It was 1959. Having just met a promising potential
girlfriend I decided with a mate who had a car, to take her for a day out along with
his latest flame. We decided to take the
girls to Oulton Park to watch motor
racing. He had a beautiful early 1930s
Aston Martin in British Racing Green and despite a contrary appearance in the photo below it would seat four even with the hood up. Seeing all the classic vintage cars at the Dog and Partridge on the Flying Scotsman Endurance Rally (previous post) the other
day reminded me as there were some Lagondas there, which were very similar in appearance to
his Aston Martin
David Sykes in GN7364 at Rock Mills, Brockholes in 1959 where we worked at the time.
We set off and went over the A6024 Holme Moss road. On the ‘other side’ of Holme Moss there are
some bends near the top and two places where the narrow steep road had sudden unexpected
dips, maybe from old subsidence, although today these seem to have been largely ironed out.. The Aston Martin had rods to
actuate the back brakes. For whatever
reason, either the brakes were adjusted up to be as keen as possible and/or with
additional weight in the back as well maybe, hitting the first dip downhill
at some speed was enough to cause something to flex. At least one rear wheel locked up in a sudden
unplanned spasm and the car cavorted sideways, from my perspective at the tail end,
toward the unprotected edge of the road as it hung along the side of a steep
drop down into the valley. It was not a
controlled drift! Fortunately it was one
of those instant events quickly corrected as the brake released, with no loss
of forward speed, but no less memorable and we had a good otherwise uneventful
day. I don’t know what happened to his girlfriend
of the moment, though I think it was a one off, but in my case it eventually turned into an ‘Until death us do part’ situation.
Unfortunately he commuted to work in the Aston
from home in Almondbury along winding country lanes towards Farnley Tyas. A short time later, early one morning, the Aston Martin impacted with the front of a
bus on a corner.
The mangled car in the mill garage in June 1959
He dismantled the car and had the chassis straightened. Somehow he restored it to its former glory. I wonder if GN7364 is still in existence, or even if he is?
This was my first car in 1963.
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David Swanbury
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I ran a 125cc Vespa scooter, essential for commuting
as I often seemed to have to travel unreasonably to get to work with difficult
or impossible public transport solutions.
In 1963 I had been looking around at old cars but the Austin Sevens that
were being scrapped, or sold for £25 or less, seemed to have all vanished by that
time.
I spotted this car and suggested to the college lad
who owned it that he might like to sell it.
He was probably glad to really, but didn’t show it
and my negotiating skills were far from finely honed. I actually ran into St Paul’s churchyard wall in
the Huddersfield college car park as I tried to brake at full lock knowing the
car could not get round in one go while I was turning on a test drive. The car just carried on. Fortunately it was a very slow speed bump
with a front wheel. I discovered later that
the reason was due to an arm on the steering box fouling the back of the brake
pedal at full left lock, so there was no way I could apply the foot-brake pedal
fully. A habit of leaving a quick standing start in
a smoke screen later on meant that I had to rebuild the engine completely. ( I had kept my Vespa as back-up!) But it was a bit of a wolf in sheep’s
clothing as although it was largely Austin 7 it had a Ford 10, 93A, side
valve engine and gearbox mated to a shortened Austin 7 prop shaft. It had a lot more torque than an Austin 7, sufficient to frighten
passengers, but I suppose passengers would find it a bit exposed.
Due to the bigger engine there was no room behind
the radiator for a fan so the radiator had to rely on being air cooled from
forward motion. I used to commute some
distance for the era, from the wrong side of Huddersfield to Halifax. Nowadays it is a stop-start journey of
hold-ups, queues and many traffic lights but in those days I was never stopped long
enough for it to overheat. It just never did.
Amazing really. I always referred
to the car as ‘The Bomb’. The windscreen
wiper was vacuum operated as those on many of the old cars were. The system was a pain. Put your foot down to overtake in the spray
and the wiper would stop.
The first MOT was introduced while I had it. They just tested brakes, lights and steering originally. The tester from the old
Sovereign Garage had to sit on the passenger seat with a Tapley meter on the
floor between his legs, as I wouldn’t let him drive it, while I did emergency
stops, first with the foot brake and then with the handbrake. The brake cables had been adjusted as tight
as possible beforehand and somehow we glided to a stop sufficient to register a
pass. The handbrake was a bit more
contentious though and it was lucky to get a pass by performing adequately at
the critical time, but my heaving on it bent the mounting and it would not have
worked again until I repaired it.
A car like this, while a real bundle of fun and probably
impossible in today’s regulated world, was also a wonderful opportunity to
learn if you didn’t mind grovelling about and getting stuck in. I can well remember having to replace a half-shaft
at the side of the road in the snow as the Woodruff key sheared and the keyway
enlarged as the wheel hub must have been rocking slightly on the taper. I now use the old half shaft as a mooring pin
so everything comes in eventually. I don’t know how I discovered things in
those days without the internet, maybe Exchange and Mart, but I found a chap
called Dalby in a place called Kirby Wiske who could provide anything for an Austin 7. Wonderful - I just checked him out on the web
and the business is still flourishing.
On the trip shown below in the snow I went to Pelsall,
near Walsall in the Midlands and back around Christmas
time, about 90 miles or so each way.
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David Swanbury
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The route was through Derbyshire and over the Strines
fortified with a bottle of ginger wine, there being no form of heating except
my duffle coat, a popular bit of attire at the time and with not so much as a
screwdriver. Being youthful and of a
carefree disposition allowed such ventures without a second thought. Today I would probably need to take a full
toolkit and other precautions as well as a mobile phone ‘just in case’ even if
I ever considered taking it there in the snow and on that route in the first
place.
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David Swanbury
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David Swanbury
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Looking at the current register of Austin 7s, one with the nearest registration number to XG4162 is shown as a 1936 model so I guess the Bomb originated as a proper car of some sort around then.
I sold ‘The Bomb’ to another student a few years
later who took it to Ireland and I guess there it
would expire eventually. I bought it for about £60 and sold it for about £45, but
the loss was well worth what I got out of it. The initial purchase meant I spent the money lent by an Aunt for a living room carpet, having just got married, and somehow I got away with it - then!
