Martin Buckley Backfire
‘My initial horror has turned into intrigue: I’m “tri-curious”, with a morbid fascination for the blue Ministry of Health cars’
Normal service will resume shortly; meanwhile, some meditation on the pros and cons of the three-wheeler.
FOR: cheap tax; you can drive it on a ’bike licence; less to fork out on tyres. AGAINST: they fall over on corners, get blown over on straight roads and have an image problem – in that whenever you see a threewheeled car driving down the road, you tend to have negative thoughts about the occupants.
Well I do, anyway, an attitude nurtured in the ’70s when it seemed that only very old or feebleminded beings drove them, or that they were handed out for free on the National Health to people with limps and bottle-end glasses.
I was ignorant of the fact that Reliants (the only three-wheelers you ever saw) were actually quite expensive compared to a ‘real’ car. Brought up on tales of ‘plastic pigs’ burning to the ground when they weren’t in a ditch, the sense of social shame that hung around them spooked me: my ultimate car-related nightmare would have been my dad being reduced to driving a beige Regal like the one owned by Mrs Mountford, a kindly school dinnerlady who lived over the road. She must have been pleased with her Regal, because she chopped it in for a bright yellow Robin.
Since then, my horror has turned to intrigue: I’m ‘tri-curious’ if you like, with a morbid fascination with the blue Ministry of Health cars.
My cherry was popped in a Robin van on an ill-fated stag do, but more edifying (and less lethal) was a drive in Tim Bishop’s Morgan trike. The best three-wheeler of all, however, has to be the AF Spyder. Robert Hughes, the Weybridge Jaguar specialist, has been singing the praises of this 1275cc Mini-engined, front-drive, boattailed two-seater. To be fair, it garnered a slew of enthusiastic reviews in the early ’70s; Motor’s Tony Dron devoted no fewer than four very favourable pages to the AF, while Autocar’s Michael Scarlett called it: ‘The most stable and delightful three-wheeler we have ever driven.’
Designed by Morgan fan Alexander Fraser (hence ‘AF’) and funded by colourful former privateer F1 team boss Colin Crabbe, the Spyder was built to the tune of six cars through to 1978. ‘Production’ AFS were glassfibre, but Hughes’ car is the second of two prototypes bodied with marine-ply, recently refurbished by the man who made the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang body.
The 1971 leaflet for the Lincolnshire-built ‘Economy Sports Car’ offers the kit, less Mini
bits, for as little as £450; a complete car with a new or rebuilt engine was £876. This one lived at Crabbe’s Aberdeenshire seat until 2010, mostly driven by his father – apparently including an encounter with an Anglia van that wrote off the Ford, testament to the surprising solidity of a car put together with glue and screws and that you can pick up by its pointy tail for parking.
Hughes bought the AF from its second owner, a former Vulcan flight lieutenant. To be honest, its glowing CV sounded as unlikely as the fact that Robert owned such a thing (until I remembered that he also has a Messerschmitt and a Heinkel). First sight of it in the timber didn’t change my mind much: with its Mini guts hanging out the front, tiny wheels and flat wings it looks part school project, part Wacky Races.
Brushing aside flashbacks to a 2Cv-engined trike I broke down in 25 years ago, I was soon under way. It really is quick, with acceleration that seems almost savage when you are so at one with the mechanicals. It feels good for Dron’s 8.7 secs 0-60mph time, and the way the urge keeps flowing as you rip through the gears does not equate with something that looks so quaint.
The shape you may well learn to love, but it doesn’t do justice to a car that is much more accomplished than its homespun appearance suggests. Had it been given a modern Bond Bugstyle body, perhaps the AF would have been more than a curiosity – although even then I doubt Mrs Mountford would have bought one.