The (almost) indestructible little three-wheeler

Your mention of the Invacar in the

A-Z of British Motorcycles (OBM 446) reminded me of a couple of incidents regarding these three-wheelers.

In 1973 I was still at school but working evenings and weekends to pay off my first bike (a Yamaha YG1F). I was attending petrol pumps in Chelmsford (33p a gallon, as I well remember) when a car pulled out and hit an Invacar, right in front of the petrol station.

Fortunately it was not at speed so both drivers were unhurt, but the Invacar exploded into a rain of pale blue fibreglass pieces, leaving just the chassis, with the shocked driver still inside. I had to go out with a bucket and shovel to clear the road after the police had finished, but the Invacar was still drivable afterwards – unlike the Triumph Herald that had pulled out on him!

As you said, there was a lot of fuss about the stability of the three-wheeled Invacar and I clearly remember that BBC’s Look East had a report on how stable they actually were, which included a fleet being driven through the slipstream of a Carvair car transporter (a fourengined cargo plane) at Southend airport, not far from the Thundersley Greeves factory. The procession of Invacars swerved in the prop-blast from the plane, but not one of the looked like it was going to lift off or topple over. This must have been in the very late 1960s or early 1970s, but I cannot find any reference to it on the internet, unfortunately.