That man in his shed

Seeing the headline ‘Golf reborn by a man in a shed’ (PC, October 2019) explained where my interest in old cars started.

Some 50 odd years ago when I was playing with motorcycles, our neighbour invited my father and I round to see what he had been doing. On his drive was a beautiful dark green Daimler with flowing wings and dinner plate headlamps, shiny and bright. The bonnet was open, the engine gleamed. He took a florin from his pocket and stood it on edge on the rocker box top… it just stood there and I wondered why he had done it, then I noticed the fan was turning.

An amazing piece of engineering considering he was working in a small garage. It turns out he had dragged two wrecks home from a field, one up to its axles in mud, the other being used

as a chicken hut.

He stripped the first one down and stored it in the shed at the bottom of the garden and built one from the two, he even made his own spray gear, even including the gun. A small crack in the rear window was the only fault.

Soon after I joined the Air force, and after a RAF Halton apprenticeship I soon found myself in Germany filling spare time in with auto cross racing Fiat 1300s, 1500s, 850s, Auto Union 1000s, VW Beetles and the like, with a bit of 100 international kart racing mixed in. We would buy ex-german post office Beetles (right-hand drive), replace the engine and interior and then sell them to people who were returning to the UK.

Now, where is that thrust bearing before I get to choked on memories all started by a man in a shed. Thanks for a super mag. I still have every one and sadly they take up a lot of space.

David Wickham, Portugal