Buckley’s market matters
I decided to have one of my last-minute ‘shed parties’ at my new barn in mid-december: not so much ‘cars and coffee’ as ‘standing around in the cold looking at cars – with coffee.’
Actually, it wasn’t as nippy as it might have been and, given that Boris was issuing all sorts of noises about another lockdown, the turnout of cars and people was not too bad. Everything from Richard Falconer’s low-slung Marcos 1600 (complete with all four wheels attached) to Graham Millard’s newly acquired 1972 Land-rover 109in diesel. Former C&SC man Nick Kisch and Steve Wilce kept the Mercedes flag flying with a Pagoda 280SL and a W114 280 saloon, and Paul Blofield’s highly patinated splitscreen Beetle – last seen in a Swedish forest with a tree growing through the roof – got loads of attention.
Master mechanic Ken Brittain came in his amazing Vauxhall V6-powered Gilbern (he keeps threatening to frighten me with a drive in it some time), while trimmer Dave Barker dug out his much-loved Rover P6B. Fredrik Folkestad turned up in his Renault 16 TX, never being one to miss a sales opportunity, but I might have cured myself of that. If I had to take one car home it would have been the Jensen Interceptor brought by Paul and Lisa Lewis.
There was a ‘car park of shame’ for modern stuff that Ernie Warrender naturally ignored by dumping his giant off-roader in the middle of it all, but most people followed the rules. Ernie has just bought what he thinks is the one and only University Motors Downton-converted MGB, sold new with rectangular headlamps and enough grunt to get it to 60mph in 8.5 secs. It’s a project but with a solid shell. Does anyone know more about it?
With plenty to eat and drink, and a few quid behind the bar across the road, it all went to plan, but I must try to do an event in warmer weather next time.
We’d also had a nice impromptu lunch earlier in the month when Lancia historian Nigel Trow came with a friend to have a look at my Series III Appia. Something came up about Porsche 356s and he winced: “I’ve had a lot of friends die in those… you hit things backwards.” Just up the road, the major local restorer seems to be turning into a 356 specialist. I had to laugh when a mate who works there told me about the sterile, clean-lined internal refit that is under way: “It looks more like the inside of the Betty Ford clinic than a car workshop!”