HWM-CHEVROLET
RUN BY Simon Taylor OWNED SINCE August 2000 PREVIOUS REPORT Dec 2016
The C&SC Show in association with Flywheel at Bicester was glorious. I can say this without bias because the inspired idea was nothing to do with me, nor was all the effort that went into it. I just turned up with thousands of other people to revel in that wonderful mix of classic cars and planes in action.
Except: on the way to Bicester my beloved Stovebolt – always the soul of reliability whatever I throw at it, hillclimbs, motorways, traffic jams, B-road blasts – suddenly died on me. We were bumper-tobumper on Friday evening’s choked M40 when the engine stopped.
Onto the hard shoulder. Bonnet off, poke around vaguely. Fuel pump pumping, so must be electrics. I hate electrics. I waggled every wire I could find and eventually it started, but because it might stop again I pottered along the hard shoulder to Exit 9. We got to Bicester with no further trouble.
On Saturday the Stovebolt ran brilliantly around Bicester’s twisty, bumpy little course, lots of rubber smoke off the line, lots of right boot to kick the tail out and conquer the understeer, lots of fun. But come Sunday morning in the hotel car park it wouldn’t start. Eventually it coughed into life and I got to the paddock. Bicester, of course, is home to a cornucopia of classic car businesses, and I reckoned somebody must be able to sort me out. I chose a well-known one, but it’d better be nameless, because they’re a good bunch and everyone drops the ball sometimes.
The lad there changed the coil, but no better, so I left the HWM (thumbed a hilarious lift back to London with Jules Balme in ‘Wooly Bully’) and he promised to give the electrics a total going-over. He quickly found it was down to a loose wire at the master switch – which of course I could have found if I hadn’t been so gormless – but while he was about it he changed the distributor (although it was working fine), plus plugs and plug leads. He also took it upon himself to alter the throttle linkage to my three downdraught carbs.
As soon as I drove away after collecting it I realised my poor old friend was desperately unhappy. It wouldn’t tick over, the acceleration was blunted, and it was running hot. The Stovebolt never runs hot.
Clearly the timing was way off. Also the throttle linkage was horrible, not smoothly progressive as before. I struggled back to London in a rage. Next day, faithful Colin Mullan reset the timing and sorted the throttle linkage, and my friend was back to its usual raucous self.
When I phoned the head chap at the Bicester shop he was mortified and at once waived the bill (which included labour at £72 an hour). But I thought it fair to pay for the distributor, coil and plug leads.
Since then I’ve done two great charity events – Kop Hill Climb, which I enjoy every year, and a new one for me, Firle. This used to be a proper hillclimb, steeply rising to the top of the cliffs over the Sussex coast, until it was stopped after a bad accident in 1967. Now Rob Bryant and his team run an untimed revival, which has an authentic ’50s atmosphere and attracts an eclectic mix of cars, from VSCC specials to a Morris Traveller with a Chevy V8 and immense supercharger. It was called Minor Alterations, and was driven to the event.
The hill is steep and narrow, with a challenging long left-hander just before the finish line. The Stovebolt lapped it up, after which we drove home (Sunday night jams on the M23) coolly and happily. Life is back to how it should be.