Romance and rust
I’M CURRENTLY engrossed in a book that I picked up for three quid in a charity shop, The Age of Motoring Adventure 1887-1939 by TR Nicholson. Published in 1972, it’s a compilation of extracts by motoring pioneers from all around the world, who faced challenges on a scale that’s hard to imagine today. It’s proper Boy’s
Own stuff, all shattered axles and spear-throwing natives, and I absolutely love it.
A favourite story concerns the Australian overlander Francis Birtles, who made a gold-hunting journey through Queensland in his much-abused Bean tourer during the 1920s. Having had to improvise head gaskets more than a dozen times – at one point resorting to using a piece of fibreboard cut from his suitcase, soaked in oil and coated in apple jelly – he finally had to admit defeat when his engine hydraulicked and blew a piece out of a cylinder wall.
‘In a howling sand-storm I walked to the railway… and after a few weeks of waiting, managed to get an old Model T Ford engine. I bolted this to the chassis and threw the other engine away. This carried me back to Melbourne.’
What I like about this story is that slotting a Model T engine into a Bean chassis in the back of beyond is considered so inconsequential that it’s worth only 12 words. It rather puts our modern-day fears about breakdowns into perspective, doesn’t it?
My own ‘T’ is living under a tarp outside the house for the time being, but a recent spell of hot, dry weather impelled me to uncover it and go for a spin round the nearby lanes. This humble car has such a positive effect on people: every time I burbled past a pub, the drinkers would raise their glasses or crack a grin, and bikers gave me the thumbs-up as they overtook (bikers, I find, really appreciate the oddball nature of vintage cars).
The ‘T’ also lived outside for much of 2021 and, since I’d like it to last for another 95 years and one front wing in particular has more rust than paint, I decided it needed a bit of preventative action. Time to break out the Owatrol, an oil-based preservative that soaks into a rusted surface and – unlike ‘patina’ alternatives such as furniture wax – has the advantage of drying to a satin finish that can be overpainted.
It doesn’t really matter how you apply the stuff, as long as you splash it on liberally, so I used a fence-painting brush to work it into the surface. I’ll follow up by re-coating the underside of the wings with lanolin-based Lanoguard. Lanolin is a waxy product derived from sheep’s wool – and you never see a rusty sheep, do you?