Engine Punk

Schmoking! Must be something pretty competitive to get this far up Simms on the Exeter...

This year Team Robert were entered in the 2013 Exeter Trial, a problem with the propshaft had been sorted and we were all ready to go when Binky got the snots. He got the snots real bad. So did Mrs Binky. I'd had the snots about 3 weeks earlier and could certainly sympathise so when we came to confer about arrangements on the Thursday before the trial it was clear that Binky was in no fit state to get wet in Dartmoor's liquid sunshine. It was a difficult decision but I couldn't see him enjoying driving the Allard all that way and I wouldn't enjoy it if I felt he was enduring it on my behalf and suffering.

That can't be right! An X90 almost cleaning Simms? Nick and Liz Deacon from Stroud show that it is - almost - possible. Maybe next year?

So we were a non starter and I went to watch at Simms instead.

These guys breezed up on their heavy metal trials irons

Simms was hard. I think I saw no more than 20 cars get up. I arrived just in time to see the last of the bikes go up and Simon Eliot on his ISDT Triumph and Steve O'Connor on his BMW R80GS made it look easy.

Only when the four wheelers began did it become apparent how difficult Simms was.

Mike Pearson and Graham Proctor also made it look easy in their 1600 Dellow

I saw the very smart VW Notchback of Dean and Arthur Vowden get up. I see in the programme that this is listed as having 2056cc so that no doubt helped. This is the car that suffered the indignity of a suspension collapse on Warleggan in last year's Land's End. This occurred just beyond the recovery tractor, which then had to get down the hill, filter through all the waiting queues of competitors and go the long way round to recover the car from the top.

Adrian Booth's old car is now highly developed and James Shallcross showed Simms that he's The Daddy

Also James Shallcross in the ex-Adrian Booth Peugeot 205 - I think this was the only Class 1 car to clean Simms. Dave Haizelden in his Golf hit a bump that threw him off course and spoilt his progress, blowing a tyre in the process.

Lester Keat flew up in his Class 3 Avenger. I was telling some of my fellow spectators to look out for him and Dick Bolt in his Escort but Dick turned out to be standing a little way up the hill from me. He'd had electrical problems on the car but should be out again for the Land's End. Other notable spectators among my section of hedge were Tris White, of VW powered Imp fame (VT No. 49) and Dennis Greenslade and Shree Tonkin.

My how we groaned when Roger and Julia Bricknell didn't even get up to the "A" boards. If no cars in a Class clear the hill but someone reaches these they are deemed to be the class winner. However, in Class 7 - which is the class for Team Robert's Candidi Provocatores Allard and the Bricknell's trials-spec Vincent - I saw no cleans this year on Simms although I heard a rumour that a Liege managed it before I pitched up.

I've always had a soft spot for Wolseley Hornets, for the early ones are a hotrodded ohc Morris Minors and the later ones pure rolling sculpture, but even a well driven and famous car like this one of Adrian Dommett could get no further than this

And then we groaned again at every Suzuki X90 that turned the corner for they just don't seem to work, despite so much being in their favour. That was until the Deacons did their stuff...

The crowd went nuts. It was a very knowledgeable gathering that clearly knew what marked good driving. It was such a shame they somehow couldn't get any further having got that far. A nonchalant shove from the marshals and away they went, happy to have shown us what an X90 can do. It certainly altered my opinion of them.

As the day wore on the section became more polished and hardly anything got up. Mike Warnes broke his prop but had a spare and after some manhandling to get off the section he had a spare joint and got going again.

John Aley used to call this sort of thing "mechanical heroism" and that's as good an example as I can think of.

The crowd went nuts again for Melanie Hobbs in her Beetle but although she got further than many other Beetles no matter how much we hollered Simms claimed another victim after a valiant struggle.

It was getting dark by the time the closing car came through and I set off for the Trecarn Hotel for the Club supper. Team Robert had booked in along with our entry and I thought I might just as well join in as I had tickets. Getting to the hotel was easy. I just had to follow the muddy cars and after a quick brush up I had a long chat with Dave Symons from Liskeard. He once gave me a 928cc Imp engine when I was campaigning my Llama (VT No.22) and he was using a Sunbeam rwd hatchback.

Over the supper I fell in with a group of XT600 riders from Class O. There were 79 entrants in Class O and although some people see Class O as diluting the main trial and using up too many marshals, at least these guys were "the right side of the fence" as Peter and Johnathan Thompson would put it. Class O has got many people involved who would not otherwise enter and I will admit to being put off by how rough the sections are (unless you have a buddy with an Allard, of course). These XT riders had thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

"All the best two stroke trial bikes are made by dictators." Eastern Bloc or fascist, you can take your choice.

At breakfast I at last met Celia Walton, editor of the MCC's Triple magazine, and also her passenger George Osborn of Monster Raving Looney and Reliant Rialtopless fame (VT No.120) Celia was interested to hear of our exploits with the Cox-Triumph (VT No.16) Many people have put in a guest appearance as passenger on her Honda Wasp outfit. Who knows? Maybe I'll bounce for her on a trial one day.

I had to compliment these guys on their ascent of Simms. At speed Keith Newton can nearly stand his "Loose Cannon" on its tail

Meanwhile, here's looking forward to the 2013 Land's End in the Allard with Binky in full working order.

If anyone asks me about a car or a bike or any sort of Vintage Thing (old or new) that I don't know, I automatically want to know more. When Gordon Johnston got in touch about his Gilbern T11 he had my full attention. (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

When I started the Vintage Thing series on Engine Punk I intended to feature only those VTs that had physically crossed my path and been subject to the old Mk1 eyeball.

But as soon as I saw photos of Gordon's car I was hooked and had to know more.

Gordon's opening gambit was that he found Engine Punk interesting but couldn't see anything on Gilberns.

I have a long standing interest in Gilberns. They were famous for being made in Wales and were robust sporting coupes that could seat almost four people at a pinch. Most of the ones I came across were powered by Ford's redoubtable Essex V6 and they had simple lines that avoided many of the awkward angles from which contemporary low production cars suffered during the sensational seventies.

Many years ago a rather forlorn Invader appeared in a local scrapyard so I contacted the owner's club and made enquiries at the yard about saving it but they laughed in my face and put a forklift blade through the door and carried it off to be crushed. Needless to say that is not a yard I patronise anymore, although (inexplicably) they are still in business.

Ever since, a Gilbern has appealed but not to the extent of actually getting one - that was the closest so far.

Gordon's unique Gilbern T11 is 38 inches high. (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

Anyway, back to Gordon's car.

"Would his T11 prototype be suitable material as a Vintage Thing?" he asked.

You betcha! I'd never heard of it and the photo he attached showed a car that resembled no Gilbern I knew.

So instead of eyeballing the car and firing questions at the owner face to face, I had to do it remotely.

Trevor Fiore did a great job with the styling of this car (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

Gordon went on to explain that this car was a prototype begun by Gilbern in 1969. It has a square section tubular chassis with wishbones at the front that use TR6 uprights and discs. |At the rear are upper and lower wishbones with tie rods top and bottom, which are all adjustable complete with AVO coil overs.

Although not now thought of as a performance unit, the Maxi engine and gearbox was also used. Gilbern chose a 1500cc unit, albeit one tuned bu Downton. In testing at Castle Combe with a cut down Gilbern Genie bodyshell held onto the chassis by G-clamps, the car was clocked at 120 mph.

Development occurred in secrecy at the Ace slot machine factory, which was also owned by the controlling Collings family at the time, and Gordon says whoever designed the chassis knew what he was doing - the wishbones incorporate anti-squat and anti-dive technology and the car sticks to the road like glue.

When I heard that the car used a Maxi drivetrain I recalled that AC were also planning to use it for the Diablo, which ultimately became the AC 3000ME with Ford Essex V6 power after a protracted development period. i seem to recall a concept drawing of a prototype MG that would also have been rear engined using the Maxi motor and box. Presumably, Gilbern got to hear of these projects and wanted their own to remain a secret.

Not a great image but this is Trevor Fiore and Jimmy English working on the 1/5th scale model of the T11 (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

To style the bodywork, Gilbern called in Trevor Fiore who is better known for his work on the Trident and Monteverdi 450 Hai (which has a passing resemblance to the Gilbern T11) With the help of Jimmy English, Fiore produced a 1/5th scale model from which Specialised Mouldings made a buck for moulding full-size pre-production moulds.

The result was a car that was 16ft long, 5 ft 8ins wide and 38ins high (that's lower than a Ford GT40 then - by some 5%!). Gordon's road legal car has 4 inches of ground clearance.

Not sure where I got this from but years ago I downloaded this from the net. It's the T11 in the most advanced state that the factory could manage.

Ultimately, Gilbern bottled out of production after £70,000 had been spent developing the T11. As Gordon pointed out, "A house back then cost 5 grand." The car passed into obscurity until Gordon bought it in 2000.

He then embarked on a 9 year project that completed the development of this unique car. He started off with the chassis carrying a sick 1750 Maxi engine and the Downton tuned 1500 engine in a series of boxes.

This what Gordon had to begin with. (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

The shell was literally that with no dash or seats and only the windows cut out. The door shutlines were only hinted at in the moulding. Following a lucky telephone conversation, Gordon tracked down the production moulds and his shell is the only one pulled from them. The pre-production shell was obviously just a means to getting the surface shape right and was full of filler and yet delaminating.

Somebody had tried to make something of the T11 over the years for it came with a purpose made screen produced by Tyneside Glass. It also had the original R A Pearce Magma 13" wheels, which were designe dfor formula ford use and very light. Unfortunately two of them were damaged so Gordon chose 14" Cobra Super Slots, which are in keeping with the period and offer greater tyre choice.

Gordon rebuilt the Maxi 1500cc engine and used the Gilbern designed gear linkage, which was still a bit vague as were most early Maxis. The rear radiator sucked in air from the vents behind the doors and had a massive electric fan but still ran a little hot for Gordon's liking.

Gordon got the car on the road with Gilbern Club's help in 2009 but later that year disaster struck and he was pushed into the barrier on the motorway by a LHD TIR truck. The well made bodyshell sprang back into shape with barely a scratch but both rear arms were broken and the impact snapped the diff off the gearbox.

As performance Maxi bits are quite hard to come by, Gordon elected to upgrade the powerplant with one from a Toyota MR2, which didn't involve altering the chassis. He still used the Maxi hubs but the CV joints are less their internals with hybrid driveshafts incorporate Toyota and VW Golf parts. The engine is not standard and uses throttle bodies.

The revised gear linkage and extra performance have made the driving experience much better but the heavier powerplant has upset the balance of the car. Gordon, who served an apprenticeship on Hillman Imps, has adopted tyre pressures of 18psi front and 30psi rear, which has improved matters but he feels that further development on the chassis could restore the balance. If anyone has any advice, I'll gladly pass it on.

After exchanging e-mails with Gordon, I thought I would consult Peter Filby's book Specialist Sports Cars. The T11 is featured (along with many other interesting motor cars) and Filby reckoned that the development costs of the T11 seriously weakened the financial health of the company. He also stated that the car was sold to the Gilbern Owners' Club, which hoped to complete the car and produce replicas.

Gordon is planning a full programme of events with this car including Crystal Palace and possibly Wiscombe Park so I might get to see it for real later.

I might even try to get in it if my extreme yoga course works out...

And so the sun sets on another what might have been from the late Great British motor industry... (Photo : Gordon Johnston)

Here's what an Allegro Equipe should look like. If you see one, take a look. They are incredibly rare.( Photo : Neal Carpenter)

This is a heart warming tale. Since I posted about the Allegro Equipe restoration project that appeared on Ebay back in late 2008 (VT No.23.1), this car has been restored to full working order. I didn't think it would happen but Neal Carpenter stepped up to the plate and did the deed.

"I bought it on eBay with a £800.00 starting price. I got it from a classic car journalist from Hayling Island near Portsmouth. It’s only a 3 owner car with 60k miles on the clock and good history with it. The last owner owned a garage and it was ready for the paint shop with new wings and rear quarters fitted then it stood for 15 years under cover I can only think that the owner died as I cannot find any more out.

"Me and my son Ryan (11 at the time) started stripping it down we took 2 months of sat/Sundays and ended up with just the shell left. We got some garden trolleys and moved the shell out of the garage and put it under the cover outside to give us room to work on refurbishing everything."

Neal had bought some panels that were surplus to requirements and through selling these on met John, a car restorer from Shrewsbury. As a result, John was commissioned to restore the shell while Neal and Ryan stripped and painted the running gear in Smoothrite.

"By the time John was finished, I was just about ready for him. Every nut and bolt was replaced with HT zinc plated fasteners throughout with stainless suspension pipes, copper brake pipes etc.etc.etc.

"All the interior including the seat material was excellent after cleaning all the 15 year old sanding dust and grime off it.

When the body came back it took around 6 months to rebuild with help from a good friend as well on Saturday morning."

In total the rebuild took just short of 3 years. One of the last jobs was to apply some unused 3M decals dating back at least to 1980. John took great care over this operation using a little heat in places. Having applied a coach strip to my Allegro many years ago in a very wobbly manner I'm pleased they turned out so well.

Once MOTed and on the road the car developed an annoying knocking noise, which turned out to be the allegedly refurbished rack. It took another two racks to get this sorted.

"The few steering racks available anywhere are refurbished items and don’t seem to be up to any sort of standard i.e. internal bushes/collar crimped to make them tight again and then new boots and painted. All look good but probably not as good as the one you’re taking off. Mine was refurbed in the end by an independent and is perfect now."

So how does it go?

"It goes great! It's fast even by today’s standard. It surprised my 3 kids especially the near 17 year old. Our memories do forget all the standard things our 1970/80s cars came with. rattles, wind noise, etc. I used it a couple of times during last summer for work (50 mile round trip)and it drives in modern traffic as good as my modern car in a mix of single/dual track roads."

Neal went to say that last summer he didn't use it much and I can't blame him.

"A guy from the club inspected the car and it's insured for £12000. He also said it’s the best one left in the world. Those are his words - not mine - but it made me smile for a long time."

Stephen Cuff's Imp looked so good in black. Only in strong sunlight could you see that the front end was almost totally mesh for the rather - as it turned out - undersized radiator

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Hillman Imp and since I've had a long standing association with these under-rated little cars there will be one or two featuring on Engine Punk over the next few months.

From a distance it looked like any other Imp

This particular example is unfortunately no more. It was built to prove a BOBO (balls out, brain off) TVR Tuscan engine that reputedly put out 450bhp from its 4.5 litres. The Imp was pretty well filleted to take the drivetrain and Jag back axle so wasn't really a Hillman Imp at all but still - whoar! though eh?

I regret asking what front suspension this thing used. Judging from the track and lack of room in the front (note the cut out for the air cleaners!) I'm pretty sure it wasn't Imp.

I saw it at Tregrehan Hillclimb on Easter Sunday in 2000 where the paddock wasn't muddy for once but that still didn't stop lots of wheelspin and twitching along the straights. It sounded quite, quite glorious, however.

It was owned by Stephen Cuff of Frome in Somerset and he'd built it to prove the engine before putting it in something more competitive but I liked it just the way it was. It ran very hot but the guys were pleased, especially as their workshop had flooded the previous weekend while they were applying the finishing touches to it.

All that valuable luggage space was cleverly used instead to show off the Jag back axle. I lurve the bent bit of ally for the engine cover - except it's now a boot

Sure enough, the engine was later removed from this car and after being advertised for sale in Motoring News as a shell without any takes (I'd've taken it if I'd known!) it was cut in two and subsequently spotted by a mate of mine in a local scrapyard. Not the sort of thing of you're likely to miss in any scrapyard.

I subsequently heard on the grapevine that the engine was indeed removed and the rolling chassis offered for sale but as no-one bit (why wasn't I told about it!) the shell was cut in two and taken to a scrapyard in the Bristol area, where my informant was disappointed to recognise it for what it had been.

The longer wheelbase and different sized wheels caught my eye

This car is a bit of a mystery. Many years ago I sent a picture of it into the Imp club magazine in the hope that somebody would recognise it but there was no response.

The nearside sill had been built up to restore strength to the chopped around shell and the passenger door ommitted to allow air to reach the radiator, which was in front of the engine but offset to the left.

I don't know much about this Californian (or possibly a Chamois coupe) myself. I spotted it at a grasstrack event somewhere in Kent around 1990 when I lived up that end of the island. I was sufficiently impressed to spend 5 exposures on it, when film was a precious resource compared to today, but made no note of its drivetrain.

Twin side draught Webers give some credence to my belief that it had a Ford crossflow where the back seat would've been

I am guessing that it was a crossflow Ford using a VW or Hewland gearbox. This combination featured on a lot of open wheeled specials at this event.

At the time I seem to have been more interested in constructional details than the powertrain

Maybe somebody out there in the ether knows more about it.

It went well but where was this? And who was driving?

I don't even recall the location. I'm no expert on medieval architecture but I think that bouncy castle might offer a clue.

The Allard at Wilsey Down Rest Halt. Everyone else has gone.

After being a non-starter in the Exeter due to illness (when Binky got the cold that I had before Christmas), Team Robert looked ahead with (even) extra enthusiasm to the Land's End. It proved cold but dry and we found a rare seam of form early on with a car going better than ever only for this unravel whilst waiting for Warleggan. Still we got going again, and made a big finish by cleaning first Blue Hills 1 then Blue Hills 2.

Binky (Mr Robert Robinson-Collins to you) had been fettling the Candidi Provocatore Allard J1 beforehand. New innovations included freshly greased leaf springs in the suspension, new plugs, new needle jet and the removal of the phenolic heat shield under the carb. A quick blast around the block before we set off and the car was pulling better than ever.

At Popham airfield, though, a headlamp wasn't working on dip and we had to take the lamp apart under a lamp post. The headlamp had not been apart for years and the bulb was okay so initially we were stumped but I waggled a few things and it began to work. A dry joint somewhere? Who knows? It worked and we were through scrutineering.

I was pleased to see the German crews again. Marc Shafer, Martin Watty, Thomas Pordzik and Enno Schmandt had come all the way from Bonn in Germany and slept the previous night in their support van and had got very cold. We saw them early on in the trial but as we were soon bringing up the rear I hope they finshed ahead of us.

There's was no Rodney's Revenge this year (who was Rodney anyway?), where we've always done well, but Hangman's Hill, which also posed no problems for us.

It was perishingly cold though. We told our German friends how we would be kept warm by 3.9 litre of flathead cast iron but those new plugs and ignition timing adjustments meant not only more beans but a cooler running running engine. My Hein Gericke motorcycle suit did a good job of keeping me warm but Binky wore just jeans and his special loafers. He did have gloves though. I find they're too cumbersome when I'm map reading.

One thing we might attend to for next time is a beefier tyre pump. The Allard's tubes take up a lot of volume and we settled on 14 psi bearing in mind how dry the sections were. It wasn't long before I was pumping them back up again in the headlamps of the course closing car.

It's surprising how impatient the cooling fan on a Fiat Panda can sound in the small hours.

We continued to make gentlemanly progress up Cutliffe Lane where I had to work as a bouncer for once. I could feel the more compliant suspension helping here and in the cold and sometimes freezing conditions the engine seemed to be running a lot happier without the phenolic spacer doing its heat shield thing.

Will and Stewart Couch were our running buddies until their rear axle got badly noisy after Sutcombe and they had to retire.

Darracott had featured a horrible re-start for us last year but proved no trouble this year. Crackington was particularly dry. Binky had been threatening to change up into second for the really fast blasts but in the end settled for first as the gear change is not that easy. Learning from our observations from last year, Binky pulled up low in the restart boxes and this strategy worked well.

Clear so far and full of optimism we were tooling along the A30 when Binky said "There's an Imp behind us". I turned and who should I see waving but my girlfriend Angela in her dad's Hillman Husky. She was driving down to Blue Hills from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire - after an overnight stay at friends near Exeter - and when we stopped she said ours was the first trials car she'd seen on the road.

It was while we were waiting in the queue to tackle Warleggan that we lost our ignition. We'd made up a little time through cleaning all the hills so far but we were soon under the baleful gaze of that Fiat Panda again.

Gentlemen of the MCC assemble to assist us

Fortunately, our fellow competitors came to our aid. We shouldn't really be surprised but they didn't have to lend us a meter to prove there was no spark at the coil, ask how the rather patchy wiring worked, have a flash of genius to realise that by running a cable (which they also supplied) from the live terminal on the alternator to the starter switch and fuel pump we could get the plot going again and - finally - wiring it all in by lying in the footwell and putting in a bullet connector to serve as an impromptu off switch.

This is the improvised bullet connector on/off switch strapped to my grab handle. I had to be careful not to pull it apart when bouncing. The clothes peg on the dash is the choke adjustment.

Take a bow Duncan Pittaway (TVR V8S No.240)and David Walker (Reliant Scimitar SS1 No.241). Thank you very much indeed. Without your help we would probably've retired.

Duncan and David go, "Oh it was nothing really". Binky is delighted to still be in the trial

That rather put us off our stroke and we didn't get away from the restart on Warleggan. Hoskin foxed us, too, although with a run up we were able to get up okay afterwards. Lady Vale was tight on the turn but Binky squeezed the old warhorse through and Duncan and David were obviously overjoyed to see us back in the running when we entered Cardinham Woods.

Like Hoskin, the Bishop's Wood restart was in the red box for us and we couldn't get going again, although there were times when the Allard felt like its was going to just shrug itself over the step and we'd be on our way. Many times. many, many times. But it somehow didn't happen. We smoked the tyres good and proper on Bishop's Wood and by the time we'd reversed back down and aligned ourselves for the escape road there was still a fine display of sunbeams filtering through the bare branches of the wood and through our carbon tyre print.

"We couldn't see you at all!" said one of the marshals.

By the time we got to Blue Hills we were 3 hours behind our expected arrival time of 1530. Ange was still there on the hill despite being, by now, marrow cold. Straight away she fell into conversation with - of all people - Roger and Caroline Ugalde who kindly returned to look after her as everyone else drifted away and the sun began to set.

We'd climbed Blue Hills 1 once before many years ago when we borrowed the Allard from Roger but had never quite managed Blue Hills 2. The approach to Blue Hills 1 was very wet and looked doctored to us. The turn out is very tight and we had to ensure we stopped across the section ends line.

Somehow it all came good. We got the tyres sticky, Binky trickled back on the juice and eased the Allard round the corner. I had to ask the marshals if we'd cleaned it - we were so surprised. A congratulatory thumb on the back for the driver, who modestly reckoned it was my bouncing that got us out of that one, and we were up the hill as the last competitor to tackle Blue Hills 2.

The sun wasn't quite in our eyes so we couldn't use that excuse for failure. Binky kept the car low on the yellow restart box and in front of our adoring public - well Angela and the Ugaldes - we cleaned Blue Hills in toto for the first time.

Ange covered almost a thousand miles in her dad's Husky

So we finished on a high.There was s light hiccup on the way to the sign off at the Penhale Round because Ange's Husky lost its electrics and she doesn't know the area and it was getting dark by then. Fortunately, she fixed it and got going again, although as potential rescuers we did have a bit of a run around.

So no award but getting up Blue Hills was the realisation of a long standing ambition for me.

The Alfa badge caught our eye

Here we have another Imp spotted at Tregrehan, this time in the late 1980s. This is how I always remember the paddock at Tregrehan. Muddy.

It had plenty of cooling holes, retained the handy rear hatch for loads (engine access as it turned out) but rear arches of questionable aesthetics

This Imp had an Alfasud engine and gearbox mounted behind the rear seats. My mate Jerry (that's him with the carrier bag in the photo) was in the process of building something similar (more on that another time) and spotted the little Alfa badge on the front, put two and two together and went to ask some well-informed questions. As so often happens on these occasions the answers were remarkably forthcoming considering it was a competition car under developing but - hey! - that's hillclimbing chaps for you.

Look at those Rotoflexes!

We were particularly interested to see that the Imp rear suspension had been retained and that standard Rotofles couplings were in use. I remember Wayne Grimshaw, who hillclimbed an Imp around the same time during the eighties, saying that he used standard Rotoflexes but replaced them after every meeting. He reckoned they offered extra "spring" off the line and didn't break any more frequently than the Lotus-spec reinforced variety.

Unfortunately, I made no note of how well this car ran

This car had very low ground clearance at the back. In subsequent correspondence within the Imp Club about that there black V8 Imp (VT no.124) I exchanged messages with a fellow who was involved with the build up of this Alfa-powered Imp. Unfortunately, I've lost and forgotten his name (if you are reading this do let yourself known) but what I do remember is that he said there was barely enough room to get yer feet under the rear trailing arms.

Entered in the 2013 Land's End Trial this year was this Skoda-based Bugrat. It wasn't far away from Binky and I in the running order and at Hangman's Hill (not a section I'd been on before) I took the opportunity to have a closer look.

I'm not sure what that black plastic thing is on the front wing. it's not in the other pics so maybe a carefully insulated spot of "croust" for the crew

Entered by Rory Pope and Andrew Scarborough of Shaftesbury, it was running in Class 8 with all the other rear engined kit cars and specials. Its crew felt they were a bit outclassed and that they wanted more power but the Bugrat doesn't way much and more power is never enough. Believe me, I know.

At around 700kg, the Bugrat was much lighter than the donor

The Bugrat was designed by Vince Wright, head of RV Dynamics, and took all its vital components from the old school rear engined variety of Skoda, the one that gave Skoda its reputation that allowed various advertising copywriters to repudiate with the later front wheel drive cars.

There's an outpouring of understandable enthusiasm for them on Retro Rides and I like it because a) it recycles motor parts, b) Skodas are under-rated and c) I support the weird and wonderful world of DIY mechanarchy (but you knew that anyway)

Inside is all Skoda instrumentation but you have to wrap up warm

Skoda saloons seem to make a lot of sense for trialling, for they were Group N RAC class winners for many years, but I remember talking to John Aley of the MCC about his. He campaigned a saloon named "Olga the mud wrestler" but she wasn't quite as victorious as he'd hoped. I forget why.

Lightening the Skoda plot seems a good plan and the Bugrat seems to have the potential. This one boasted 1289cc and (I think) fuel injection from the Skoda 130. This was the final incarnation of the swing-axle tail waggers that handled much better than most people thought after dire reports of swing-axle nastiness associated with Skoda 110s from the sixties and seventies.

Anecdotally, Bugrats are quite tail happy but so are VW desert rails and its useful to be rear end biased for off road.

It got up Hangman's Hill okay.

Regular followers may remember I saw The Creepshow at the White Rabbit last year. One of their support bands was The Rocker Covers, a trio of automotively literate songsmiths who makeover pop hits to devise the most happily subversive covers of songs you might know. Some might be favourites given The Rocker Cover treatment and others might be on your most hated list that have also been given a similar work over to become simply brilliant!

I am assured Poker Face is a Lady Gaga hit but am more familiar with The Rocker Covers version. I know - I have so much street cred.

But listen to the way it starts off! That's from Brand New Cadillac by The Clash! (Except theirs was a cover version of some old bloke...)

The point is, some versions can't be beat and are the ones you carry with you as your favourite.

That's happened to me and so many of these songs on Revved Up.

There are so many songs I think would benefit from The Rocker Cover's treatment. I could do quite a list. And intriguingly they played some songs that night at The White Rabbit that aren't on here.

Because (whisper it) another album is out later this year...

This car is something of an enigma. Clearly an Imp Special Saloon, none of my Impish friends can identify what it is. It could be a Maguire Imp or a Davrian Imp but doesn't look quite like either.

This is a very old photograph, taken at the same event where I first encountered Kermit (VT No. 101) That was at Tregrehan hillclimb in 1984 (I think).

Was this speed hillclimb Imp a track refugee built by a known racing car specialist or purposely made at home to take to the hills?

The photo is a little damaged as it was stuck to the back of another print and my patience in peeling it off gradually evaporated as I saw what was portrayed. I would say that it's been narrowed in the greenhouse area and has a centrally mounted single seat.

There were many Imp Special Saloon 1000cc racers backalong and they were often pitted against Mini Special Saloons. Neither variety had much in common with production saloons and the formula was a delightful free-for-all. However, I think - and I could be wrong here - that Special Saloons had to have a driver's seat offset to one side.

One of my mates remembers a Rover V8 powered Imp from way back but I honestly can't remember what engine this thing had. And he can't remember if his V8 thing was a central single-seater.

I was actually searching for another Impish picture when I found this. At the same event was an Imp-powered Mini! I remember photographing that alright but can I find that dratted picture now? Or the negative for it?

With a wider track and longer wheelbase this car looked planted and certainly had presence. (Photo : Hot Car)

This car appeared in Hot Car magazine in 1980(?) long before I got my first Imp. My original copy went the way of most things but I managed to get hold of another recently because this car made such an impression on me (groan).

Well, wouldn't it you at such a tender age?

It's cropped up in various Impish discussions with friends of mine over the years but probably does not survive. At least, nobody in the Imp Club knows (or will admit to knowing) about it.

Bob Baxter adapted a VW variant box to fit (Photo : Hot Car)

It was built by Bob Baxter who was in the motor trade in Deganwy, North Wales. He was able to mix and match a fascinating variety of parts to create this car and finding some of them today would take some doing. Nowadays, you might find some even better parts but the choices were sound and the ensemble sound.

The engine was of course a Rover V8 putting out around 175 bhp and the gearbox was from a VW Variant.

The exhaust system was home made and featured a pair of Sunbeam Rapier silencers. (Photo : Hot Car)

Unfortunately the article doesn't describe how the gearchange was achieved or what driveshafts were used.

The Rover V8 had an Offenhauser manifold and a Holley carb. The engine and passenger compartments were sealed off by plywood and aluminium. A full rollcage was also a feature of the beefed up shell. (Photo : Hot Car)

Squeezing this in behind the rear seats made the wheelbase much longer but the rose-jointed rear suspension was a new design featuring a lot of current Formula 3 thinking but with Herald springs and Spax shocks. The front suspension was largely Imp but with disc brakes from a Herald (Viva discs were a common mod backalong). Rear brakes came off a Fiat and were apparently the only things that would fit. Braking performance was described as "adequate"!

Cooling was taken care of by a Standard Vanguard radiator running two Simca electric fans.(Photo : Hot Car)

The impressive flares were by a mate of Bob's called Colin Griffiths and made out of double curvature sheet steel brazed into the bodywork. Plexiglass replaced the side glass and the doors were GRP, too.

Note the external door hinges, bonnet vent and the much longer wheelbase. Wheels were 8" and 10" Minilites front to rear. (Photo : Hot Car)

The VW box took the strain but initially the clutch couldn't. In the end, an Autocavan 3 pad friction plate and matched pressure plate stepped up to the mark. Gearing was very low and top speed not much more than 70 mph but the 0-60 time was about 6.5 seconds.

The wide front wheels seem to have caused a problem with kickback on the standard Imp steering as the article (written by Andrew Kirk) suggests a steering damper would be a good idea. Handling, though, was bloody good and traction - as you might expect - exemplary.

The car was for sale at the time of the article at £2500.

So what happened to it? There's this pic on the net, which shows the car from the rear, as well as a lady who could be Bob Baxter's wife, Lynn, who gets a mention in the Hot Car story. A rudimentary search on the DVLA website using the number in this picture only results in a "not found" message.

There are some other V8 Imps known to exist. There's Paul Hughes' drag racer (10.2 seconds at 140 mph) and this beauty from New Zealand has a 350CID Chev on a Renault Fuego transaxle. Franka's site also mentions a rallycross V8 imp campaigned by Nick Jesty and there was the Australian Sprt Sedan V8 Imp that ran a racing Ford Cobra motor - unfortunately this car was written off years ago.

And if you like this sort of thing, you'll lurve V8 fools!

The Marshall and Fraser Reliant Kitten (Photo : Auto Performance)

While perusing old magazine articles about V8 Imps, this oddity turned up. It's a Special Saloon Reliant Kitten, which sounds so wrong but in practice went so well. The Marshall brothers had cut their teeth on Villiers powered karts and graduated to a Mini Traveller Special saloon featuring a monocoque chassis, tubular subframes and a full rollcage.

Beam axles at the rear are ideal lightweight substitutes for the rear subframe. (Photo : Auto Performance)

They developed the A series engine to its limit and not finding their power gains enough searched around for an alternative engine, soon deciding on the Imp. What Imps give away in capacity to A-series lumps they gain in screamability. Do not under-estimate the difficulties of fitting an Imp motor onto a transverse Mini gearbox. It involves a load of welding and machining. The Imp motor is longer and the crank sits deeper in the block. Somewhere I have a photo of an Imp engine in a Mini racer but I can't find it right now. (I did discover this device but that is by the by)

David Marshall is the engineer of the two brothers and he cut and shut and welded and hewed until they had a matched Imp and Mini powerplant. Unfortunately, by the time this car appeared in Auto Performance magazine back in August 1983, driver Ginger Marshall had suffered an errant rod that punched its way through the block.

So they picked up the pieces, made a wooden pattern and cast their own - just like that.

The engine didn't look like an imp any more. (Photo : Auto Performance)

David also used an Allen EN40 steel crank but kept Imp rods to create a bottom end good for 9400rpm. Turning their attention to the cylinder head they originally used a Greetham Imp head but subsequently re-designed it to use a toothed belt instead of a chain and drove the distributor off the end of it. Finding cam swaps and ignition timing to still be a bit of a chore, they re-designed the cam carrier further and began to develop a 1.2 litre engine in conjunction with renown Imp tuners like Ian Carter and Hartwell Engineering. a spin off project was a 1.2 litre Imp powered Mini hillclimber.

Dry sumping a Mini with its gearbox in sump sounds like a non-starter but David did it using a two-stage Pace pump dirven off the back the Imp water pump via a Renold flexible chain coupling. Having gone to all that trouble, they found that warming the oil up took too long so they made a heat exchanger out of aluminium tubes. As the hot water cooled, it heated up the oil the normal thermostatic by-pass kicked in.

It said Reliant but didn't really look like one (Photo : Auto Performance)

From their experience racing Minis they chose a steel pressure plate and flywheel especially modified to suit the imp crank. This had a heavy-duty sintered-bronze plate driving through Jack Knight drop gears to a set of dog-type synchro gears, also by Jack Knight, and a Salisbury LSD. Despite dire warnings of catastrophe from those with bitter experience, they used the same driveshafts season after season but had just about become convinced - by the time of the Auto Performance article - that regular replacement would be a good idea. Wheels were a pair of 9 x 13inch Compmotive split-rims at the front with 8 x 13s at the rear shod with Avon covers.

The driver rested on strategically placed pieces of foam within a cage mounted over the monocoque box sections. Front suspension actually incorporated much of the original Mini subframe as they realised that many people lowered the suspension too much and destroyed the geometry. The rear beam axle was located with radius arms and diagonal semi trailing arms and there were coil springs all round with Koni shocks.

Braking was by 4-pot, AP racing calipers on 10.2inch ventilated discs at the front and, to achieve the right brake bias with the rear Minifin drums, two master cylinders are operated by the pedal through an adjustable balance bar. This is despite and all up weight of 8cwt.

After campaigning with a Mini Traveller shell, they bought a Kitten bodyshell (that sounds so wrong to me as a cat lover), took some moulds off it before selling it, chopped them around and then produced some lightweight panels that clothed all the bespoke chassis fabrication.

There was more to both these cars than meets the eye. (Photo : Auto Performance)

Choosing a Reliant Kitten body shell - a light weight one of course - added to the whole joke and showed that although their intent was deadly serious, there was a delightful element of self-deprecating showmanship about the whole enterprise.

By way of a break from Impish little cars, here's something from the other extreme of Chrysler's automobile range, the 1970 Chrysler 300.

A car this size has presence. It turned up at the Launceston show

The Chrysler 300 non-letter cars traded on the performance image of Chrysler's letter series 300s. These started in 1955 with the C-300 and finished up with the 1965 300L but the less sporty 300 non-letter range sidled up to join the letter range 300s in 1962 and promptly outsold it.

Being cheaper helped in the sales war but I can't help thinking that some people may have bought a 300 by mistake when they really thought they were getting a 300H. Enthusiasts claim that the new non-letter 300devalued the 300H and marked the latter out as a specialist performance automobile.

I say, what's wrong with that? But the marketing men seem to have known what they were doing, I'm sorry to say. Sales of the lower-spec 300 non-letter cars were always greater and they outlived the letter cars by six years, those same six years where the muscle car was at its zenith.

But the 300 - either with a letter or without one - was no muscle car. It was firmly in the prestige category, the one which demands that your purchase impresses others.

I've often admired American cars for their style and performance but wondered what size I'd be happy with. A Jag Mk10 is probably as big a car as I would actually like to own and with this Chrysler 300 I think I've found my limit.

The front and rear overhangs impress and appall me. There is simply no need and in packaging terms it's a disaster, especially in 2 door form. But it's undoubtedly sleek and low. It's the sheer decadence that I like. Other American prestige cars might match the Chrysler 300 for size but they can't approach it for grace.

It's the car the The B52s sang about in Love Shack.

Even though it's Mopar and not GM, it meets Harley Earle's edict that every time a driver takes the wheel he goes on a little holiday.

And it's not a camping holiday, either.

Try masking off the rear pf this car, first to the rear of the upright black stripe and then to its leading edge. You could chop loads of this car's tail and it still wouldn't like it had been cut short

This bodyshell was introduced for the 1969 model year and it lasted until 1971 when the 300 party was over. Chrysler called it "fuselage" styling and there is something of a Jumbo jet about it. I much prefer it to the "Manhattan skyline" approach to radiator grilles and stacked lights that blighted American cars from the 70s onwards.

Nothing could really follow the 1971 Chrysler 300 so nothing did until 2003, apart from a slight twitch of the corpse in 1979 but that Chrysler 300 was a pale shadow and only had 360 cubes. Current ones are fuel efficient and can be as small as a 2.7 litre V6.

I can remember seeing an early Chevy Camaro with concealed lights and thinking to myself why? Now I think, why not? Another thing to go wrong says sensible, practical me but think about the sense of occasion you would get from just switching on your lights!

The dimensions of the 1970 Chrysler 300 are simply worth stating - length is 571 cm, width is 201cm and height 141cm. But the Chrysler 300 is not about height - it's all about length and width. For people viewing in black and white, the Chrysler 300 is 18 feet 9 inches long and 6 feet 7 inches wide. Yet it's only two inches taller than a Hillman Imp.

Comparison with a Jag Mk10 are interesting. At 6' 6", it was the widest British production car, beaten only by the Jaguar XJ220 (unless someone else knows any better) at 6' 7½". The Mk10was 5.1 metres long or 16 feet 10 inches.

Try that trick with your thumb again, this time blanking off portions of the front overhang

Although not powered by a Hemi, this has the 440 CID or 7206cc V8, the one celebrated in certain non-soundtrack recordings by The Blues Brothers. Bore was 109.7mm, stroke was 95.25mm. At 480 lb ft (651nm) torque was more than adequate. Hemis had been for the letter cars from the start although they were of smaller displacement and replaced in the 1960 300F by a 413 CID ram induction wedge head motor. The 440 engine in the 300 put out at least 335bhp (250kW) and in the delightfully named 440 TNT set up gave 375bhp with a 4 barrel - or choke - carburettor.

The interior is a bit of a let down. It's got furry dice though. This particular car could have been yours this summer for £9995.

But it's the brakes that ultimately put me off the Chrysler 300. Like many American cars of the era, they were just big drums. Servo assistance was optional if not advisable. A 1970 Chrysler 300 weighs 1960kg and needs good brakes to haul it down from the legal limit, let alone its 120 mph maximum speed. Discs were available on less sporty Chrysler behemoths from 1972 onwards but I'm not sure the stock tyres would be up to much, either, and as for sports car handling...

But agility on the road wasn't something the Chrysler 300 ever aspired to.

It's the kind of car Gerry Anderson and Derek Meddings saw us driving in the near future when science and technology was our friend and not to be feared. It's got dream car glamour and no sense of impending fuel crisis doom.

I can see it in that car stacker in The Thunderbirds episode entitled Move and you're Dead in which Alan Tracy goes road racing.

You're doing that thumb over the rear thing again now, aren't you?

Chrysler resurrected the 300 in 2003 and for me it's one of the more saloons so far this century. Some have Hemis but all are automatics so there the appeal begins to fade.

When I drive an automatic, it reminds me of the only time I rode a horse.It felt like it had a mind of its own, didn't hold the road well and was unpredictable. When I drive an automatic part of me is waiting to be scraped off against a tree or a wall.

At least modern Chrysler 300s have disc brakes.

This could only be a French car

This is a car that I don't fit. I sat in a Mehari years ago one and was struck by the lack of foot and legroom. Why this was so I don't know. I've never had this trouble with 2CVs.

Look at those little corrugations

The Mehari is a sub-culture car within 2CV circles and is made of unrusting Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene panels (or ABS to you) that unfortunately are supported by a metal frame and a standard 2CV chassis. Replace the rotting chassis with a galvanised one (as so many 2CVs sport these days) and galvanise the body frame as well and you have sustainable fun motoring.

To look at, the Mehari couldn't be anything other than French. That either puts you off or makes it highly desirable. It's not a world car designed by committee even though it's a fast running dromedary (a kind of camel designed by just one person) that gives the Mehari its name. This car has national identity. It's so redolent of the south of France and beach culture that it pings off all manner of positive associations even if the pingee thinks it looks "fugly".

But the beach culture this little car invokes isn't the sort where people surf. It's where they parade in swimsuits and look good. It's a European scene that spawned those peculiar little beach cars that re-date the beach buggy. Many design houses had a go at beach cars from the fifties onwards and I think the intended market was for parties of beautiful beach people who couldn't possibly walk from the hotel to the beach, possibly because any sort of exertion was unhip.

Design of the Mehari is credited to Jean-Louis Barrault, not a designer I know. In fact, in trying to trace his other work all references point to the actor, impressario and mime Jean-Louis Barrault (1910 to 1994). Were they the same person?

I assume they are not and that the actor/playwright has eclipsed the industrial designer commissioned by Roland de la Poype to design the Mehari. De la Poype is called by some the father of the Mehari for it was his company SEAP (Société d’Etudes et d’Applications du Plastique)that pioneered the use of ABS for automotive and other applications. Lego is probably the most familiar example.

Not only does ABS not rust but you can apply pigments to it and Meharis were offered in a variety of colours that - even if you didn't before - one now associates with dusty good times and hot sunshine. ABS is heat and scratch resistant and although the tooling is more expensive the unit cost compared with GRP soon falls dramatically as production increases.

Barrault and de la Poype's first experiments were actually with a Renault 4 but using a 2CV AZU van chassis with a 425cc engine solved many problems . Initial shapes were made out of cardboard but ABS flexes and drums with vibration like any other material so they introduced the corrugations.

The Mehari began production in 1968 and continued until 1987after 145,000 had been built, with production also in Uruguay albeit with a GRP body. With Dyane 6 running gear i.e. the 2CV6 602cc 74 x 70mm flat twin, 24kW (33bhp) and a weight of only 555kg, it had exceptional cross country ability for a front wheel drive car - hardly surprising considering its ancestry.

A small series of 4x4 Meharis were made. They were not like the twin engined 2CV Sahara but had a propshaft and inboard rear discs and are recognisable by the spare wheel mounted on the bonnet. Another variant had great bid round headlamps for - all of all places - the North American market but the rest of the bodyshell changed very little. Only 13 panels went into a Mehari.

The Mehari received a facelift with a smaller, wider grille and adopted various updates from the 2CV such as more power and disc brakes, although - also like the 2CV - it did not benefit from the 652cc engine derived for the Citroen Visa.

A similar device assembled from bolted up lightweight panels actually pre-dated the Mehari. This was the 1963 Baby Brousse but production was labour intensive and de la Poype's inspired use of ABS determined the destiny of the Mehari.

As a fan of 2CVs (fan - did you see what I did there?) I like the concept of the Mehari, my large feet and lower limbs notwithstanding. Like 2CVs, however, their hillclimbing ability is slow rather than spectacular. They find grip with their skinny tyres but hold modern traffic up too much for my liking and in Cornwall I like an automobile to romp up those valley sides.

One with a GS derived flat four motor might do it for me but the ABS panels would have to chopped to accommodate the longer motor and that seems such a shame. Or you could hack away at the bulkhead to move the engine and box rearwards but that could make the legroom issue worse - unless one hacked away even more. As ABS is used in 3-D printing perhaps this could be done quite subtly.

Late night or early morning on the 2013 Land's End Trial

This particular example is campaigned in MCC Class O events by Toby Parkins of St Agnes and reminds me strongly of my Siva Llama with its patina of muddy fun.

And with any open top car don't forget that there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.

Also known as the Batmobile, the Impaler polarises opinion. Most people "get it", but a minority hated it. This just serves to prove that even in the 21st century there are a few people still without a sense of humour.

Without the Imp behind it you could be forgiven for thinking the Impaler is mahoosive

The Impaler - also for obvious reasons known as the Batmobile - was owned a few years ago by the likeable Hughes family from East Lancashire. They bought as a running car but there was a lot wrong with it when they got it. The engine was sealed into the bodywork so inaccessible for maintenance. Fortunately, Paul runs a drag racing V8 Imp (more of that another time maybe) and by the time this car graced the scene at the 2011 Imp National Rally in Bangor, North Wales, it was quite useable - if not entirely practical.

Next time I'll get a less cluttered background but at least you can see how small it is

Apart for the walling up of the engine, whoever created the Impaler in its original guise knew what they were doing.

Rolling sculpture

The bonnet is a scarily organic medley of Imp and Morris Minor, all accomplished in steel, and the heavily frenched headlamps are mounted at the end of what we believe to have been old fire extinguishers.

Those really are Cadillac fins

The tail fins are from a '59 Cadillac and the roof is from an Austin Westminster, which presumably means there's a convertible one of those running around somewhere...

The driver's side door was fittingly of the suicide variety (i.e. hinged at the rear) and the sunroof was necessarily always open if you wanted to drive it because of the lack of headroom.

"And so we say goodbye to our super heroes in their Impaler, capes fluttering over the cunningly fashioned cape rack."

The cut down windscreen was perspex and was technically a flyscreen anyway as you looked over it rather than through it. A Batman and Robin outfit for the crew was advisable - some might even say necessary.

The engine and running gear were all Hillman Imp so it should have been great fun to drive although I forgot to ask how heavy it was - being all steel I'd guess it's heavier than standard.

As night falls, the Impaler looks even more sinister

The Impaler is one of those cars that the more you study it the more you see and is a bad ass motorcar with more attitude and road presence than its modest dimensions normally allow.

This is the official photograph of Jerry's Imp from the 1987 Land's End Trial. I am hidden by the screen but Jerry is driving and Mike Evason is bouncing furiously. I think this is Darracott - which we would've failed.

This is an ongoing project, one that my old mate Jerry Goater began and one that I hope I will get to a stage where it can be used again, for projects, like cars or motorbikes, are not finished off until they are destroyed utterly, when they have no further future. The Jemp rests in a corner of my garage, dry stored and awaiting its turn. It's not finished - it has a future.

It began as a standard Imp saloon in a sort of mustard grey colour and Jerry learnt to drive in it. It belonged to his parents. Sheila and Steve, but it sort of became his in 1985 when we were on our industrial placements.

Y'see, we were studying Industrial Design/Transport at Coventry Polytechnic and Jerry's dad was a CDT teacher and they had this grinder and this welder and by the end of that summer the Imp was a convertible.

Jerry and Geoff contemplate jerry's Imp before head gasket failure on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 1985. that's my Imp in the background.

Jerry was working at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory for his placement while I worked for John Mockett the motorcycle designer. I shared a house in Coventry with Geoff Bird another good friend who was working for Carbodies at the time and Jerry drove up to see us in his new creation, complete with tailor made tonneau cover.

The Jemp created quite a stir parked in Coventry City Centre on Saturday night. Looking back it seems somewhat miraculous it didn't attract the wrong sort of attention but when we came out of The Dog and Trumpet at the end of the evening we attracted an admiring crowd and the car was much fuller than it had been on the way there. I drove home as I didn't drink even back in those days and I noticed with surprise that it didn't have a temperature gauge, just a warning light, quite a big one but no match for a gauge. It didn't light up so naturally we assumed all was well.

It wasn't. When Jerry migrated south to resume his gainful employment it blew the head gasket somewhere in the Banbury area if I recall correctly and his dad had to collect him with a tow rope. A rebuild soon followed but I don't remember it back on the road until after we'd graduated.

I don't know whose idea it was but by the time the three of us were working on GRP architectural statues for Piccadilly Jerry and I entered the Land's End Trial with another mate and fellow graduate form our course, Mike Evason. Geoff was also in the trial, passengering an old schoolfriend in a Chevette.

Well, we did everything wrong. We misread the instructions, couldn't cope with the twenty four clock - or even the two lots of twelve variety - soon gravitated to the utter tailmost of the running order and were classed as a non-finisher because we didn't appreciate that the volunteers running the show had to go home at some stage and wouldn't mind if we stopped off at my mum's for something to eat. We were starving!

Thanks to the chop top nature of Jerry's Imp, we were in Class 7 along with the big engined Beetles. We took this up with the scrutineers and the stewards but they said there was nothing they could do. We had altered the silhouette of the car and it was a special. We could either be in Class 7 or not in the trial.

We all took turns to drive, which is against the rules - there should be a nominated driver and passenger for insurance purposes I believe - and even had trouble with the route card, partly stemming from an inability to tell right from left, knife from fork or right from the other right.

Everywhere we went frightfully witty people said "Haven't you lost something?" (meaning our roof) before asking us what happened when it rained, to which we would reply that we got wet. Actually, we seemed to stay pretty dry. I think we cleared three hills but failed the rest. It was very much a learning experience. I remember one hill called Crossleigh, I believe. It had a Hillman Imp shaped hole and we fell into it so neatly that when this huge Massey Ferguson tractor bore down upon us to tow us up, its tyres could have trundled over our bonnet without anyone really noticing. I think he had to use his hydraulic arms to lift us out before pulling us. They don't use that hill anymore.

We entered the Jemp in the MCC's first Testing Trial at Mere

But we survived and so did Jerry's brave little car, even though it had no bash plate and the preparation beforehand had only been competition rotoflexes and a re-spray in Smoothrite yellow.

We enjoyed it so much that Jerry entered it again in 1988, this time with me and Gavin Cawood, another of our Coventry buddies. However, we burnt the clutch out trying to get off the line at Darracott and had to be brought home from North Cornwall by my mum in her Talbot Samba once we'd made our way to a pick up point on the A39..

Jerry came down again the following weekend with his dad and together they swapped the clutch in the open air at the foot of Gooseham Mill before attempting the hill again, this time with success.

"It's the same with a horse," they said, " if we hadn't attacked the hill again straight away after a refusal it wouldn't be able to face a hill again."

Big smiles from Jerry and Alison after the Testing Trial

Then Jerry decided to get serious.

Because of the silhouette thing, he decided he wanted to build an all out trials special for Class 8. He bought an Alfasud 1500 engine and gearbox - since he'd by now graduated to an Alfa Cloverleaf as his daily driver - and chopped the footprint of this powertrain out of the back of his Imp, cunningly squeezing it all around the Imp rear suspension. He made some hybrid driveshafts and hit upon a cunning plan to retain the inboard Alfa discs but keep the Imp rear shoes for a sort of fiddle brake, which probably would have seen us out of the trial no matter what class we were in.

It was while all this was going on that we spotted VT No.126, that Alfa powered Imp at Tregrehan where a long talk

Jerry's home made driveshafts

However, that's as far as it got - so far. The rest of life overtook Jerry and his Imp and before long he was in an industrial design partnership with good old Geoff and working all the hours of the week plus some others few outside Gallifrey know about.

Eventually, his mum gave him an ultimatum and he said that if I wanted Jerry's Imp then could I please take it away. So I hired a truck and I did. Not much has happened to the Jemp since then but it's dry and safe for now. I think the Alfa engine had seized by the time I brought it home but I have a 1.7 litre 16 valve example kicking around and that definitely has not seized.

This isn't a great photo but it shows how Jerry set about fitting the Alfa engine and box. In the foreground is the new bulkhead that he put behind the front seats

Nowadays I refer to it as the Jemp, a contraction of Jerry's Imp and somewhere between an Imp and a Jeep. I don't fancy trialling it. Trials are too destructive for me. I reckon the Jemp would make a better fast road car. Jerry made it strong so I fancy lightening it a bit but single vehicle approval will be required because of that pesky chopped-about-monocque business again.

I don't think it'll happen any time soon but it I do find it taking up space sometimes and often the best way to have a clear up is to assemble the constituent parts.

One day the Jemp will ride again.

This little engine nearly rusted away entirely. For nearly 30 years it lay in its shed at Dorothea Quarry in North Wales with parts being taken to keep other engines running. Gradually the shed collapsed around it but in 1970 it was rescued by enthusiast Dave Walker. Dorothea remained in storage until 1989 when Kate Bowman took pity on it. Her husband had already done that with other quarry Hunslets, such as Covertcoat from Dinorwic and Lillian from Port Penryhn but even he did not share her enthusiasm for the task ahead and everyone else thought it was too far gone to be restored

There's a brilliant picture of it in the cafe at the steam railway. As it's in colour you can see how rusty it was after 30 years in the open with the rubble of its shed around it.

Dorothea under restoration in July 2009

Anyway, Kate had the engine in steam by December 2001 using Covertcoat's boiler and Dorothea returned to traffic on the Launceston Steam Railway at Easter 2012.

Regular readers may remember that last year I went to the Dorothea quarry. This was to see a Cornish engine in Wales, rather than a Welsh engine in Cornwall, and it's curious to note that the Dorothea Quarry was originally called the Cornwall Quarry.

The Dorothea Quarry is a fascinating site. J I C Boyd wrote about the quarry railways in Volume 1 of his North Wales Narrow Gauge books but, although they are obviously written by an enthusiast, I find his works curiously impenetrable. Maybe it's their layout.

This de Winton engine would be right at home with Dorothea. I spotted it whilst riding the Welsh Highland Railway (where it's too small to join in)

The history of the quarries and railways in the Nantlle Valley is also complicated.

The 3' 6" Nantlle Railway was incorporated in 1825 to take the slates up to Carnarvon and was absorbed into the LNWR in 1879. Most of it was converted to standard gauge later but beyond Talysarn, where transhipment exchange sidings existed, the 3' 6" line continued to be worked with horses up into the 1960s. Within the quarries themselves was a further system of 1' 11½" where the first of several vertical boilered de Winton engines appeared in around 1869. Apparently, de Winton, a firm based in Carnarvon, also built the winding engines in the quarries.

By September 2009 a replica cab was nearly ready

The locomotive Dorothea was built in 1901 (works no. 763) but was dormant in its shed by 1939 and Boyd records that parts were being sold off after that.

Another steam engine called Wendy lay dormant in similar circumstances until the 1960s when that, too, was rescued. This was a Bagnall (works no. 2091 of 1919). Boyd notes that the Bagnall was acquired in a pile of scrap in 1930 from Votty Quarry at Blaneau Festiniog but had only worked until 1922.

It's thanks to Boyd that this snippet has been captured for posterity.

By 1935 it was back in use but after WW2 it fell dormant again. The workings changed dramatically over the years. Rails were laid where they were needed in the changing landscape of the quarries and after the demise of steam horses saw the system out until 1961 when lorries replaced the railway.

The BR Nantlle Valley section from Pen-y-Groes to Talysarn was closed in 1963 and the track lifted by the end of 1965. Wendy was rescued about this time and shortly afterwards off went Dorothea, too. Obviously the Cornish engine remained but even that was adopted by a band of volunteers who camped nearby and got it going again on compressed air.

I had a good old poke around the Dorothea Quarry but, instead of finding it inspiring like I do old Cornish tin workings, it seemed a depressing place. It sits just outside Snowdon National Park and is off the tourist trials. I felt there was a sense of lost opportunity about the place, which has so much potential. There is the diving centre but a high number of recreational divers have died there giving it a bad reputation and occasional threats of closure. The Cornish engine is barricaded up against vandals and thieves for the happy band of youthful volunteers all grew up, settled down to married life and their preservation efforts ran out of steam as well as compressed air.

The weather didn't help. I was during one of the wettest and gloomiest holidays that I can remember. Actually, as I was camping in Mighty Whitey it was the wettest ever and the smell of damp took weeks to get out of my coat. It was that week in June where campers in Wales had to be airlifted to safety so I suppose I got away lightly.

I found no element of benign neglect. The Dorothea Quarry was quiet but disquieting. There was evidence of vandalism, I had a sense of the old quarry villages being an unemployment blackspot instead of a tourist friendly community and in researching my visit on the web I learned that parts of the Cornish engine had recently been stolen. Access is difficult and the site needs treating with respect even away from flooded areas. Some dog walkers told me of youngsters being trapped among the ruins and having to be rescued. Maybe that was an important lesson for them in our risk averse society.

But in the spirit of maximising the positive, let's fantasize about what could be done here.

For starters, this what it looked like backalong. Purty weren't it?

The volunteers behind the Welsh Highland must be looking for a fresh challenge. Those young bloods who got the Cornish engine to nod its beam back in the seventies are now retired and their preservation activities need not run out of steam - or comprssed air - a second time. The slate walls and architectural niceties remind me of John T Kenney's illustrations for the Rev Awdry's Gallant Old Engines for there's such beauty and pride in even the simplest buildings here. Those aerial cable ways could be modernised into cable cars for tourists. Local people could benefit from new jobs. A narrow gauge railway could be laid out in the quarries for further sight seeing opportunities. Engines from the other great little trains of Wales could visit. Wendy could come up from the Hampshire Narrow Gauge Railway Trust and Chaloner could visit from the Leighton Buzzard Railway.

And one day Dorothea the engine could one day return to Dorothea the quarry.

Can't you see a little steam engine sweeping into view?

The Candid Provocateurs ride again

Binky and I will be in the 2014 Exeter Trial again this weekend. We are in Binky's Candid Provocatere Allard J1 again. Nothing else compares to it really.

We dipped out last year because he had flu but as a spectator I actually had a great time and met a lot of others who for, various reasons, were also not competing.

This year it's all systems go so - last minute disasters notwithstanding - we should see you on the hills if we're not popping too many wheelies (he said hopefully) - not that a 1947 Allard J1 would ever do anything so vulgar.

Was that a kiss of death? Should I have left it until after the event to say that we are actually in it?

Time (and grip) will tell.

The future of classic trials?

The Suzuki X-90 is a car that has only just begun to have its day and even then it's having it in the obscure world of classic trialling. Not only that but it's the unloved two wheel drive variety that's found favour.

The X-90 was one of those niche cars that may have made sense when the concept was pitched to senior executives but, once let loose in the market place with everybody else looking at it, it didn't actually make a lot of sense.

I can sort of understand where Suzuki were coming from. So many people aspire to the lifestyle that a four wheel drive vehicle apparently indicates that you are enjoying that it could be sensible to offer them the look of it without all the tiresome heavy duty stuff that any self-respecting hairdresser doesn't need.

And no disrespect to hairdressers - for many years the MGB was known for being a hairdresser's car. The MGB had the look of a sports car without all that tiresome performance to worry about.

The engine was a G16A 1590cc sohc four cylinder that put out 95 bhp and had a five speed box and the drivetrain is pretty well bullet proof. It's engineered for the road, which is where the vast majority would be found. It wasn't designed for towing - there's no low box. But to my amazement almost half those made were only rear wheel drive.

The split glass roof was arguably the best feature of the X-90

The X-90 has a two part targa roof as well but this was heavy and took up all the boot space unless you left it at home and felt you could rely on British weather not making you wet..

So the Suzuki X-90 had all the look of a four wheel drive without the actual performance and in tow heel drive form without the weight drivers of its 4x4 sibling had to endure. It also lacked all those seats that can get muddy if you let people in your 4x4. It couldn't possibly fail in it's chosen niche - could it?

Nothing else quite looks like an X-90. That's what they said about Allegros, too, and we all know what that kind of remark means for the public image.

At rest after the 2009 LET

It's not so much a cross-over vehicle as a fall between the tracks machine. It doesn't do on road, or off road, very well. It is at home nowhere. Initial depreciation was spectacular as the X-90 earnt itself the reputation of being a lemon and Clarkson - in a rare demonstrative moment - declared it to be the worst car ever.

Suzuki made the X-90 from October 1995 until May 1997 and didn't replace it with anything. Nowadays they are incredibly cheap.

And nowadays they've found their niche.

Of course, MCC classic trials are a niche market far smaller than Suzuki ever visualised for the X-90. You might say it's a market leader in life style SUVs running in class 5 - rear wheel drive production sports cars. Sports cars? Shurely shome mishtake...

In fact I doubt Suzuki have ever heard of classic trials let alone Class 5 but that's where - incredibly - they make sense and it's only the two wheel drive version that suits this niche, as 4x4s are banned.

Suzuki X-90s are reliable, have decent ground clearance without the need for modifications, are cheap and can be regarded as ultimately disposable.

For a long time they still didn't perform well in classic trials but the critical factors I listed above - I did mention cheap didn't I? - meant that many people began entering them, even if they could never be accused of pot hunting. Even more people - myself included - regarded them as a kind of mobile fitness rig for long suffering MCC marshals.

Peter Jones and Robert Stone failed Blue Hills 1 on the 2011 Land's End Trial but cleared Blue Hills 2 to get a Bronze Award

But then something happened. Maybe it was better tyres. Maybe it was a demon tweak. Maybe some drivers realised what it took to get the X-90 to find grip. One driven by Nick Deacon almost cleared Simms in the 2013 Exeter Trial. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it for myself.

Every page of an MCC trials programme lists at least one X-90 these days (apart from the motorcycle pages obviously). No fewer than 19 were entered in the main 2014 Exeter Trial - that's 85 of the whole entry and 12% of the cars. In Class O there was another 9 - that's another 12% of the entry or 16% of the Class O cars.

The X-90's star is in the ascendant a t last. I rest my case.

Credit where credit is due - the staff at Liskeard and Plymouth railway stations did a great job of dealing with weather related problems last Friday.

This is not a scene of uproar and crowds at Plymouth railway station - it is one of quiet efficiency with passengers already on the replacement coaches laid on in lieu of the cancelled trains due to weather.

I had tickets from Liskeard to Andover with return tickets from Exeter to Liskeard as part of my travel plan to start in and return home from the 2014 Exeter Trial.

But it wasn't to be.

Lightning strikes knocked out the signalling in Cornwall during the morning so nothing was moving in Cornwall at all. At Liskeard, Jo and Sonya organised buses for us and as I was travelling beyond Plymouth I was on the first minibus.

But at Plymouth it became apparent that further lightning strikes in Devon and flooding beyond Exeter meant that plans to stop services at Plymouth and redirect them eastwards wouldn't work.

After a while, the station staff at Plymouth broke it to the passengers that we weren't going anywhere soon and that further weather was on its way. they advised us to go home or to visitors to let their rellies know not to strip the beds. Actually, they weren't that flippant, they were very professional and kept us all informed as soon as they had something to tell us.

I arrived back in Liskeard in time to set out by car for Honiton which was the most westerly station in action that afternoon on the South West Trains network.

Thanks to the prompt action and good communication of the station staff, I was able to make the start of the Exeter Trial despite the weather.

2013 Exeter Trial

Vintage Thing No.123 - Gilbern T11

Vintage Thing No.23.3 - Allegro Equipe

Vintage Thing No.124 - V8 Hillman Imp

Vintage Thing No. 125 - Grasstrack Imp

2013 Land's End Trial

Vintage thing No.126 - Alfa powered Imp

Vintage Thing No. 127 - Bugrat

The Rocker Covers are All Revved Up

Vintage Thing No.128 - Imp special saloon

Vintage thing No. 129 - V8 Hillman imp Californian

Vintage Thing No.130 - Marshall and Fraser Reliant Kitten Special Saloon

Vintage Thing no.131 - Chrysler 300

Vintage Thing No.132 - Citroen Mehari

Vintage Thing No.133 - the Impaler

Vintage Thing No.134 - the Jemp

Firedrake files No.10 - Dorothea

2014 Exeter Trial

Vintage Thing No. 134 - Suzuki X-90

How to deal with a trasnport crisis