the Dodge Power Wagon was a pre-war four-wheel-drive conversion of a Ford truck by Marmon Herrington. This was subsequently hailed as the grand daddy of the Jeep and later became known as the “Darling”. Obviously that makes me think of Blackadder Goes Forth. How these brave little trucks have permeated popular culture.

Vintage Thing No.17.1 - dirt track Douglas

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:19:00 +0000

While looking through some old photographs I found this shot of a dirt track Douglas at Wiscombe Park hill climb back in 1998 (I think). This shot reminded me why I like this design so much - for such an old bike, it looks like it's doing a 100mph even propped up against a Transit. The bike wheels and low slung engine all shout speed to me and although it's a hard tail and I prefer sprung frames any attempt to give it springing would alter the simple lines of the bike. The handle bars look like a bit too practical. I'd like to see this machine with drop handlebars like a racing push bike. And the gearchange on the tank and the shape of the tank itself make you realise this is an old bike. But the concept of the dirt track Douglas seems so modern to me.

Because it has a front brake this is probably the road going version of the dirt track Duggie - the SW5. The speedway biked lacked any sort of front brake and the gearchange was usually locked in one position. Me? I like brakes and admire speedway riders for travelling so fact without any form braking save that of the engine. An SW5 such as this is probably the only bike of the twenties that tempts me into ownership. Like an old hymnal, it's a great blend of ancient and modern. And if it was an SW6 then it'd even more desirable for that means it's a 600cc machine and not the normal 500. I don't think it is though. The yellow numberplate suggest this bike runs in the 500 hill climb class. If I were ever to own a bike like this that's what I'd use it for - hillclimbing.

You probably can't quite make it out but just behind the hand gearchange lever is the name of Douglas on the tank. "Douglas" has a full stop. Maybe a full stop couterpoints the dynamic lines of the bike but never has a sporting motorcycle been so well punctuated.

Vintage Thing 8.3 - A series Vincent-HRD TTR

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:41:00 +0000

Stephen Pate has sent me some more images of the special brakes for the A series Vincent TTR that he's restoring. Again, they are things of beauty and were sourced by the Japanese and American TTR owners working together. When I saw the pre-restoration state of the machine I thought how unnecessary but now that I realise its historic nature, I appreciate the responsibility that goes with owning something like this. Without the special TTR forks and brakes this bike was close to being "only" another A series Vincent. Now that the right parts have been sourced, just bolting them on wouldn't be right. Besides, earlier restoration work on this bike did not come up to standard. There's an opportunity here to review the condition of the whole machine and ensure its survival for many years to come.

In fact, Steve says that the condition of the special forks was a real mess and that after shot blasting he ended up building a jig and then disassembling the forks before rebrazing them together. As he puts it, "Where would I get another one?"

Another example of the lengths to which Steve is prepared to go to get things right - the wheels were incorrectly painted and striped. To get the chrome to hold the paint properly it has to be scuffed up but that showed problems with the plating. So off came the chrome an then off came the nickel to reveal further horrors underneath. As my mate Col would say, "Just right is good enough."

Steve also mentioned that he has a reservations on modern powder coating techniques. One of my mates swears by it, another won't countenance it, saying it encourages corrosion by drawing up water between the coating and the metal of the frame if the outer cover is ever breached. One mostly shows his bikes, the other rides them in classic trials. You can work out which one is which.

For more examples of Steve's work on Vincents click here.

Vintage Thing No.31 - UAZ-452

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:53:00 +0000

It was on the last day of a practice expedition for my Duke of Edinburgh award. I'd been out on Dartmoor for four days camping with my school friends when we began to make our way into Princetown. There was a tremendous sense of returning to civilisation. We'd been camping out in tents and had carried everything with us. At one stage something big came for our rubbish bag tucked under the flysheet of our tent and Hoppy Hopwood swore blind it was an ocelot. The Beast of Bodmin Moor was in the news even then - except this was Dartmoor. We probably smelt a bit and were a little foot sore but the sense of camaraderie was great. We'd not heard any radio let alone any TV, which was rare for a bunch of teenage boys, so felt completely cut off from the news and world events.

As we tramped across the moors, we began to catch glimpses of little 4x4 pick up trucks bouncing over the moors. This was nothing special and my friends didn't give them a passing thought. But I did. I knew straight away that they weren't just foreign but Russian and this was at the height of the Cold War. What could have happened while we'd been away in the wilderness, at one with nature and escaped exotic pets gone native?

I was at the age between Airfix kits and the real thing. I knew these little trucks were Russian because I had recently acquired The Observer's Military Vehicle Directory. It had been specially ordered for me by my mother from the SPCK Bookshop in Truro - that's Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. I don't think they stocked The Observer's Military Vehicle Directory as a matter of course but were quite happy to order it for me.

By the time my D of E expedition reached Princetown I was convinced we'd been invaded. It turned out that we had but peacefully. An enterprising soul had begun to import these 0.8ton 4x4s and they'd instantly found favour with moorland farmers since they were so much cheaper than Land Rovers. Some said they performed better, too. In fact as a cross between a Land-Rover and a Ford Transit, there was nothing else like them.

From my copy of The Observer's Military Vehicle Directory, I gleaned that they were introduced in 1966 and by the time I made their acquaintance featured 2430cc 4-cylinder engines with an 88mm x 100mm bore and stroke producing 70 bhp. These engines originated in the GAZ scout cars - the USSR's equivalent of a Jeep - and UAZ-450s, with the simpler grille design shown here, made do with a 2120cc (82x100) engine and 55 bhp. They all had three or four speed gearboxes with two speed transfer boxes. Later versions featured yet more powerful engines and UAZ-452s remained in production at the Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod plant at Ulyanovsk right up until 2004-5.

The wagons I saw on Dartmoor on that expedition in 1979 or 1980 were all pick ups but my favourite versions were the minibuses and vans. The UAZ-452 offered 4x4 traction at a budget price when 4x4s of any kind were still rare, quite unlike today. And the combination of Transit size carrying capacity and budget but effective four wheel drive was unique back then. The UAZ-452 could have been a kind of cult Russian microbus but factory photos show wandering shut lines and a kind of pre-dented build quality that VW Microbus owners would rarely have nightmares about. This didn't matter to the Dartmoor farmer, though. These were rough tough little trucks that must have been regarded as expendable by the Russian Army and probably didn't last long in Dartmoor's wet climate.

So do any survive in the UK? The UAZ-452 was a passing craze and I only ever saw them on that occasion in the late seventies (1979?), although at the time they seemed to be everywhere. Are there any microbus versions tucked up in old barns still? I'd love to see a UAZ-452 van at next year's Run To The Sun. It would be nice to think some still exist but frankly I doubt it. Wouldn't getting spares be a problem?

Vintage Thing No.30 - Reliant Ant TW9

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:33:00 +0000

Most people are familiar with the Reliant three wheel van of Del Boy and Rodney from Only Fools and Horses. They are looked down upon by everyone but those that have driven them remember them with surprising fondness. One of my mates had one years ago and goes into raptures about them. I don't understand why he's so enthusiastic about them and can only assume there's more to them than meets the eye. Could they be a Vintage Thing? Maybe but if they are it's probably for the wrong reasons, like the Austin Allegro (VT No.23). Or maybe they have hidden virtues known only by a select few who have personal knowledge of these devices. Me? I keep an open mind.

Here's the big brother to the Reliant Regal Supervan - Reliant's description not mine. It's the Reliant Ant or TW9, a forward control version on a longer and heavier chassis but with the same all aluminium 4 cylinder engine and four speed box.

That must be a joke name, surely - the Rely Ant Ant? It reminds me of the story of the little girl who wrote, "The trick with spelling banananana is knowing when to stop."

The name of Reliant Ant rang an ancient bell with me - had I owned an Ant of my very own years before? A 1:64 scale Corgi Junior model? Yes, I had. Just like the Leyland Martian (VT No.27) this curious little commercial vehicle has had a model made after it. If I remember rightly it featured with Whizz-Wheels so somebody at Corgi had a sense of humour.

One thing I'm not sure about - if it's on a bigger chassis can it still legally be licensed as a three wheeler? Can you drive this goods vehicle on a motorcycle license so long as you promise not to reverse?

Reliant have a long history with overseas markets and exported chassis cab versions of the four wheel Reliant Regal until 1967. Then the Ant was introduced and it remained in production until 1987. It was initially designed for export but soon cutomers at home were clamouring for it and I first made the acquaintance of the Reliant TW9 in my 1971 Observer's Book of Commercial Vehicles. My Corgi Junior model soon followed and then the Reliant Ant was pretty quickly forgotten about, by me at any rate.

Initially they had 700cc engines but they grew to 748cc in 1973 and presumably by the end of production had the 848cc motor, in line with Reliant's contemporary passenger cars. Although I can't be certain I believe the one piece fibreglass cab was styled by Ogle Design, a firm responsible for the Reliant Scimitar, Reliant Robin and the Bond Bug - in fact I can see a very passing resemblance in the Ant's space age lines to these motorised wedges of red Leicester cheese. It looked quite futuristic in a low budget B-movie kind of way and maybe a conceptual artist like Syd Mead (as featured on my Anarchadia blog recently) could have been inspired by one for his work on Blade Runner or Tron or Aliens - if he'd seen one.

The earlier, export models were rated at 10cwt (roughly 500kg) but British models were sold with a 16cwt weight capacity. My understanding of the British licensing laws is that to qualify as a three wheeler for the tax concession, it not only must have more than two wheels but less than four but also have a kerb weight of less than 425kgs. Quite how a laden Reliant Ant fits into this is unclear. Maybe somebody out there in cyberspace can advise.

The Ant was also produced under license by the Mebea Company in Greece and BTB Engineering in the UK.

I thought three wheel vehicles were a wholly British phenomenon but I was seriously wrong. The most famous Reliant Ant belonged to the Swiss distributor, Mr Ernest Hausler. Mr & Mrs Hausler travelled all over Europe and their caravan became known as The Mile-Eater Snail. They enjoyed 35mpg and a top speed of 60 mph.

Vintage Thing No.8.2 - The Vincent-HRD A series TTR

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:46:00 +0000

Of all the Vintage Things so far, the A series Vinnie has aroused most interest and I recently heard about a most interesting and very rare variant the TTR. Just before World War II, the factory went racing and subsequently built 3 A series TTRs - or Tourist Trophy Replicas - for sale. Two survive, one in Japan and the other in the US, which is being restored by Stephen Pate at Restoration Werks in Illinois & Minnesota. He's sent me these pre-restoration pictures. That's right - pre-restoration. Market value is estimated at $800k! The price of a TTR has traditionally been reckoned to be twice that of a standard A series Vincent and following the sale recently of an outstanding example at $400,000, $800k could be possible if it ever came to market - not that this TTR is for sale, however.

As pictured it features the incorrect forks and front brake but incredibly the correct pattern girder forks were found on a wall in Japanese temple. Obviously really. All that was needed was for them to be recognised by the owner of the TTR in Japan and then negotiations could begin.

I asked him about "The Snarling Beast's" Achilles heel. The Burman gearbox was on the limit of what it could take with the A series powerplant and frequently gave trouble but although he agrees that it was really more suited to a 500cc machine, Stephen reckons the main problem was one of inadequate lubrication. In fact, he's working on the gearbox right now. "There's a number of simple things you can do," he says, "but mis-lubrication (people using heavy grease) or poor lubrication (people not staying on top of the oil) seems to be a very common cause of failure."

Here's what the Japanese had been worshipping - men and women of taste, obviously. Steve explains that the the owner of the temple is a notorious motorcycle collector.

Starbase 109

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:13:00 +0000

Many years ago when I was a student and rock regularly went to college, there was an outbreak of new wave synthesiser bands. Some of these pre-programmed their tunes into keyboards and drum machines and the proceeded to stand by their electronic equipment. That was their idea of playing live and would have been disposable pop if had been popular but this phase didn't last. It was just boring and didn't appeal. For a while in my very late teens I thought the synthesiser sound was great but this sort of pretentious rubbish that said "actually, we're more of a studio band."

Nowadays, like Stiff Little Fingers, I believe in the power of guitar and drum but Montarg and Krayon - aka Starbase 109 - have got something.

I dunno what but it's definitely a something.

But Starbase 109 had my feet tapping when they supported The Stranglers at Exeter University on Friday nite. And quite a few people were dancing.

It won't be long before the audience will be joining in with the actions for each song.

The Stranglers have a tradition of alternative support acts but Starbase 109 were far and away the best that I've seen.

It could be the anti-radiation hats. Think post apocalypse Trumpton fire brigade helmets. Or maybe that would be post Trumpton riots. These items of industrial headgear were for sale at the back the hall for 15 quid and I found myself strangely tempted.

It could have been the electro-mechanical whimsy. It could have been the actions Montarg and Krayon indulge in - not quite miming but almost performance art - which left me wondering if all those pretentious bands who stood beside their synths and looked bored missed a trick. Starbase 109 entertain their audience.

Or it could have been some songs that were really rather good - on an album also for sale at the back of the hall, allegedly the culmination of 10 years work.

To start with the audience of Stranglers' fans took the piss out of them but as their show progressed from sings about gravediggers to the credit crunch I began to wonder who the joke was on and when they did a number about phobias and dangled a great big hairy spider with flashing red eyes over the audience I knew for certain - the joke was on us. An awful lot of people were grinning widely by the interval.

Starbase 109 are from Salford and celebrate engineering, which make me like them even more. They make industrial objects and could be part of the steam punk phenomonen although I'll claim them for engine punk movement first, for as I said before I think these guys have something. Still dunno what though.

Any band that hoovers up as a finale and has a beam engine on stage has to be a Good Thing. So good, in fact, that I've ordered their album. Check out their Myspace site and see and listen for yourself.

Vintage Thing No.29 - Ginetta G26

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:01:00 +0000

Last Saturday me and Andrew (of multiple tractor ownership fame) picked up this Ginetta G26 in Saltash for another mate of mine. It was an ebay bargain and although engineless has all its other vital organs. Originally Pinto powered there is talk of trialling it - it being that time of year - and possibly installing a Cologne V6. I suspect that it maybe a bit front heavy in that form and for trialling purposes you need good traction but that spec would make for quite a quick car because it's such a light car. I know this because I helped push it onto the trailer.

Designed and produced by the four Walklett brothers, Ginettas have already featured as Vintage Things (Pete Low's G21 was the first one ever) but I had come to regard the G26 as one the less desirable, partly because it's eclipsed by real beauties like the G4, the G12 and an old favourite of mine the Imp powered G15. So many Vintage Things but so little time.

My mate really wanted a G12 but they are worth thousands of pounds. His Ginetta itch will now be satisfied by this G26.

Thanks to Trevers Walklett, Ginettas were always good looking motors but when the G26 came out I thought they'd lost their styling flair. However, having looked at this car from many angles I can honestly say that it's growing on me. Initially it looks as if the component parts don't quite fit together from a styling point of view but when I realised that it's got Fiesta doors, rear and side windows and a Cortina screen, I marvelled at how cleverly the body proportions within these limitations had been worked out. I often wonder how different automobiles would like if they re-proportioned and this one is a kind of grown up sporting coupe Fiesta, although a much bigger car. It's surprisingly wide and only just fitted on the machinery trailer we'd brought along. But three of us easily dragged it over to centralise it. Did I mention it was light?

Front suspension is by Ford Cortina wishbones and with a chassis designed by Ivor Walklett the Ginetta tradition of good handling continued. It was a mature development of the Ginetta G21 as it was a practical four seater and with 280 built was a sales success. The Ginetta G26 was part of a family of 4-5 seater Ginettas and closely related to the G28, G30 & G31. These were a mixture of variants featuring a notchback (G28 & G31) or fastback (G26 and G30) style and either pop up headlamps (G26 & G31) or Mk3 Escort front lights (G28 and G30). Personally, I think the Escort lights do nothing for the looks - they enhance the unfortunate impression of using what was available rather than what might be aesthetically desirable - but were dictated by the higher bonnet required to cover the V6. I think the notchback style has just the edge over fastback so my preference would be for a V6 G31 with a bonnet bulge. They made about 70 G31s and only 14 G30s and 6 G28s so maybe my views on headlight design were mostly shared with customers. The promise of extra oomph did not always win over more balanced lines.

Running propositions cost hundreds of pounds rather than the thousands a G4 or G12 would cost you and they are much more usable. With the galvanised steel chassis option and the high quality GRP body a Ginetta G26 could be highly sustainable motoring. It's light, simple, won't rust apart from the Fiesta doors (you'd fill those with Waxoyl anyway) and handles and goes well. Maybe a 2.3 blown Pinto would be the best way to go or something more modern like an ST24? Mmm, suits you sir.

This Ginetta G26 is in pretty good nick. The steel Fiesta doors are just starting to bubble but the GRP, always of a very high quality on Ginettas, lacks crazing and signs of delamination. It's got a MkIV Cortina dash but will need a complete new interior. I don't think it'll get kitted out as a full four seater. There's talk of using it for trials but I'll let you know what happens to this G26.

Pity poor OPEC

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:35:00 +0000

The price of unleaded has fallen below ₤1 a litre. According to a net comparison site, it's down to 97.9p a litre around Liskeard. We are told that this price level won’t last because OPEC are cutting production. The low prices will encourage people to fill up. Demand will increase and the economists (who’ve made a mess of everything already) will hike the prices again due to the knicker elasticity of demand.

But I remember how a few years ago OPEC were lowering prices because they were worried that consumers might find alternatives to oil.

I reckon they now know that people will be switching away from oil and suing hydrogen or bio-fuels. The writing is on the wall for the oil industry even for plastics. At The Stranglers gig at Exeter University drinks were served from wibbly-wobbly glasses made not of plastic but a clear material made from plant starch.

So spare a kind though for the men of OPEC. They've only got a few years left so squeeze as much money out of us as they can. And so far, the oil price is still falling even after production's been cut. Is oil already yesterday's fuel?

The Stranglers in Exeter

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:42:00 +0000

Friday saw me in the old Roman town of Exetercester to see The stranglers and they were better form than ever. The fab four work well together after several years as a five piece following the amicable departure of Paul Roberts in 2006. The current tour features all the singles played in order, although the encore has to No More Heroes. Anything else would be just wrong. That bass intro is real body music - you feel it in your chest rather than hear it.

After a few health problems, Jet Black is playing with them again. He is 70 after all but you wouldn't know it from his drumming. Apparently, he invented a special bass drum pedal that has brought greater creative freedom and comfort to drummers. On Friday, JJ said Jet Black was back the dead, which was a back handed compliment. there was always something sinister about The Stranglers so a little resurrectionism adds to their mystique.

I'm not a die hard fan because some of their stuff is a bit experimental for me but when they rock they rock. The good thing about not being 100% familiar with their work is that they can pull something out of their back catalogue that pleasantly surprises me. This happened on Friday nite even among their singles. There's still a lot for me to discover about The Stranglers and I enjoy the prospect of future pleasant surprises. And the old favourites are real favourites.

Hydrogen power

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:44:00 +0000

ITM Power are publicising their development of a domestic hydrogen production system and a converted Ford Focus that could run for up to 30 miles on the hydrogen produced. That sort of distance is a typical daily commute and for longer distances the car can be revert to using unleaded. ITM Power offer this approach as a real world alternative to fuel cell vehicles that generate the electricity themselves. Depending on who you talk to, fuel cell vehicles work but are too expensive. It's the platinum in the fuel cells and the amounts required.

There's a big push to reduce the amount of platinum in fuel cells but for the time ITM Power's approach appeals to me. You would still have to have a big pressurised storage tank fitted to your car and that would restrict storage space but how much luggage do you need on the daily commute? ITM Power are also working on Bi-Fuel Diesels, too, so your common rail bus could run on hydrogen or biofuel diesel.

You would have a kind of green petrol pump outside your house. This is fed by wind turbines and electricity from your solar panels. In fact any sort of renewable electricity can feed into it, from heat pumps to Sterling engine powered domestic CHPs (Combined Heat and Power units). You could even use hamster wheels - every little helps. Instead of selling the excess electricity produced at peak times back to the grid, you would store it as hydrogen and use it for heating the house or transport.

There’s no mention about cost, however, but I’ve signed up to be sent more details. Like most people I’ve bought into the existing infrastructure and there are conversion costs to be considered but I really like the principles involved. It’s punk rock off-the-grid power. Apart from the fuel cells (which don’t have any moving parts), all the technology sounds fixable and easily maintained by an enthusiastic DIYer. The internal combustion engine that I understand can become a zero emissions vehicle and the amount of unsustainable WEEE looks low, too.

And for those longer journeys you can run the car on ethanol and not fossil fuels – one day.

I don't see how hydrogen could be used on a motorbike, though, unless you towed a trailer carrying the hydrogen tank. And motorcycles towing trailers is even worse than cars towing caravans in my view.

Vintage Thing No. 28 - Norton P53 Commander

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:12:00 +0000

This bike belongs to one of Pete Low's mates (sorry, I didn't catch your name) and he brought it along to the Calstock Bike Show (see post for 12th August). He'd only just got it and was very pleased with it, for it had been standing outside a house in London for two years and he paid 800 quid for it. The engine ran well and the only major fettling he had to do was to the brakes, which needed overhauling.

Overall, he was delighted with his purchase, which was worth the price for the engine alone. However, he was disappointed with the brakes, which were sourced from a Yamaha XJ900.

I have a slight history with Norton Motors in that I was interviewed for an industrial placement during my industrial design sandwich course. I was due to work at the Shenstone factory for a summer when it the engineering training board that was to have subsidised my pay realised that Norton Motors had not been making payments to its scheme. I believe subscriptions to the engineering training board, or whatever it was called, were legally required once production was under way. Norton Motors had been a research company developing the Wankel engine for so long that nobody had noticed the company when it started selling motorcycles to police forces. And Norton forgot to tell anyone as well. So there was a big fuss and I ended up working for John Mockett instead, which was probably a far better fate.

One thing that struck me during my interview and tour of the factory was the number of people who had worked for Yamaha NV in The Netherlends. This studio was closed when Yamaha entered difficulties during the early eighties following an ambitious new range of radically new bikes, such as the YZ550, that were flops. Japanese companies don't go under, they get rescued but a casualty of the rescue was the European design studio. Sourcing brake parts from Yamaha probably seemed like a good idea at the time but for a bike of the Commander's performance and weight they weren't up to the job.

My interview at Shenstone was an odd one in that I had four interviews, all one after another, just me showing my portfolio to a member of Norton staff. To be honest I thought three were dickheads and can't even remember their names but the fourth one (actually it was the third) was with Doug Hele. Doug was completely different. He was down to earth and genuinely interested in what a student had to say. That session passed in a blur for me. I didn't find him intimidating as the others had tried to be but what struck me most was his quiet intelligence. Doug Hele didn't have to try too hard. He mentioned his work with British Seagull, the outboard motor manufacturer and I later learned that Doug had been tempted back to Norton Motors to help solve slow running problems on the rotary engines. Instead of making the flywheels even more heavier, which had been the approach up then, Doug embarked upon a programme of minute changes to port design and timing and solved the problem by proper design and not by bodging.

Norton rotaries are rare beasts and sound unlike other engines, being somewhere between a four stroke and a two stroke - a three stroke maybe. It's a design that still has much going for it but I don't think Norton managers had the faith the engineers had in the engine.

The fairing design of the Commander was a great success, coming from the drawing boards of Seymour/Powell a product design company that took on some of my fellow students from Lanchester Polytechnic.

Nortons were really about race bikes in the eighties and nineties so a tourer seems an odd choice. But it was really a civilianised version of the P52 Commander police bike. On my tour of the factory, there were plenty of police bikes at the works.

My interview took place in the winter of 1984-85 not long after the miner's strike. Quite a few police bikes had become damaged during the dispute and these were being repaired at the factory. One rider had survived an axe being thrown at him. It cartwheeled harmlessly over his shoulder but hit the front of the fairing and smashed the top box behind him. When it came to escort duties the Norton proved much quicker than the BMW flat twin. The bikes had to paired together, for if BMWs were paired up with Nortons, the latter's superior performance could provoke engine blow ups as the slower bikes were ragged to death trying to keep up. At least, that's what they told me at the Norton factory. These were all air-cooled motors.

Later water cooled engines met noise emissions standards and added to the air of sophistication. Cubic capacity is 588cc - an ancient engine size for Norton's dating back to the Model 19 of the roaring thirties - but Wankel rotary cubic capacities are often increased by various factors to allow comparison with conventional engines. In the Commander, output was 85bhp at 9000 rpm with 75.4Nm of torque at 7000rpmand a kerb weight of 235kg.

When I visited the factory, they were making lost of engines for unmanned target towing drone aircraft so maybe government surplus stores would be good source of spares. It just seems such a shame to shoot at such a Vintage Thing.

With different brakes and forks - they're XJ900 components, too - the Norton Commander could have been the best tourer of its generation.

Vintage Thing No.27 - Leyland Martian

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:57:00 +0000

I've passed this old wreck of a wrecker truck many times but the other Sunday I pulled up in the old Ale Grow (VT No. 23) and had a poke around. I don't think it has much of a future and is fairly well grown in. It lies engineless outside a scrapyard just off the A38 near Doublebois but the scrapyard is a very odd one. Make any enquiries about anything and you'll get a mouthful of abuse and whatever you're interested in will be destroyed before your eyes. I don't know how they stay in business.

I'm not really into trucks but old ruins fascinate me and I did all the usual things that small boys do with military vehicles, which is like scramble all over them and sit in the drivers seat and make the noises.

I didn't know what it was but a little research reveals it to be a Leyland Martian, as immortalised by Dinky Toys. It was no surprise to find out that it was a British Army 6x6 truck but I was fascinated to learn that it would've had a 5.6 litre straight eight petrol engine made by Rolls-Royce.

These engines were part of a family of engines that Rolls for specifically for military service. The straight eight B80, and later B81, developed between 175 and 220 bhp depending on spec but were noted for prodigious thirsts - how about 3.5 mpg! Or at full throttle, 65 litre an hour? And a top whack, I believe, of about 40 mph.

The other note worthy feature of the Leyland Martian was walking beam suspension. The rear axles are joined by longitudinal beams that are pivoted on the chassis. This gives tremendous wheel travel and when both axles are driven by chains or gears (in the case of the Martian) makes for excellent cross country performance. I found this video of a Scammell Explorer with a sticky walking beam.

As a wrecker the Martian had 15 ton rotating crane and a rear winch that was rated at 40 tons. I understand that considerable safety margin was built into these devices, that is they can be abused with loads well over these limits and frequently were. Some are still in use today for heavy recovery but usually have entered graceful retirement.

The other main use for the Leyland Martian was as an artillery tractor and these had crew cabs for the gunners that sat 12. These look quite cosy wagons and at least one has entered preservation. You can hear a Martian on song here . I'm thinking how well one might go in a classic racer. They sound fantastic.

I don't want to bring this old wrecker home because it's too big and slow for me but I might settle for a Dinky toy.

Dobwalls' by-pass

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:36:00 +0000

It's taken years but Dobwalls is now by-passed. Visitors to south-east Cornwall during high summer probably don't have very good memories of Dobwalls. It's a village that straddles the A38 just west of Liskeard and due to its position at the western end of the Liskeard bypass it became a bottle neck to avoid. And the residents of Dobwalls certainly didn't appreciate being prisoners in their own homes.

From Easter to late September, Saturday is known as change over day. One lot of visitors leaves and another lot arrives and gridlock often ensues. Landlords of B&Bs and self-catering barn conversions are reluctant to let their properties for part weeks during the season so the ritual of change over day and manic chambermaids cleaning rooms and changing bed linen seems to be here to stay. Only by camping can this lemming like ritual be avoided.

Cornwall relies on an effective road system otherwise those that support its main industry will stay away. Effectively that road system is needed for just one day a week – change over day – but on that day it is needed really badly. Building new roads always attracts opposition and sometimes I agree that they unnecessary and removing one bottle neck just creates another further on.

But Dobwalls was always different. The A390 branches off south here and siphons off a proportion of the holiday traffic. The Eden Project has been credited with regenerating a vast part of the old China Clay country and many people now holiday in and around Snozzle, spelt St Austell. By the time the A38 enters the beautiful but twisting Glyn Valley as it heads for Bodmin, it’s lost half its traffic.

In years gone by, just for change over day, a new road layout around Dobwalls would mysteriously spring up over night. A triangular one way system between Dobwalls, East Taphouse and Doubleboys (spelt Double Boys) would frighten the traffic lights into submission and allow the use both lanes of the single carriageway road. I have happy memories of pulling out into the right hand lane on blind corners, which provoked surprising agitation in girlfriends from out of the county. (It was big and it was clever but I’ve grown out of that sort of thing nowadays.) Any temptation to use the circuit for speed testing or racing was always tempered by a 40 mph limit and the presence of traffic cops.

And to get to this one way system from the east you had to climb the hill up into Dobwalls (avoiding the overheating cars with caravans) and wind your way through the village to the traffic lights where the two A roads met.

This worked for a while but what the Dobwalloons really wanted was a bypass. The campaign went on for years until one glorious day it was announced that Dobwalls would at last get one. Then nothing happened and continued to do so for years. But inexplicably, work began and now the bypass is opened.

It's a work of considerable engineering. The old road was steep and twisting but the new one gracefully arches up the hill on a massive embankment created out of all the rock and earth they had to carve away from the summit of the hill. A roundabout joins the two main roads so there may still be some hold ups at peak times but it's far better than the old traffic lights for keeping the traffic moving.

As a tribute to the workers of contractors Interserve, the Dobwalloons burst into poetry. Click on the pic for a larger image but for the lazy among you here is a transcript of an appreciation of Dobwalls' beloved and long awaited bypass, coutesy of DIG - Dobwalls Into Gardening.

Now the road is almost done
And the men will soon be gone
Diggers and lorries of Interserve
Have shovelled and shifted tone of earth
They moved it here, they moved it there.
They moved it blooming well everywhere.
They worked for all they are worth
Thank you all at Interserve.

The new bypass hasn’t been fully tested yet but, as the finishing touches are put in place, it looks and works pretty well. Construction traffic made things worse for the Dobwalloons for a while and some complained but this wayside tribute to the construction workers caught my eye and at least explained to the waiting traffic queued up in the village what the hold up was about and that things would be better next year. Long may it continue to make a difference to road users and residents alike.

But is it sustainable motoring?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:14:00 +0000

This caught my eye the other day. Dodge says its Zeo concept sport wagon shown at the Paris Show is "designed for driving enthusiasts and tree-huggers alike". That’s me! It's a four-passenger sport wagon, powered by a single 268-horsepower electric motor with a lithium-ion battery. With rear wheel drive it can do 0-60 in 5.7 seconds and go 250 miles (400 km) between charges - once the technology is perfected.

So long as the technology works, I can fix it and afford it (economically and environmentally) I'll have one.

But I can't have one now because the technology is not tried and tested. The Chrysler Corporation is working with "multiple suppliers" on developing batteries that deliver a 300 mile range. The favourite power source seems to be lithium-ion batteries like that in my cordless Dremel although they'll probably be a bit bigger. And take longer to re-charge.

In other words the Dodge Zeo doesn't actually go yet.

And when it does become available, the manufacturers are going to have to recoup their colossal investment.

Ever heard of the product life cycle? It charts the production and use that you can expect to get out of a manufactured good. Product life cycles have to be carefully controlled so that they don't overlap, otherwise profits can suffer if the return on the investment is not realised. So we're going to have to wait for groovy stuff like the Dodge Zeo - even once they've sorted out the R&D issues - until less radical products have had their day. But this is just what concept cars are supposed to do - give us a tantalising view of the future.

I will admit to being tantalised. Much as I like the old internal combustion engine, the Pontiac Zeo looks like fun.

I'd be interested to know how long its expected life span would be. Will the infrastructure to support it blossom like a flower in the desert and then die away as the next new thing comes along? Or is this the start of something as long lived as the steam engine or the Diesel engine?

Will we be scrapping Dodge Zeos in fifteen years time becasue they're too expensive to fix? Will the batteries be unique like they are in my video camera? Will hotrodders soup up Zeos in fifty years time with domestic hadron colliders?

I 'd like to think they will be but the Zeo will more likely be disposed of as a piece of WEEE - that's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.

Here is the WEEE Man. He lives just down the road from me (in global terms at any rate) at the Eden Project. I've met him and he's a dude. His aim in life is to meet people and make the world a better place. No really - he's going to do this by making us aware of the amount of electrical rubbish we produce. In Britain we produce 3.3 tonnes of it in our lifetime. In the states they produce even more per person and the figure is growing no matter where you live. So the WEEE Man has a tough job on his hands. He's not so wee, either, for he stands at 7 metres tall and weighs - funny old thing - 3.3 metric tonnes.

Have a look at the WEEE Man's website. It contains some mind boggling statistics. British citizens discard 15 millions mobile phones each year. That's the impact of getting bored with your phone and shows how easily we can be manipulated into obeying the product life cycle propaganda. A 24kg desktop PC will use ten times its weight in fossil fuels, materials and chemicals during its lifetime. That's a quarter of a ton of hidden impact.

If increasing amounts of WEEE are a problem, then I'd like to keep my old internal combustion engines, thanks very much, and run them on renewable alcohol based fuels. Or I'll adapt them to run on hydrogen produced with electricity generated from solar, wave and wind power. When the time comes when my Dodge Zeo won't boot up, I'll stuff a Rover V8 into it.

I know how Vintage Things operate and I can still fix 'em so long as there aren't too many sealed units. The adjective vintage has connotations of lengevity and that has to be a good thing, especially if they provide sustainable motoring.

The Paris Show 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:47:00 +0000

The Paris Show this week was marked by financial and economic gloom. European car manufacturers have been unable to escape tough targets on emissions for new cars and the credit crunch means fewer customers. They are pleading with us to buy their new models and are gearing up to sell us little cars to suit our shallower pockets.

Life style vehicles such as SUVs, 4x4s and cross over vehicles – I’ve never really understood this term – are falling rapidly and interest is now in small cheap cars that don’t pollute. The aspirational Chelsea tractors of the noughties “said something about you as a person”, such as like you’re such a lard arse you can’t get out of a car with a seat height lower than your hips and that you want to look adventurous when the only reason you drive a 4x4 is because you’re too fat to walk anywhere and had to drive there.

I see this as a good thing. The conspicuous consumption that was spoken of just before the internet bubble burst (remember that?) happened anyway. The gap between rich and poor widened dramatically. It will probably continue to do so but a more resource aware approach seems inevitable.

It’s just that having seen so many riches can we stand with being poor. Having enjoyed the summer of ’76 can bear these gloomy rainy summers?

The Paris Show is marked by the numbers of electric city cars. The technology has come in the last few years but the range is still only about 50 miles. Battery technology doesn’t allow much more. Bentley’s chief exec Dr Franz-Joseph Paefgen says that battery technology has advanced by only 50% since the bad old days of the ’73 fuel crisis when it needs to advance by 500% if it’s to offer a realistic alternative to internal combustion engines or hybrid cars, about which he is more enthusiastic. So it seems that we can expect to see some hybrid Bentley’s in the future.

If you think about it, 50 miles is probably far in excess of most of our daily mileages. The thought of running out of charge and becoming stranded is as valid as running out of petrol. Hybrid petrol electric cars offer a safety net to those who don’t like the idea of cordless motoring. And who would really want to drive on the end of an extension cable? They’d just get tangled up.

Coachbuilder Pininfarina is even getting onto the electric band wagon these days. But holy writ from Detroit is “small cars, small profits”. The car manufacturers have to charge a premium of some sort and the smell of burning martyrs is hardly aspirational in our secular society, no matter how environmentally conscious we wish to appear to be (when we are not really, not if anyone looks too closely).

They’re doing it by loading these space efficient, fuel efficient little cars with all manner of goodies. Concept cars like the Audi A1 and the BMW X1 are weighed down with the gadgets that bigger cars offer but this pushes up the weight. The added value from which the car manufacturers make a living makes their products less fuel efficient, more complicated, more difficult to fix (since there’s more to go wrong) and less environmentally friendly.

As for the electric cars all this new battery technology leaves me rather suspicious. I have a Sony Handy cam and the battery for this is unique. As soon as it goes wrong I'll have to buy another and they are very expensive. My digital camera uses rechargeable AA size batteries but that's a year older.

Do you spot the trend that I see? Our cars are becoming more like computer accessories. Until we get pattern replacement print cartridges and video camera batteries there's a question mark over the life span of the new batteries in electric cars.

But if you live in a city, why aren’t you using public transport?

Bleak Leather Mojo - Silver Ginger 5

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:09:00 +0000

Amazon is great and here's why. One of "My recommendations" that kept cropping up was an album called Black Leather Mojo. Then I saw it listed against The Flaming Sideburns, The Hellacopters and Iggy Pop - people who bought this also bought Silver Ginger 5. So I put my faith in Amazon and the people who buy from it and took a small risk.

As my mate Matt would say, "Am I ever glad I did!" Ginger from the Silver Ginger 5 is the main man from The Wildhearts. He's one of those guys who's a star in another universe, one where talent and graft are rewarded. Unfortunately, that universe is not this one. I've still manged to stumble across Ginger and his music though and i think I might start mining it.

Black Leather Mojo is muscular glam-rock. It's one anthemic song after another and is so riff laden the sun would implode if another track was included. Actually, this is a double album and I haven't got passed the first disc yet, since I like it so much. In fact, if a black hole was created by such densely hard rocking music it might be gate way to the universe where Ginger is adequately recognised. So I'm gonna stick it on now.

Vintage Thing 22.2 - yet another Siva Llama

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:24:00 +0000

It's happened again. Each time I blog about Siva Llama's, another one turns up. I stated on VT 22.1 that the total of known survivors was 4. Well I was wrong. There are in fact 5.

This example features on Franka’s website which is well worth visiting if just for all the information on the many Imp specials that exist. She has even tracked down information on the Whomobile, Dr Who's hover car that was really an Imp powered trike underneath some 1970's space age glass fibre. Thanks for digging up this splendid example of a Siva Llama, Franka.

It was spotted by an “Imp enthusiast from Porto, Portugal” in the town of Porto near the gardens of “Palácio de Cristal” (Crystal Palace), on 25th April 2008. It’s a very smart van version like mine although mine doesn’t have a tailgate, just a roll down PVC curtain with a vinyl window let into it. The headlamps look like they fit properly, unlike mine, and so do the doors – again unlike mine.

The doors are different, too. On my van, they hinge on the upright supporting the windscreen frame. On the Portugese example, they appear to extend to the leading edge of the windscreen surround and look like they fit properly, too. Mine were so drafty – even when standing still – that I never bothered using them.

The rear tailgate looks like a professional moulding and the thick rubber seal would suggest its window is glass.

The anonymous “Imp enthusiast from Porto, Portugal” says that the registration number dates from the mid to late 1970s and wonders if this left hand drive car with a Super Imp dashboard was imported from Angola. As the "Imp enthusiast" works close to where this car was spotted more details may be forthcoming later.

Have a look around Franka's site for if you're into specials and Vintage Things of any sort, she's gathered many interesting creations for your automotive edification and delight.

Vintage Thing 22.1 - another Siva Llama

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Blackman) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:14:00 +0000

It seems that just by writing about something I really stir things up. If you follow my Anarchadia book blog you'll know that real life is starting to follow the fictional world of The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb and probably rejoiced to hear that - from now on - all my books will feature brilliantly sunny weather. Well, now I'm stirring things up with Vintage Things. I blog about them and more come out of the wood work.

This Siva Llama belongs to a doctor who has owned the car from new. He’s commissioned Tony Suckling in Kent to get the car going again and, through the wonders of the interweb, Tony found me to ask a few questions about Siva Llamas. It’s a 1975 car so a few months younger than mine and it looks like it’s the same colour. Mine’s been resprayed but I’ve seen a couple of others in this bright yellow.

It’s been on blocks for the last 30 years and has only done about 6,000 miles. So far the wheels have been shot blasted and powder-coated, new tyres and drive couplings fitted, the brakes have been overhauled and, after a certain amount of aggravation, the electrics have been sorted out. Tony has made new bumpers and outriggers and mended various small items such as the fuel sender unit, windscreen wiper wheel boxes, ignition switch and handbrake. He’s also fitted new seat belts, finding Securon a good source for the non-inertia variety.

Its first road test provoked only a slight leak from the water pump and the clutch was free despite all those years of storage.

Tony initially asked me if the Llama was worth doing up so I obviously said yes. This brings the total of known survivors to 4.

Besides this latest discovery, there’s my own 1974 van version, the blue one that used to belong to Colin Valentine and the camouflage one that used to be owned by Richard Murtha but has now gone abroad.

Tim Morgan was once given a Llama, many years ago, sight unseen, that was in Cornwall somewhere, possibly Launceston but he didn’t have time to pick it up. There was also the one I spotted in a scrapyard at St Day in Cornwall about 14 years ago that got baled up before I new how scarce they were becoming.

According to Chris Rees in his book Classic Kit Cars, Siva made around 50 Llamas. No owner’s club exists but an informal network has grown up over the years as enthusiasts and fellow owners let each other know whenever anything new crops up. Leading light in all things Siva is William Jansen in Holland who has a Siva Moon Buggy - like a beach buggy but Mini powered. Between us we know people with Ford Pop-powered Siva Edwardians, VW based Siva Salukis and crazy Raceabouts and even the amazing V8 Siva S530 that was nearly made by Aston Martin.

Popular Siva lore has it that the Llama killed the company but I recently made contact with Neville Trickett who exonerated the little car of all blame. The fault lay with Siva’s financiers. As the Imp was 10 years old when design work began, Neville obtained assurances from Chrysler UK that Imp production would continue. However, Chrysler abruptly announced that Imp production was to end and Siva’s financial backers pulled out.

I asked Neville if the Llama was ever resurrected abroad under another name. He said overseas Llama production had been planned but it never came to fruition. I explained that Patrick Neckles in Grenada had a car that looked like a Moke from the front but a Llama from behind. This car is a Hustler built by Arawak Motors but Neville had never heard of these names although he added that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a link.

This sort of thing happens a lot with kit cars. Neville’s design for the Siva Parisienne, a pastiche of a veteran Renault based on a 2CV chassis, popped up wherever it was sunny after going out of production in the UK. And another of Neville’s designs, the VW based Siva Saluki, morphed into the Charger and then the Eurocco - without him having to lift a finger.

It's interesting that this car is owned by a doctor as the most famous Siva of all time was Bessie, which belonged the most famous doctor of all time – Doctor Who. “The Doctor” (Tony's mate) has this to say about his Siva.

“You may wonder why I purchased a Llama car. I attended the 1975 Motor Show at Earl’s Court wishing to buy a four seater convertible and - believe it or not - there were only three available, the Llama, a Morgan that had a ten year waiting list and a Bentley Continental, which was somewhat out of my price range so I attended the garage in North London where they were selling them. I was a young GP at the time with a wife and young daughter so I needed four seats. The Llama was our only car for two years, but was not very practical with the side screens up. There was nowhere to lock my medical bag or other things and with the roof down the maximum speed was only 55mph with no acceleration at all.

“I put in more comfortable seats for the driver and front passenger as the original seats were unsafe and uncomfortable, especially on a long journey.

“Once I had bought another car I stored the Llama in a lean-to at my mother’s house where it remained quietly rotting away. A friend of mine who had just retired was looking for a project, hence the rejuvenation of this unusual car.

“Tony is one of those chaps who can turn his hand to anything and is also a very good snooker player. I personally cannot even bang a nail in straight.

“One of the little car’s claim to fame, apart from being owned by me, was that on two occasions attended Broadstair's carnivals carrying carnival queen and her companions.

As there are so few Llamas in the world I intend to keep it unless there is a multimillionaire whose greatest desire is to add this car to his/her collection. Then for a suitable fee I would be persuaded to part with it.”

I must say that I have never considered my Llama as an alternative to a Bentley Continental or a Morgan but I can relate to the restriction on top speed. My car had a 998cc engine but it wore a 1¼ inch SU carb to enhance low speed torque for trailing. It wouldn't rev like an Imp engine should and only managed 65mph at best. I put this down to the lack breathing ability but it could be that it was more a question of aerodynamics. I never went anywhere with the hardtops so can't say if the top speed improved with them on. I do know that there was terrific turbulence in the passenger compartment at speed and once had twenty quid sucked out of my shirt pocket during a jaunt over Dartmoor.

I’ve asked Tony Suckling if he can identify what headlamps “The Doctor's” car has got. When arch-enthusiast Colin Valentine had his blue Llama, the origins of its headlamps were a big mystery. His car had unidentified lamps that fitted. My headlamps are believed to have originated from a Mk1 Escort but they just don’t fit. Colin sent me some codes and serial numbers written in the lenses but we never found out what they were from. They had proper adjusters and we suspected a Continental or Scandinavian origin. The headlamps on my car are so deep the bulb fouls the wheel arch panel behind it. Whoever put my car together solved this problem by the simple expedient of fixing them to the outside of the bodywork, thereby ensuring that the headlamp cover panels wouldn’t fit properly and that the Llama’s sleek styling was compromised - some would say even further.

I’m sorry to say that this sort of lash up typified my car. My door hinges pins are obviously old nails welded to the windscreen frame. Whoever put the side windows in the van sides cut the apertures too big on one side but then riveted a strip back in the make the hole smaller. The front seats hinged on bent pieces of metal when I got my car with the inevitable result that the material hardened and fractured. At this point, the seats became infinitely adjustable and the occupants became unhinged in both senses of the word. I made up some better seat brackets and hinges to restore peace of mind but Timo Rumary still took the mickey out of them. Apparently he was a welder fabricator in a previous incarnation.

It sounds like “The Doctor's” was better built than mine and will probably be MOTed by the time you read this.

As for the great Llama headlamp mystery, answers on a postcard please.