One man’s car journey - Simply Awesome.
I have a whole section for car histories - its an interesting and enjoyable thing to do. I did mine in pic-collage and its just pictures but Dave here did such a good job of the back-story for each of his cars that I thought it should be an article.
This is well worth a read.
Enjoy
One man’s history of motoring
I am not a wealthy car collector, but I do love cars and they have played a big part in my life. Over the course of my motoring career, I have owned and driven a huge variety of cars and commercial vehicles covering well over one million miles since I passed my driving test in 1965. Fortuitously my family owned a number of garages – Graham Brothers Motors Holdings. This Group ultimately comprised of 17 garages, most of them distributors and main dealers and consequently I grew up in a world of cars and trucks.
My father liked his cars, and his company vehicles were always reasonable, middle of the road saloons appropriate to his job as a main board member and Managing Director of a couple of the group subsidiaries.
Our main franchise, as I was growing up, was Vauxhall and he drove models like the Vauxhall Victor, VX4/90, Cresta and Ventora.
The Group acquired Drabble and Allen (Rover and Triumph distributors in Hale) and the associate company Daimler House (Daimler distributors in Manchester) at which time he moved on to the Triumph Vitesse and 2000 which were his preferred steed by the time I was 17 years old and starting to take an interest in cars.
Around this time The Graham Group was pressured by GM to sell Chevrolet and for a short period they did so. We ended up with several unsellable demonstrators which were the size of small aircraft carriers. My father ran around in one for a (very) short while – they were awful! Despite the huge engines the performance, braking and handling were dreadful. The cars were totally unsuited for British roads and taste. Our Chevrolets ended up being used for private hire, driven by attractive lady driver/hostesses, transporting the rich and famous - ‘stars’ such as Adam Faith and once the ‘Beatles’ around the North West.
We were a two-car family and my mother’s first ‘new’ car was a Morris Minor (the reg. number UNE444 sticks with me to this day) bought in 1952. Prior to that she’d had used Austin 7 and Morris 8 or similar whereas later she always ran something a bit ‘interesting’.
A couple of Sunbeam Rapiers, one of which was apparently a former rally car driven by Stirling Moss and John Wallwork (a family friend). This was one of the first cars offered with radial ply tyres – Pirelli Cinturato.
She then had a Rover 90 (very stately). I seem to remember some screw device on the dash that you could undo so that it freewheeled down hills to save fuel.
She had a plethora of other marques including a Simca (awful), a couple of Hillman Minx (not much better).
Back to basics when I was old enough to learn to drive and another Morris Minor was purchased specifically for that purpose – she hated it, but It did its job and I passed my test, albeit on the third attempt. Once I was road legal the Morris Minor was sold to a local solicitor’s clerk and my father took his ‘sit-up-and-beg’ Ford Popular in part exchange - this was presented to me as my own first car.
The Pop was immaculate, low mileage and only around 10 years old, but it did little for my street cred. I was in the sixth form at Grammar School at the time and a couple of the teachers had the exact same model – the shame of it! It didn’t last long.
It was replaced by my Grandfathers Standard 8 which was little better from a street cred point of view. The 8’s originally white, interior roof lining was brown from nicotine and however much I scrubbed it I couldn’t get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke. He died of lung cancer inevitably.
My first holiday job was working as a part time car cleaner at Drabble and Allen’s showroom in Hale, Cheshire. I was a pretty poor cleaner and they always used to get one of the permanent guys to go over the cars after I had supposedly finished – no-one ever complained to me, so I suppose being the boss’s son had its advantages – nepotism rules.
One further advantage was that I got to drive my first ‘supercar’. One of the garage’s clients owned a Gordon Keeble which the garage routinely maintained but it had to be sent to the factory near Southampton for its annual service. Because I was pretty useless at more or less everything else, I got the job of delivering it down there and collecting it a few days later. In those days less than half the route was motorway and it was a hugely powerful car having a 5.4l Chevrolet V8 engine. That I completed the journeys without mishap owes a great deal to luck, but I did learn that I had some talent behind the wheel and gained respect for power and performance.
Working in Hale I met and dated a young lady whose wealthy parents lived on one of the nicest roads in the area. Her mother owned a V12 Jaguar ‘E’ Type and her father an ‘S’ Type. Presumably rolling up to collect their daughter in my Grandfather’s old Standard 8 did not go down too well. I did however get on very well with the girl’s mother and after a couple of dates the routine was that, when picking up their daughter, I would leave the old Standard at their house and they would lend us one or other of the Jaguars. My second opportunity to drive up-market cars and still only 18 years old!
My continual whingeing about the Standard finally paid off and it was replaced by an 850cc Mini Countryman. Not much quicker but with just a little more caché for a young lad. The Mini did yeoman service for a year or so transporting me and my mates and our camping gear to North Wales every summer weekend and quite frankly getting a proper thrashing in the process. This abuse ultimately resulted in the NS front wheel sheering round the wheel-nuts and rolling off under its own steam.
My next holiday job involved collecting and delivering commercial vehicles. I was sent on a course to Scammell Lorries in Basingstoke, along with my cousin, to learn to drive articulated vehicles. After four days I had apparently learned all I needed to know and started delivering new Bedford and Leyland tractor units from Manchester to Watford to have their fifth wheel couplings fitted and then collecting them with two or three new articulated trailers on the back. In those days the trucks, in the main, had crash gearboxes – no synchromesh; so I quickly learned the art of double declutching and eventually could often time my control of the engine revs so that I could change gear without the use of a clutch at all. Back then you did not need a Heavy Goods Licence to drive trucks and, by the time the licence was introduced, I’d had sufficient experience to qualify without having to take an HGV Test – Grandfather Rights. I kept up my Class 1 licence for 20+ years.
After ‘A’ Levels I did an Engineering qualification working at British Aircraft Corporation in Wharton. This was a sandwich course involving working on aircraft during University holidays. The Mini by then was starting to show signs of age and I acquired a Triumph Vitesse 6 which, by comparison, rocketed me to Abersoch for the summer weekends. The car was red, and I persuaded the paint shop manager at the Hale garage to spray a black stripe down the side and I fitted bucket front seats – this was the first car of my own with any sort of performance.
It was around now that the 70MPH speed limit was introduced although enforcement was haphazard in the early years with no fixed speed cameras only radar guns which were not used on Motorways. The only methods of catching speeding motorists on motorways were police cars positioned on bridges and timing them over a measured distance or following them – unmarked police cars didn’t exist back then either; so you were pretty unlucky if you got caught.
By then my father was running a Triumph 2000,
Then a Rover 2000,
Followed by a Triumph 2.5Pi.
All with manual gearboxes and all decent cars – they were comfortable, handled well by the standards of the day, had reasonable acceleration and top speeds of around 120MPH.
My mother had acquired a BMW – one of the first 2002Tii in Manchester. A great car in an awful metallic bronze colour. It was also a rare car and BMW asked if they could use it for a track day to demonstrate to their guests. I was employed for the day to put the car through its paces around Oulton Park Circuit with potential customers as passengers. I was familiar with the track and quite early on mastered the art of lifting the nearside front wheel clear over the grass as we rounded Cascades. On the day I also managed a few laps in a 2800CS which was very impressive but unfortunately was later totalled by one of BMWs own test drivers.
The replacement for Mum’s BMW was a Daimler 250 V8 which she loved. Based on the Mk2 Jaguar this one was dark grey metallic with red leather upholstery and a front bench seat - It was a fabulous car. I would jump through hoops to be able to use either of my parent’s cars during my late teens and early twenties. Permission usually involved a special occasion like a wedding and was mostly only granted if one or other of my parents approved of my current choice of girlfriend. To me, at that age, these were cool motors and I have memories of some epic trips to Newcastle, London and around the Lake District.
After finishing my University qualifications, the job options open to me at BAC were pretty much restricted to working on a drawing board in the design department, alongside many other engineers – a prospect that filled me with dread. I’d had visions of a career jetting around the globe selling military aircraft and armaments. However, out of 750 apprentices working for BAC that year only three were streamed towards sales or marketing - so I decided I would not return on completion of my final year at University.
My father had been appointed as a director of another group company and the position carried with it the use of a further car which, as he had no need of it, became my mode of transport and sadly my Vitesse was sold. The replacement cars were new demonstrators, notionally for my mother to run in carefully, but she was not going to be parted from her Daimler so the job fell to me. The cars were Triumph Heralds and 13/60s and I was issued a brand new one every couple of months. These were plucky little cars with, like my first Vitesse, ridiculous transverse leaf spring rear suspension which tended to tuck under with spirited driving. In hindsight I feel a little sorry for the customers who purchased these ‘carefully run in’ demonstrators.
However, my final car under this arrangement was a Triumph Vitesse 2L Mk2. Compared with my earlier 1600cc model this was different gravy. In addition to having over 20% more horsepower the independent rear suspension had been upgraded to prevent the rear wheel ‘tuck under’ so it handled extraordinarily well, giving it the beating of the hot Mk1 Cortina and sportscars like the Sunbeam Alpine and the MGB. The 4-speed gearbox was supplemented by overdrive on third and forth gears which flicked in from a small switch on the gear knob - very quickly and smoothly. The six-cylinder engine had lots of torque so acceleration from 30 to 90 was rapid making it a great overtaking car. Memorably I left Abersoch at six one Monday morning to get to work in Trafford Park by 0900. I took the back Snowdonia route via Portmadoc, Corwen and Mold a distance of around 125 miles. In the event I had time to go home to Cheadle and shower and still get to work by nine – I even rang my girlfriend, who had stayed in Wales, as soon as I reached home to record the time as I could barely believe it myself. I had averaged over 60MPH and accomplished the journey in a breakneck 2 hours – I rounded the hairpin bend at the end of the Trawsfynydd reservoir at a speed of almost 70MPH a feat I have never had the courage or stupidity to repeat.
After my final year at University, I had my first ‘real’ job and the use of my own company car – after the Vitesse these were all mundane family runabouts. I became a car salesman at Grahams of Sale, then a Vauxhall franchise. However, as a junior salesman I was not allocated a new demonstrator and ran round in whatever used car was taxed and available, I thus had a different car every few days - always saloons and mainly Vauxhalls like the Viva HA or HB and the odd Victor, Ford Cortina or similar.
I did however drive three ‘interesting’ cars during this period. The first was a 3.8 Mk2 Jaguar which I was selling on behalf of a friend’s father. This was a super car in metallic gold with red leather upholstery and acres of woodwork. It was very like my mother’s Daimler but felt beefier and less agile - you could see 140mph on the speedo, although they were wildly optimistic in those days.
Then, the elder sister of another friend was marrying a wealthy guy who was unfortunately not wealthy enough to pay for the wedding, a new house and wife and still retain his 1967 ‘E’ Type Jaguar convertible, which I of course volunteered to sell for him. If you could spec out an ‘E’ Type this would be the car you would want – 3.8L, straight-6, OHC engine, fared in headlights, British Racing Green with tan Connolly leather upholstery and chrome wire wheels.
My girlfriend of the day had a brother in the Army and there was a record, held at the time by Prince Michael of Kent, for the fastest time from Marble Arch to Sandhurst. I think the time was around 40 minutes and this was before the M3 was built – all I can say with certainty is that I beat his time by over 5 minutes in the ‘E’ Type – leaving Marble Arch at 2am with a very terrified girlfriend in the passenger seat. I managed to put a few thousand miles on this lovely car, seeing my fastest speedo reading so far of 170mph on the M1 – even beating the Gordon Keeble.
I eventually sold the E Type and, during the deal, somehow ended up with a Lotus 7 which I briefly ran around in. The Lotus was fantastic fun with the roof down on a sunny day but had a propensity to spin round its gearstick under the slightest acceleration on a wet road. The useless convertible top singularly failed to keep out water and made it almost impossible to get in or out of with any dignity unless you were under 5 foot tall and weighed no more than 8 stone – not a description of me even then.
The managing Director of Grahams of Sale took a dim view of my preference for dealing in performance cars and I was given the job of selling to their ‘Welcome Wagon’ leads. This involved calling on all the people in the area that had just moved into a new house and offering the services of the garage. An American idea, judged to be very trendy at the time, that failed to take in to account that most people who have just purchased a new house have extraordinarily little cash left to buy a new car. I figured it was time to move on.
I had taken up skiing and encouraged most of my friends to do the same. A couple of weeks alpine holiday each year was never enough so we used to regularly drive up to Aviemore for long weekends when reasonable snow conditions were forecast. This was a journey of over 350 miles and the M6 then ended just north of Carlisle where it turned into the A74 and then the A9 – roads which only the Scots could describe as an ‘A’ road. So, of course, setting the fastest journey time became a fiercely fought competition. Groups of a dozen or so of us would travel up there in three or four assorted cars and would share the driving stopping only to change over when we refuelled. Six to seven hours was a quick time but in my pal Andy’s Lotus Elan +2 we comfortably set the fastest time of 5 hours 48 minutes which we could have beaten if the pop-up headlights had not decided to periodically pop-down of their own accord on the last, and particularly bendy, few miles of the journey. This was a hollow victory as, on the return journey, the temperature sensor blew out of the radiator evacuating the coolant and the engine seized. Also, on a subsequent trip shortly thereafter 4 mates in a Rover P6 3.5L V8 managed the journey in under 5 ½ hours.
My sales career continued with a job for Wigan based Central Wagon Group’s ‘Pitt Trailers’ division selling articulated trailers. Nonsensically, as I lived in Cheshire, my designated area was Yorkshire – all three Ridings. As an on the road representative, I had a minimum of an hours drive each day to even get to Yorkshire – expenses were not allowed for overnights. To undertake this 7-800 mile a week task I was initially given a Ford Corsair. This had a 2L V4 engine and should have been quite a decent car but the one I was given, albeit as a temporary measure, had been the factory runabout and was well past its glory days. It had plenty of miles on the clock and the red paintwork was faded to a dull orange, the nasty plastic upholstery had splits all over and the engine overheated continually. I cannot think of a single nice thing to say about this car and as a model for Ford it was short lived - I can see why.
However, when my ‘new’ company vehicle arrived it was a Ford Escort Mk1 with a 1.1L engine in metallic green with black upholstery. This was a massive disappointment as it had all the performance of an arthritic tortoise. Having to cross the Pennines almost daily, prior to the completion of the M62, my chosen routes were via the Winnats Pass if going to South Yorkshire or via Woodhead and the A6024 if heading further North. Anyone familiar with these roads will realise that, in days of much lighter traffic, there was fun to be had. I became particularly adept at using the downhill side of the Pennines to enhance the Escorts miserable performance wearing out my first set of cross ply tyres in under 5,000 miles and once spinning off into a ditch – fortunately with little damage; both of which earned me something of a reprimand!
Working on the road and only visiting the factory on rare occasions I had no idea how well I was doing other than from the admonishments of my sales manager. This being my first travelling sales job and, being the youngest and least experienced I was understandably the worst paid representative - I was always convinced I was underachieving. For sales territories, the country was divided up into 12 areas plus fleet sales, each with an area representative and a North and South regional Manager. I met the whole team for the first time at a sales conference just prior to the Commercial Vehicle Show in Earls Court. This turned into a jolly affair - copious quantities of alcohol being consumed and the inevitable comparison of our sales figures ensuing. It transpired that my sales figures were the highest by a country mile and even beat the fleet sales manager in all but one month when he had taken a large order from a shipping line. To say I was angry would be an understatement – not only were the rest of the sales force on a much higher basic salary they all had better company cars than I’d been given. After a bitter confrontation with my Sales Director and Sales Manager my salary was ‘adjusted’, and I was promised a new car as soon as it was possible to re-jig the fleet.
Unfortunately, this all came too late as my father, who had started an articulated trailer rental business, lost his operations manager to a competitor. I was offered the job which took me back into the Graham Brothers fold. At least now I could have some say over the type of company car I had although it was initially stipulated that it had to be a saloon. My first selection, which might seem a strange choice, was a Morris 1800S. This was front wheel drive and massive inside and, as I had become a keen water skier by then, I used it at weekends to tow my speedboat to Wales or The Lake District with 5 on board. Sadly, the car decided to burst into flames – ironically right outside Southern Cemetery where it died - a complete write off.
I was then encouraged to choose from makes that the Group sold so I replaced the Morris with a Vauxhall Magnum. This had a powerful 2.3L OHC twin carb engine and it had great performance and handling to the extent that I could easily ‘see off’ a couple of my pals who had Fords - a Mk2 Cortina GT and a 1600e. On the downside the Magnum had an awful, sloppy gear change but otherwise it was a great car. I travelled the length of Germany for my fiancé’s brother’s wedding in competition with red-blooded locals driving such cars as the 3L Granada fastback, a 2.8L fuel injected Opel and a BMW 2002. The Magnum gave a great account of itself as we were the first to arrive at the church after a 300km dash with my parents-in-law-to-be being rattled around in the back. Whilst they were unimpressed with this achievement it stood me in fine stead with my brothers-in-law to be.
In 1973 the Vauxhall was replaced with one of the first Triumph Dolomite Sprints to be allocated to our Distributorship. This was a quick car with a much better gear linkage than the Vauxhall and a much better interior trim with luxurious velour seats and a walnut dashboard and door trims. All the first cars came in a bright canary yellow with a black vinyl roof and it was the first production car to come with alloy wheels as standard. Its major failing was the rather short wheelbase – whilst it handled and cornered very well, once you pushed it too far you had to be extremely fast and accurate with opposite lock to avoid ending up facing the way you had come. It had a top speed approaching 120MPH and a 0-60 time of under 8 seconds – impressive for a reasonably roomy and comfortable saloon. There were reported issues of head gasket failure and over-heating problems but mine was impeccable.
Next came a lovely MGB GT in dove grey with chrome wire wheels. With only a 1.8L engine this did not have the performance of the Magnum or Sprint and it had heavy steering despite the large steering wheel – nevertheless it was eye-catching and still the best looking of the MGBs being one of the last to be fitted with the chrome bumpers. This was unquestionably a ‘babe magnet’ but as my constant companion, a large and hairy sheepdog/spaniel cross, always insisted on travelling in the front passenger seat, it left only the very cramped rear seats for my soon to be wife.
The impractical MGB GT was replaced with another Dolomite Sprint. By now they were made in other colours and this one was in a sort of French Blue – otherwise it was the same spec as the first one. The main difference was that this one did blow its head gaskets which proved a major inconvenience when driving home up the M6, in the early hours of the morning, from a New Year’s Eve party. I had the head gasket repaired under warranty and sold the Sprint to a racing driver friend George ‘Welly’ Potter – now deceased. The problem unsurprisingly repeated itself with George as jockey – he was possibly the scariest driver I have come across and the Dolomite would certainly have been driven with gusto.
My career running the articulated trailer rental subsidiary blossomed – we purchased several competitors as well as expanding organically and I was made a Director in my mid-twenties. The company went on to own the largest rental fleet in the country taking over 5 of its competitors and building up the fleet to over 2,700 articulated trailers operating from five depots. During this period, I used to use any excuse to drive our delivery vehicles – tractor units variously a Bedford TK, Dodge, Leyland Mastiff and the best a DAF 2100. It was good to get out of the office and practice my heavy goods skills now and again.
Triumph launched the TR7 in September 1974 and I was invited to Longleat for a day test driving this and the Jaguar XJS which had been launched earlier that same year. The Jaguar was way out of my pay grade and the TR7 very disappointing. I’d ridden in and driven a friends TR6 quite extensively which was a real meaty’ man’s car by comparison and I loved it. The TR7 was a lightweight, handled badly and looked like it was designed for an effeminate hairdresser. However, the Lancia Beta HPE had also just been announced - what they called a fast-back shooting brake, which looked fabulous. On my way back from Longleat I took a detour via a Lancia dealer in Staffordshire and had a test drive. It was quite different - quick with flat ride and good cornering but a lot of front wheel drive throttle steering and a very imprecise gear change. Nevertheless, I loved it and ordered one – I had never seen one on the road in the UK and that scarcity appealed to me. The Lancia was fun, but the build quality was awful and it certainly wasn’t designed for salty roads or the high annual mileages I was doing in those days.
My next vehicle was one of the very first Rover SD1 3.5L V8s in the North. This was a sort of sicky yellow colour with shit brown upholstery to which we added a brown leatherette roof – a fashionable accessory at that time. This was a cracking car and when it was launched was very sought after despite the build quality being inferior to the older P6 model. It was very desirable and at the time inflation was rife so I was able to sell it at a profit after just over a year and I replaced it with a metallic silver one, again with a leatherette roof and this time with alloy wheels – a not so common extra back then. The first Rover had been trouble-free – not so its replacement. Full of pride I set off in my new car with my fiancé to visit her relatives in Germany. Just short of Aachen it developed fuel starvation problems. There were no convenient Rover dealers in Germany and a local garage managed a bodged fix to get me to my destination in Monchengladbach. The car spent most of its time, for the three weeks we were there, in a garage waiting for a replacement fuel pump which arrived just in time for our return journey. On the way back around 50 miles from the Hovercraft it broke down again and this time I paid a local farmer and extraordinary amount of money to tow me to Calais. He set off at a gallop with his small Renault fixed by a rigid tow bar to the heavy Rover. With no servo the Rover had no brakes so every time he braked the back end of the Renault was pushed wildly to one side or the other. We were relieved to arrive at the Hoverport only to find that, as the car would not run, they wouldn’t allow it on the Hovercraft, so it was ignominiously pushed onto the ferry. I had arranged for the AA to meet us at the ferry terminal in Dover where the car was put onto a trailer and we sat in the back of the tow truck for the duration of their Relay Service. Each tow truck had a limited range, and we were taken to one depot then transferred to another truck and taken to the next depot. It took four tow trucks and sixteen hours to get from Dover to Manchester – we were exhausted and very irate. The car was fixed at our Daimler garage in Manchester and never gave me any trouble again. However, Rover were not prepared to reimburse me for the considerable expense and inconvenience I had incurred on my German trip. Unfortunately for Rover it was the time of the Motor Show where the SD1 was their flagship model. Complaining in a very loud voice and refusing to leave their stand until it was sorted resulted in a generous settlement. After that the car was fine but it left me with a hankering to try something a bit more exotic.
In 1979 I acquired an ex-demonstrator BMW 730 in metallic gold with sunroof, alloy wheels and all the bells and whistles. Although on paper it was about the same power as the Rover it somehow felt massively more reassuring at speed and was a real pleasure to drive. As a result of this model and driving my 3 brothers-in-law cars on Germany’s unrestricted Autobahns I became hooked on German cars – they seemed just so much better designed for high-speed motoring. I kept the 730 for longer than any previous car and at 3 years old with 68,000+ miles on the clock I started to notice excessive steam from the exhaust. Williams, the BMW main dealer, diagnosed that it needed a new cylinder head and as the car was out of warranty it would cost me £1,700. I complained that “although well out of warranty I hadn’t expected such a failure on a car of this stature”. In the event they submitted a concessionary claim and BMW coughed up the whole amount.
In 1983 I swapped this for a BMW 528i in metallic silver with sunroof and alloys mainly because I fancied something a bit sportier with better handling than the 730. The 528 was noticeably quicker and more agile than the 730 and a positive joy to drive on windy roads yet still a good motorway cruiser. It was roomy enough for four passengers albeit without massive rear seat legroom and the ride was good - flat and firm. This turned out to be my last company car courtesy of the Graham Group as they sold the trailer rental subsidiary that I ran in 1984.
I had gotten married in 1972 and carried on my father’s tradition of always providing the wife with an ‘interesting’ car for us to enjoy at weekends. Over this period, she had an MGB GT – now with the plastic bumpers. They had improved the steering a little but otherwise it was broadly similar to our previous MG. Its burned orange paintwork and brown leatherette roof were disgusting, but my wife loved it. We had by now two children – one still in a carrycot which she was able to put conveniently in the back and strap the toddler in the passenger seat, so it worked fine. Not something you would be permitted to do these days.
This MG was followed by a Porsche 924 which, by comparison was a great car. It was as easy to drive as any small saloon car, but you could chuck it around with abandon as the handling was completely predictable. This one was brown, and the garage had monogrammed it with ‘The Temptress’ which appealed to my wife. Although very much the lower end of the Porsche range this was a well-built, vice free, fun car which further enhanced my respect for German engineering.
Next came a Lancia Beta Coupe – chalk and cheese. Driven hard and with 100% concentration it was quick and fun but hard work compared with the Porsche and awful build quality. These were the first Lancia models built after Fiat took over the company and they were very definitely engineered down to Fiat standards. As the Lancia was a 2 door, 2-seater with no room for two small boys it didn’t last long.
I took a rare Renault 11 Turbo in part exchange which she ran for a while as it was more practical. This was a rare car in the UK with a 1400cc, 4-cylinder turbocharged engine and front wheel drive. It was quick but the turbocharger would ‘cut in’ brutally, often happening suddenly as you accelerated out of a bend with all sorts of dramatic consequences. Not something that troubled my wife, but it did get me into trouble on icy roads on a couple of occasions.
A few more sedate family hatchbacks followed, initially a Ford escort Ghia. This was stolen from outside our house. Police reported it found in Wythenshawe and told me to collect it. By the time I got there it had been stolen again and this time written off – hitting a Doctor’s Volvo head on – no contest.
We replaced the Escort with a Rover 216 – a practical, comfortable and well-equipped car but totally uninspiring - ideal for the school run and transporting the dog.
By 1984 the Graham Group was planning to go public and, because the trailer rental company was not a good fit with the retail garage businesses, it was decided to sell it off. It was bought by the Tiphook Group and I went with it.
My new company car, written into the deal, was a Porsche 928 S4. This was a genuinely great, but under-rated, car. The massive V8 engine had bucket loads of torque and once off the mark the acceleration was electrifying. On one occasion I had set the cruise control at 70MPH and flicked it on just I was leaving a 40MPH zone – it caused wheelspin, a feat I could never repeat manually, although I tried.
One of my clients of the day had a new 911 Turbo which on paper had the beating of the automatic 928 and with a lot of hard work it did – from a standing start. Once on the move though the 928 had the beating of the 911 unless you were a very experienced driver and used all the revs. We swapped cars for a couple of weeks and, given the leg ache because of the 911s heavy and awkward clutch and the unforgiving nature of the handling, I was glad to get back into my 928.
I repeated the car exchange with my new boss for his new Ferrari 308GTS. I was based in our Bromley office for a week and we swapped as he was keen to try the Porsche for a trip he was going on, and of course you are never going to give up the opportunity to drive a Ferrari. Yes, it was beautiful and certainly more so than the ugly duckling 928, but from a driver’s point of view the Ferrari had many shortcomings. Another heavy clutch, a notchy gear shift through a strange aluminium gate, a choppy ride - it was almost impossible to drive smoothly in the London traffic. I was however rewarded with a couple of long-distance trips to Cornwall and Newcastle whereby I avoided motorways in favour of routes using A and B roads where the Ferrari came into its own. But again, on balance, I was glad to get the Porsche back.
There was an impressively filled garage in the basement of our head office and, as my own car was normally left up North, I had the run of the other director’s cars when I needed to travel locally. The choice was from a Porsche 944, BMW 6 series or 5 series and a Jaguar XJ12 all of which I used on a regular basis.
To get to Bromley I would normally fly to Gatwick a couple of times a week and was collected by the company’s chauffer in our Rolls Royce. William, the chauffer, was a 6-feet 4-inch ex-military man, fully liveried up - very impressive and the Rolls was always spotless and never driven by anyone but him. Still, it was nice to be picked up at the airport and travel to the office in style.
To say that my new employer and I never saw eye-to-eye would be an understatement and it was inevitable that I would leave. I could tell I had pushed them too far when William arrived at Gatwick to collect me in the Metro which was normally used to deliver the post. However, apart from access to some very nice cars and the company helicopter I left with no regrets. I did hang on to my salary and the Porsche 928 for a few months whilst they negotiated their way out of my contract passing an extremely hot and pleasant summer mainly on the golf course.
Once it became known I was leaving one of my customers offered me a management consultancy contract for a year. I could not become re-employed immediately as it would have affected my ‘Golden Handshake’, which was still under negotiation, so I set up a company to charge the consultancy fee and did not draw any salary to get round the situation. I was then faced with buying my own car and chose a BMW 323i. Great car and first manual transmission I’d had in quite a while. They are simply good and do exactly what is expected of them.
This was also my last opportunity to use my HGV licence. I had purchased and set up a new depot for the company some 30 miles from their existing container storage yard. One weekend we had to move over 200 ISO shipping containers from the old to the new yard and It was all hands to the pump. As it was my project, I picked what was the best tractor unit available – a new DAF 3600 6 wheeler. With an empty 40-foot container this was capable of almost 90 MPH so I had a whale of a time ferrying the containers between depots. Sadly, regulations had changed with the introduction of tachographs, driver’s hours etc; so I decided it was time to hang up my HGV boots and never again renewed my licence.
I enjoyed my Management Consultancy work but during that time I had set up an investment fund with a group of well-heeled friends. We purchased or set up several small companies including a wet suit manufacturer, a media sales company, a car finance company and, of most interest to me, a TV Production company. Once my consultancy was concluded I decided I would spend time building up the TV company – a second career that lasted 36 years until I retired.
For a while I kept the BMW323i but as the TV Production company grew it became impractical for carrying camera equipment and I swapped it for an Austin Mondeo Estate. It was a 2L version so the performance wasn’t too bad but it definitely had the feel of an old man’s car. I ran it for a couple of years before one of my fellow directors T-boned a car which had pulled blindly out in front of him across the A1 – the other driver, an old man, was killed in the accident. Although the Mondeo wasn’t written off I didn’t fancy it after such a crash and, in any case, it too was now proving too small. We swapped it for our first people carrier – a Renault Espace.
The flexibilty of these vehicle was perfect for the job – you could seat up to 7 or remove any combination of the seats to make it into a production vehicle or a van. I loved the driving position – high up with a great view of the road. They would cruise all day in the 80s and were very comfortanble. It was at this time that we won contracts to make programs for the British Association of Snowsports Instructors, the Ski Club of GB and a couple of the major ski holiday companies - work which continued for the next 20+ years. Each year we would travel to various European ski resorts in the people carriers with a crew of 4 or 5 on board plus a full camera kit and a complement of skis and snowboards. The heavily laden vehicles coped brilliantly and with snow chains dealt with most circumstances admirably.
We ended up running several of Espaces in parallel, all bought new. They all developed exactly the same faults at the same mileage 54,000 – a misfire, rough running and clutch failure. The misfire was something the Renault dealer was never able to completely solve and for that reason we moved on from Espaces to the Toyota Previa.
We tried only one of these which, from the off, proved disappointing. The seat configurations were nothing like as flexible as the Espaces and it was way thirstier. It had an engine oil reservoir which, being faulty, continually pumped oil into the engine overfilling it causing huge clouds of blue smoke to billow out behind. Once repaired it ran OK but it was not long before one of our camera assistants wrote it off in a head on collision on the A6. We did not replace it with another having been unimpressed.
Instead, we bought a VW Transporter which we kitted out with and extra row of seats and shelving for the camera kit. This had a 2.6L diesel engine and was superb. I think VW pretty much stole the small van market from Ford at this time with this model and subsequent models went on to be better and better. I never had any qualms about driving it and covered many thousands of miles the length and breadth of the UK. Whereas the people carriers had always been overloaded the Transporter was operating well within its design weight capabilities and had performance on a par with most family saloons.
By then our workforce had grown and the van was transferred to or staff camera crew. My fellow director and I purchased a couple of used cars to share between us. We bought a BMW530 which had 80,000 miles on the clock and a Jaguar XJS 3.6L with 50,000 on the clock.
The BMW proved excellent and we ran it for another 70,000 miles entirely trouble free. We found an independent BMW specialist who maintained it which never cost more that £250 per year including its MOT. It was a delight to drive – very gutsy with great handling and a precise manual 5 speed gearbox.
The Jaguar on the other hand was a complete nightmare and I think this model and engine were probably the worst combination Jaguar ever made. It had constant cylinder head gasket problems causing overheating, and even taking it to our own garage, where I still got preferential rates, it was expensive to maintain. It was awful to drive with poor visibility, wallowy suspension and only mediocre performance. Needless to say, it did not last long and was exchanged for a VW Golf GTi.
The Golf was great – like driving a go-kart compared with the Jaguar with good performance, handling and a degree of practicality. Even when my partner failed to check the oil levels and it overheated, we simply topped up the oil and it carried on undaunted until my partner left the company.
By now we were doing reasonably well. We were on our second VW Transporter and could afford to buy new cars, so I swapped the BMW for a Mercedes Benz C200. Whilst it was on order, I tore the ligaments in my left knee in a skiing accident and had to wear a lightweight cast for 10 weeks. Being unable to drive I used my 18-year-old son as a chauffer and he pretty much took possession of the new Merc for that period. He was extremely disappointed to have to revert to his Vauxhall Nova once my cast was removed. This was the first car we had taken on Contract Hire and thereafter I became a fan of this method of acquiring our vehicles as it saves all the grief attached to selling them and according to our accountant is easily the cheapest way to run new vehicles. The C200 was great – not a particular performer but perfect for motorway cruising and crowded roads. However, our work pattern changed and now involved touring Europe quite a lot, so the van and Mercedes had to go to be replaced by a series of new people carriers.
This time we tried the Ford Galaxy. These were highly successful, and I ran four in succession. The first two were Mk2, 2.3L petrol with manual transmission. Like the Renault Espaces the 5 middle and rear seats were all reconfigurable and removable individually making the vehicles very flexible. The downside was that you had to store them when not in use and they were quite heavy and bulky.
Up to this point the Ford Galaxy, Seat Alhambra and VW Sharan were all made on the same assembly line and re-badged. Ford pulled out of this arrangement and produced their Mk3 which were the third (in silver) and fourth (in black) of the four Galaxies we owned, both 1.9L diesels with automatic transmission. The performance was still acceptable, in fact remarkably similar to the larger engine petrol models. They had now made the rear and centre seat rows so that they folded down into the floor. There was slightly less interior volume compared with the previous model, but the sacrifice was worth it as we no longer had to manhandle and store the seats. With the seats removed the floor was made flat using a number of flappy carpeted panels which were a bit flimsy considering we were often loading heavy flight cases full of camera kit.
All of these cars proved more than capable and reliable and made light work of our regular alpine trips, number 3 departing for a 12-week tour of Austrian and French ski resorts on the day it was delivered. It was a bit of an unlucky car as TV presenter and motoring correspondent Ginny Buckley reversed it into a snow plough at high speed. The snow plough was unmarked and fortunately the Galaxy still fully functional, although with a severely dented rear tailgate.
Going home we left Alpes d’Huez at 06.00pm and rolled back into Manchester by 0800am the following morning just 14 hours later, including a drop off in Central London. We only stopped to refuel and change drivers and for the Eurotunnel which we boarded with no delay.
VWs answer to the new Galaxy was an all-new Sharan one of which we acquired in 2010. This had some advantages over the Ford, most notably the sliding rear doors meaning you could hold the open and film out of the side of the vehicle, so I chose one of these as our final people carrier. In most ways there were detail improvements over the previous ones – better seat layout, improved handling, an exceptionally smooth automatic box and excellent fuel consumption. With almost 170 BHP it was also nippy and cruised down the autobahns at over 160kph when fully loaded. We had only one problem when in Zermatt – the Sharan was left in the charge of a parking company as Zermatt is car free. It was supposed to be kept in an underground car park but when we went to collect it the company had left it outside and the deadlock handbrake was solidly frozen on. Running the engine for half an hour or so enabled us to release it and some judicious use of the brakes for the first few miles returned them to full operating performance.
I had by now run people carriers for 16 years and given they were workhorses the experience had been overall very positive – current models are superb to drive and very practical. Throughout that time, I had also had the advantage of our second family car for a bit of variety.
My wife’s cars during this period were initially a BMW 2.3L Z3. This is a great little sports car. It corners on rails and when it eventually does let go it is predictable and easy to get back on track, the 2.3 had good performance matching or bettering the Mercedes SLK and the Mazda for acceleration and top speed and to my mind was the best looking of them all. I had forgotten just how often it’s possible to have the roof down even in the UKs dodgy climate.
However, work pressed and we periodically needed another large vehicle so the Z3 was replaced by a Mercedes E270 CDi Estate. What a nice car. It drove and felt like a saloon yet swallowed up masses of equipment and luggage. Sadly, it was not quite big enough for our continental trips but I had the pleasure of driving it the length and breadth of the UK including a memorable trip to Brandon Bay in the far South West of Ireland.
Next came the best value contract hire vehicle I have ever had. We acquired a Honda Accord, equipped with every single extra from leather upholstery to electric sunroof and alloy wheels, for the princely sum of £114 per month and that included tyres and maintenance. Total lease charges of under £3,000 for the two years we had it on a car that retailed at well over £30,000. I acquired this solely based on price, but it proved to be a very good car indeed. It had a 2.4L ‘V’ Tec engine that was good for 187BHP in a relatively light car it was no slouch.
Next came probably my wife’s favourite car ever. We replaced the Jaguar with a Mercedes Benz CLK220 convertible. Another great car. No dragster but with more than adequate performance and good handling. Even with the hood down it had a practical boot and was a joy to drive socially – and the electric hood was first rate - 11 seconds up or down and almost wind-noise free.
When it became time to replace the Merc we did so with a Jaguar XF 2.7L Diesel. Having for so long avoided British made saloon cars in favour of their German counterparts the XF was a very agreeable surprise. It performed and handled very well, the interior was luxurious and roomy and it looked good. In every department it was the equal or better than the equivalent Mercedes saloons – particularly in respect of build quality. Well done Jaguar.
Then my broker came up with a great deal on another CLK, this time a Coupe. They are simply good cars. A sportier feel than the Jaguar and a little bit more refined than the convertible version – you really cannot go wrong.
Sadly, my wife developed panic attacks which are particularly prevalent whilst driving. Despite trying all sorts of remedies we were unable to prevent them, so she confined her journeys to local roads with which she was familiar and where the attacks did not happen. This coincided with my semi-retirement whereby I had closed the offices and studios and was working part time from home. The tiny mileage my wife was now doing meant it was an unnecessary extravagance to operate 2 cars and we now manage with just one – well almost!
Amid all the ‘necessary’ cars I bought something for fun. It was an object lesson – do not ever buy a car when you are drunk! We were socialising in a pub in Didsbury with an artist’s agent we used. It turned out he was having a financially tough time and he had an ‘old’ car that he wanted to turn into cash. Our friend could not drive so it came as a bit of a revelation, but it transpired that his former ‘boyfriend’ had been the driver and since they had split up a couple of years ago the car had languished in a local carpark. The car was a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and the more we drank the more it seemed like a good idea to buy it from him. We went to examine it and, as it had been parked under trees, it had acquired a complete fur coat of leaf mould. Nonetheless, we struck a deal, and I became the proud owner of my very first (and so far only) Roller.
The car cleaned up brilliantly and the bodywork was entirely rust free, even round the wheel arches – a known rust problem on this model. The metallic gold paintwork and brown leatherette roof would not have been my choice of colour scheme, but you couldn’t argue that it attracted attention.
Mechanically however it was a different story. The engine was fine – if you call a 7-litre block of iron that does about 10 MPG fine; let’s say mechanically it worked well. The same could not be said of the brakes. For the first few miles the brakes barely worked without serious pumping. A friendly mechanic said that if I left the car with him to fix the brakes, he would look at the problem in his spare time. Weeks turned into months with no resolution. Finally, I got the car back with the comment – “I’ve done the best I can do but I think it needs a new master cylinder and for the parts alone it could be two or three thousand pounds”.
The brakes did work well enough that I felt confident to drive the car to Brighton albeit gingerly. We got there in one piece although the Rolls consumed 125 litres of petrol in the process. To add insult to injury I let a friend drive it round the Marina and he damaged the exhaust system on a speed bump. The local branch of Kwikfit agreed to reweld it for free if we would leave the car on their forecourt for a few days – a great solution as parking in Brighton is awful. The return trip was uneventful but equally expensive on fuel and when some days later the brakes failed to release properly and almost set alight, I decided the auction was the answer.
Interestingly the Roll’s registration number was ONE499P and I learned that it had originally been registered to a local businessman who owned a chain of Pound Shops.
So, working only part time but having the odd requirement to transport camera equipment and more regularly dogs and paraphernalia to a holiday home in Abersoch, I reverted to an old favourite, the Mercedes Benz E220 Estate. I was concerned that the 220 engines would be powerful enough for such a large car but, in the intervening years since the last one, diesel engine technology had moved on and it had oodles of power. Add to that a great satnav system, glass full length sunroof, good steering lock and comfortable all leather interior these cars are perfect for today’s roads and my driving pattern. So much so that I tried to extend the lease at the end of the initial term. Mercedes in their wisdom wanted more to extend the lease a) than I was already paying and b) than they would replace it with a pre-registered new one, so I took the logical route and ordered a new one. Unfortunately, on its way to be PD checked my new car was involved in an accident and Mercedes refused to supply it but offered an unregistered replacement but at substantially more cost. Fortunately, my broker came up with a really good deal on a new pre-registered BMW520 Touring to a similar specification that was immediately available. I was interested in the comparison, so I went for that, without ever trying it first.
In the end both cars turn out to be remarkably similar. Perhaps the Merc has a slight edge on performance and a better steering lock, but the build quality of the BMW is better and it feels if anything more solid on the road. Both cars have supreme automatic gearboxes and you are rarely aware of a gear change and even in sport mode the flappy paddle option is rarely worth the effort. My one criticism of the BMW it the white leather upholstery – completely unsuitable if you have three beagles to transport, they treat the retaining net as a small obstacle to be easily overcome.
This is where I sit today, well almost. Boredom and a love of cars has inspired me to take on a project – a Lotus M100 S2 Turbo.
This is, if not the last very close to, the last M100 ever registered in the UK - January 1996. It is one of a Special Edition of only 800 that were built by Bugatti when they first purchased Lotus. It has the number 774 on the dashboard. There were under 4,000 of this model made in total