The Barn

Vehicles

Cars and Bikes

I was still a student when I realised that transport cost quite a lot of money, to buy, to run, to tax and to insure. Furthermore you can spend quite a lot of your precious hours using it – so I reckoned it was probably worth paying a bit more and arriving with a smile on your face.

One of the biggest costs is depreciation. If you buy new you are looking at losing up to 50% of the value over the first 3 years. So buying something older made sense, especially if you were prepared to do some of the spanner work yourself and avoid the substantial cost of workshop mechanics.

School Days

When your father is chairman of the local motorcycle club, and both your parents ride motorcycles on-road and off-road, then it is probably no surprise that I started with motorbikes – in fact I started aged about 12 riding in ‘schoolboy’ trials. By the time I was 14 I was working in the local motorcycle shop at weekends and holidays to pay for my hobby. I was never very good at trials, but it was a great way to use up my adolescent energy, and it certainly keeps you fit.

My trials bikes were :

In preparation for being allowed on the roads on my 16th birthday I rebuilt a BSA Bantam trials bike to use on green lanes runs. On 1st January (13 days before my 16th birthday) the law changed without warning and 16 year-olds were only allowed to ride mopeds. So I sold the Bantam and waited for my next birthday.

What came my way was a Gilera 50cc road bike – very pretty, and economical but 50cc. Then I got a chance of a real gem – a brand new ISDT MZ, still in the crate. A highly tuned enduro bike capable of 100kph (80mph), on knobbly tyres. Not very practical, but VERY exciting and noisy. Eventually sanity kicked in and I sold the MZ and got a Yamaha 175cc trail bike, more of a road bike than off-road.

University

Escaping to University was brilliant, and in the first year I had onsite accommodation, so having my Yamaha got me about. However for the second year I had to find digs and was riding into university in all weathers, and then the third year was out in industry and I needed to move my stuff. This was solved by buying a mini van and selling the Yamaha.

When I got back to the University for my fourth year I fancied getting a motorbike again, and this time for pleasure. I found a scruffy old Norton twin which I bought for £400. It didn’t look much but it sounded fantastic and was quick and handled well – its pedigree shining through the rust and random paint colours.

  • 1969 Norton 650

Staying on at Uni for a PhD and later on the payroll, I found great accommodation at Mill Farm, Cranleigh, where I bought another car while I stripped down and tuned the mini engine, a 3 litre Austin Westminster. This was a lovely old bus, with leather seats with armrests and picnic tables in the back. I leased out the Mini, and eventually sold it. The Westminster was followed by a 5 litre Ford Fairmont – a large Australian-built estate.

  • 1963 Austin Westminster
  • 1973 Ford Fairmont

Farnham

Although I was on the payroll at the University for some time, I decided around 1984 that it was time to escape to the ‘real world’. I kept the Norton and with the Ford Fairmont moved to Farnham and started work at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. I liked the V8, but parts were tricky, so I sold it and got a Black Rover V8 car – the P6.

  • 1973 Rover V8 P6B

Faversham

After work dried up at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, I found myself commuting up to London, a couple of hours each way. So got myself a job with Shell at the Agricultural Research Centre at Sittingbourne, and bought a house in Faversham. Still with the Norton and Rover, but the Rover engine was getting tired, and the auto box changed gear on me once in snow (even though ‘2’ was selected) and nearly cause a serious accident. So I decided it was time for a new tuned engine and a manual gearbox. While I was doing this I needed a vehicle to cover, including moving engines and gearboxes. I found a Series 3 Land Rover, a County with 7 seats and safari roof. Perfect.

The Rover conversion took some time, converting an automatic to a manual required more than just a gearbox change. The auto and manual had different bodies, and adding the clutch pedal was less than trivial.

  • 1978 Land Rover Series 3 county station wagon

Chester

After 7 years in Faversham, I got a move to Shell’s Research Lab at Thornton near Chester. Norton, Rover and Land Rover all came with me. However the Rover was by now really long in the tooth, and when the gearbox failed I decided it was time for something else interesting, and this time I was sticking with manual gearboxes.

I found a Jaguar XJS. Not the big V12, but a 3.6 Manual. A handsome and comfortable car with black leather interior and metallic burgundy paint. There was however one problem .. details of which will follow when I next update this ..

  • 1985 Jaguar 3.6 XJS