My Life on Wheels Beginnings Like Many of My Age Group in Britain, Over Eighty, My Experiences with Wheeled Transport Is a Refle
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My Life on Wheels Beginnings Like many of my age group in Britain, over eighty, my experiences with wheeled transport is a reflection of the times we have lived in. My first experience of a wheeled devise was a pair of roller skates given as a Christmas or birthday present, I don’t remember which. I used them to roll down the steep city street I lived on for thrills. It was quite safe to do so because there was so little traffic away from the main roads in nineteen forties Britain, with only one person in the street owning an elderly pre-war Austin Seven. My first bicycle was a hand me down from an older brother which I used get around the city where worked as an apprentice electrician. In time I graduated to a sports model. This was OK until my parents decided to move back to the country village ten hilly miles from the city I worked in. I don’t know how these modern Lycra tyros do it today, But I soon found that after a hard days work it was just too much, and had to resort to the cold, slow, often crowded country bus. As soon as I was old enough in the early nineteen fifties, I began looking for a motorcycle I could afford, and purchased a very tired 500cc Rudge Special, from a colleague that broke down before I had ridden all the way home. The Special had a single cylinder with four overhead valves and two exhaust pipes and would have been something special in its day, but that was long gone so I sold it on. So again I was looking for transport and found that I could just about afford an Excelsior 98cc two-stroke, two speed motorcycle. Very light and simple and slow. This suited me for a few years until I could afford a proper motorbike, A Matchless G3/LS, 350cc single. This served me well, with many journey from Cornwall to Bristol while I was serving my National Service in the RAF, and later weekend trips to Dublin via Holyhead for the ferry, to visit my future wife in Dublin. Married life and the start of a family brought about the need for enclosed transport, and as I only had a motorcycle licence and insufficient means to purchase even a second hand car. I purchased my first and so far only BMW. A British built Isetta three wheeled bubble car. You could drive one on a motorcycle licence if the reverse gear was blanked off. The blanking plate I made was a bit springy so it still worked. The longest trip we made in that car was to Dublin via Fishguard. This before the days of the roll-on roll- off ferries, and It was hoisted on and off the boat in a net. I always remember when off- loaded at Rosslare Harbour in Ireland, three large men dwarfing it, pushing it on to a flat railway truck as if it was a tank. This was at the end of a pier with only a railway track to the shore, so we then had a short train journey. I remember the road to Dublin was terrible. With the Isetta in Ireland On Four Wheels This was in the early nineteen sixties. At that time I had begun to work for a local utility company, that due to government policy was expanding its area of operations, and needed a mobile workforce. As at that time it was not common to hold a driving licence for cars and vans. They had their own driving instructor to remedy that. So I learnt to pass the driving test in a series 2 Morris Minor van, the beginning of a long association the Minor and derived models. From that time, 1964 and the next ten years was the period when I only drove light vans, at work and my personal transport. As my family continued to grow, the two seat Isetta had to go and was replaced by a new Autobianchi Furgoncino van. The was the van version of Fiat 500 Gardinera derived premium model the Autobianchi Panoramica. The Gardiniera was the estate version of the Nova 500. It had an air-cooled engine located under floor at the rear of the car. I purchased a van because at that time the tax imposed on luxury goods like cars, purchase tax at 25%, was not levied on vans. (I would have liked a Beetle but it would have been an old one.) This served me and my small family well for a couple of years, although slow by to days standards was fun to drive. Our Autobianchi Furgoncino van. But the family kept growing and in numbers, so it was replaced by an other van, a one year old Austin A55 half ton model. The solid but dated machine served us well for the next seven year. The longest trip in this one was a camping holiday in Scotland. Throughout the nineteen seventies I drove a Morris Minor Thousand, van for work, which I always enjoyed. Whilst referring to vans, I had a short test drive in an electric van developed by the local electricity supply company, that was quite lively, but heard no more of it. In nineteen seventy four I purchased my first car. It was a new1275cc Morris Marina 2 door. I had ordered the cheapest model in the range with drum brakes, but was pleased to received one with disc’s at the front. I remember being disappointed in the paint finish. I selected a model of dated design because to keep cost down, it was easier to maintain myself than the newer front wheel drive models.It remained in the family until the early nineteen eighties. Our Morris Marina Early in nineteen seventy nine I received a promotion at work that required me to provide my own transport, As by then the Marina was being used regularly by the family, I had to find a reliable car that I could afford to purchase. My answer to that that was to purchase a new Citroen Dyane, a fancy version of the Citroen 2CV. The 2CV was not sold in the UK at the time. It was good basic if quirky transport that did the job for about a year until my employer decided that a company car was the way to go. As a temporary measure I was given a Mk1 Ford Fiesta that was great fun to drive. This left me with an ageing Marina that was passed to a daughter and an almost new Dyane, which I found my wife could not master the odd gear change. So the Diane was traded in for a one litre Austin Metro which was similar in size and performance as the Fiesta and served us well. We had a trip with our son to Yugoslavia in 1982, via Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy and back via Switzerland . A year later we needed a car with more room than the Metro. We planned to take one of our daughters, husband and young family to France for a holiday, so needed a larger car. I traded in the Metro for a year old Morris Ital. I knew this model well as it was revamped Marina with component links to the Morris Minor. Little did I think that I would drive this car for nine years and keep its major components until two thousand and sixteen. In the mean time the Mk1 Fiesta had been exchanged for MK2 1600cc diesel Fiesta that did the job but was definitely not fun. I was to drive Fiesta diesels for the next nine years for work. Perhaps as a result of driving diesel Fiesta’s and elderly Ital. for leisure, I made my only motoring impulse purchase. For some reason I was walking past a high street car dealership, and spotted a new MG Metro in the window. Out of curiosity I went in and made enquires. As a result I was offered the car for £5360 almost £1200 off list price, an offer I could not refuse and never regretted. It had the same engine specification as the Mini Cooper of the period and was great fun to drive. Our MG Metro It served me well and was used for trips all over Europe, that is until about eight years later we were on a trip to Germany. We were about to leave the cross channel ferry but were unable to start the engine due to starter failure, so had to be push started. So I had to park the car on a slope for the rest of the holiday. To make matters worse an intermittent ignition fault was added to our troubles. Both were soon rectified in the UK, but confidence was lost and it had to go. I had tried classic car restoration previously, A Morris Minor MM and an MG Midget, both of which had to be abandoned due to the advanced corrosion of the shell. I was able to pass on valuable components to others to complete their projects. So had turned to a kit car, whose chassis and body panel’s where both corrosion free twenty five years later. By then the ten year old Morris Ital. was showing signs of advanced corrosion as had the Marina before it, So was dismantled and the components where used to build a kit car, a Marlin Roadster. You can read more about my kit cars in the Fun Cars chapter.