There are many things in the archive that I grew up to be familiar with…to this day there many things still being found or pulling in new and interesting information and in this article, I’m going to share a couple of little vehicular oddities with you that are all encompassed by those various scenario.
Modelled so beautifully here by my late Mother, let’s start with this locally made little beastie…
You may laugh, but you’re all going to be driving something from it’s gene pool in the not too distant future!
So, what little trick does this have up it’s sleeve?
The car of the future yesterday…the T.E.L. Electric Car!
That’s right electric cars are far from a new thing, the first harking back to the 1880s, they were toyed with and many practical working examples made by various makers around the world.
Sadly I cannot find anything about whoever it was that built this one…
Badged T.E.L. memory reminds me that my Father told me that it was made in Stelling Minnis (which is where these photographs were taken).
Electric it may have been…I doubt however that you could apply that statement to it’s performance.
Chain driven solid rear axle over a narrower rear track would have made it’s handling feel like a puppy on a lead. Battery life and thus range unknown, though I suspect the charge not as potent as the mobile phone battery we each have about our personage!
How much that range would have been reduced if you were out at night and had to switch the headlights on…well, who knows how much impact that would have had even though modern day b/s would inform us that this amazing vehicle was constructed using lightweight fibre glass over a crafted chassis 😉
From the photo to the right we should also observe the absence of any of the creature comforts vehicle makers tell us we all demand today.
In fact, it appears to me that if you got cold then you may be forced to gather around the illuminated headlights in attempt to stave off the chill.
There’s not much interior trimming, no heater, less insulation and little by way of weather sealing, none to the sliding windows and that fitted to the doors offering little draft free assurance.
But come on…this was January 1959, the creature comforts absent here, also not fitted to most cars of the time.
T.E.L. was a pretty good attempt, it’s simplicity given the cars of the day could have worked with the right investment, also given that small scale car manufacture was possible in Britain back then.
There were dozens and dozens of small makers around the country but then, foreign imports began to increase with more consumer choice year on year making for a tougher market and then nationalisation of the UK car industry driving home the terminal nail inthe 1970s.
Electric cars, sadly the future, I say sadly you understand, as I lived a life, much of it around now beautiful classics and such monsters as the rally cars banned in the 1980s for having too much power, that then landed in Rallycross in time to provide the sport’s greatest days.
I don’t mind leccy, but I do believe that the political commitment to them is misleading us, it is for sure very very blinkered…prior to last lockdown in discussion I pointed out that we were once all told to buy diesels, within years we were being asked to scrap them, for petrol, then what comes next? Guess.
However do condsider that chemical technology goes hand in hand with engineering technology, it moves faster though.
Last year Porsche announced that it is producing a carbon neutral petroleum. Initially to be used for motor racing, a platform from which much technology has a habit of filtering down to the road. Is it really wise to cut that off? I think not…
Speaking of racing cars…
The “Old Man” and via him, me, both fans of the Mini Cooper. There’s something about 1960s Coopers that warms the cockles, partially due I guess to the great film “The Italian Job” that did even more to embed these charismatic little cars into the British psyche.
You’ll see his early Mk1 997 Cooper in these photos and many more in the archive, here used on this occasion by way of comparison to the legendary and historic one-off Cooper-Buick.
So what’s a Cooper-Buick?
Why are those front wheels so big?
What’s under the bonnet?
There’s nothing under that bonnet!
There is however a 3500cc Buick V8 (later aka Rover V8) shoehorned up the back end.
It was build by Jeff Goodliff (hope that’s he in the first photo) of a company called Vita-D named after sponsors who saved one racing curate called Rupert Jones from ending his racing career due to lack of funds. He enrolled Jeff and a talented driver Harry Ratcliffe who’s claim to fame include 13 straight wins on the trot and the first 100mph lap of Silverstone in a Mini.
It was due to his love of engineering that he refused a works drive and set about building this car.
“It was lethal to drive…”
Said Harry. A sentiment refected by it’s new owner in these photos, Roger Hearst a bookie from Lyminge and a mate of my Dad’s. “Great in a straight line but corners…..phew!”
A well engineered car. Nicely prepared and even road registered…I can almost hear this beast!
Cleverly it was front wheel drive, running an inverted E-Type Jaguar differential on the front end and reversed E-Type gearbox mated to the V8.
As Harry remembers “It was the best and the worst thing that we ever did. The best thing being all the publicity it brought us, especially when we took it to Oulton Park with Stuart Hall”
“It oversteered so nicely because all the weight was in the back. In a race you had a good chance of being well up the field because nobody could get past, due to the car skating about all over the place!”
The Cooper-Buick’s story doesn’t end here though…
Several years ago, in railway arches under the tracks somewhere in London she was found! Re-discovered to my immense pleasure having know of her for so long…lovely, wow!
Sent to a specialist classic car company in Essex and scheduled for a £91k restoration…the company in question being kind enough to purchased rights to use our photos and although they went bust, the assets moved onto Woodham-Mortimer cars who still show them on their website.
I have asked for an update as to it’s current situation…meantime I’ve cheekily stolen their photos of the unrestored car for you. Who know’s…maybe lockdown has made time for someone to get stuck into sorting her out and she’ll appear soon and stun us with a display of her brutality?
Hope so, especially if it upsets the soulless environmental nazis! 😀
The Great British Hoilday…in Luxury!
Martin Walters was a major employer in Folkestone. Blue chip business catering for a wide range of car owners…Joe Bloggs like you and me but it made and retained it’s name from back in the early days of car production as a coach building company, of the ilk of Rolls Royce.
They also owned Dormobile of course but then I found this job in the archive recently. This is job number R2311 and it dates to May 1964 these photographs show us the way to enjoy the country in some style.
This vehicle also has something of a trick up it’s sleeve….you’re going to love this! 😀
As you will see, this immense vehicle has been built to a highest degree of quality by local craftsmen.
The design is both practical, elegant and beautifully presented, offering all the latest accessories including kitchen fittings by Morphy Richards, Belling and Shanks.
Having gorged onself on meals worthy of such accoutrements one can wonder towards the rear end and….
I suppose if you’re on the road this is the best place ever to be lobbing things from…at the traffic these things inevitably have trailing behind them…..
But let us not detract from this fantastic wagon…I am willing to bet that there are a lot of people out there right now that would dig very very deep in their pockets for this wagon.
Take a look:
Come on….who wouldn’t love a drive around any country in that? Might take a while buy hey…
I’m doing an “A Finally….” again.
Okay, three strange vehicles is the title but this next photography…perhaps the single most strange photo in the whole of the family archive from that time is this one but it’s less about the vehicle…here’s what it says, in my Mum’s hand, on the negative packet.
Job number R4077 dated June 1969 ~ “Family Off to Australia in Car Boat”
What we witness is a family of four or five aboard what appears to be a WW2 DUKW Amphibious vehicle fitted with a shed for accomodation.
Now I don’t personally lose any sleep over this one but there are questions right?
Did they drive this down from Derbyshire and launch here at The Warren?
How did they fare on the rest of this incredible journey? Are they still there? Did their dog enjoy the ride, yes they took the dog too? ~ Did they have any more children?
Notice also who gets to have possession of the one and only life jacket…the guilty party I suspect for this terrifically bright idea!
Just in from one of our customers is this found footage on the Reuters website, showing how it was that very day!
Apparently the cunning plan ended, this will surprise you…somewhere out in the channel from where they had to be rescued…towed back to shore!
