Project Dollywobbler's Invacar - Ongoing

[UltraWomble]

 

Only in reverse - you may laugh but we did the same thing with two Morris 10-4's one off a trailer and one off an LDV flatbed - we used scaffold planks though and the cars weigh fook all.

[jonathan_dyane]

If it's entertainment you're looking for together with the odd near death experience I would *recommend using aluminium ladders as ramps with planks of wood over the rungs. Effective and second only to compressing a coil spring in a vice to use chains to hold it compressed in lieu of spring compressors in the danger stakes.

[paulplom]

Could you not shove them out the back Italian job style on to your mattress? Put the mattress back before your lass find out, obviously.

[beko1987]

Could you not shove them out the back Italian job style on to your mattress? Put the mattress back before your lass find out, obviously.

Dunno, knowing Mrs wobbler she may think it's a good idea...

[purplebargeken]

Late to the party as always but I was going to suggest a blue Citroen AX.

 

Fortunately this is way better. Much madder but way better.

[wuvvum]

I don't have any keys. Working on that.

Did these not all use the same key, or did I dream that?

[Skut]

I do like the reverse rake rear screens on these. They do austerity and wackiness far better than reliants.

[dollywobbler]

Did these not all use the same key, or did I dream that?

 

Sort of. It seems they did change to a different type later in life. Both mine are early 12" wheel cars though. I've ordered a new key on Ebay. Let's see if it fits...

[dollywobbler]

They've landed. More later! Need to return a truck first.

[clayts450]

Did you brake very very very hard at the top of a hill and let them tumble out ?

[Sloth in a bowl]

I think we have a solution for tomorrow. All will be revealed! Tomorrow.

 

 

I am hoping that this plan involved lots of fireworks and a bouncy castle

[John F]

Did you use "Wingardium Leviosa"?

[Bobthebeard]

They've landed. More later! Need to return a truck first.

Is the other one still in the truck, or is that it upside down in the shrubbery?

[dollywobbler]

Apologies folks. Major delays while I took the truck back. Neatly taking a slice off the neighbour's gutter as I did so... It really was bloody tight.

 

Full report to come later. I've got a video to edit...

[sierraman]

Can you use these on the road?

 

I remember years back when they all got rounded up by the government to be scrapped. How did these escape into captivity?

[Mally]

Rustlers.

[dollywobbler]

These were meant to be scrapped, but somehow never were. They were stored temporarily in a field. For 14 years.

 

I've just finished producing the Collection Caper video, but it'll take most of the night to upload. 

 

In the meantime, have a photo that Mrs DW took earlier (on her crappy mobile).

[richardmorris]

Horrible, awful, terrible. Well done.

[jonathan_dyane]

For some reason Mrs Wobblers photo puts me in mind of those little cars the Shriners drive...

[richardmorris]

I’ve just noticed the rainbow. Treasure comes in plastic boxes now rather than pots of gold!

[Guest Hooli]

Truly a scene showing the utter desolation & lack of hope that is Wales

[Hertz]

Fantastic! I'm looking forward to the video, I have been catching up with Hubnut's back catalogue most evenings.

[Christine]

I can see a pallet , so the pallet was slid under the car , and the farmer used a Tele handler to lift them out..?

 

The local mobility scooter place owner  told me once , his father had a government contract to destroy them too. There was a large hole somewhere and they bulldozered them in and buried them all.       

 

 

The farmer with the 3 wheeler Morgan I helped the other day sank a knackered Austin 7 in his pond to get rid of it ..    Anyone into scuba diving ??

 

There's an unexploded  German ww2 bomb in the field behind my shed .. (it is recorded .. )

Anyone got a digger ?        

[dollywobbler]

You're pretty close...

[richardmorris]

Maggoty plastic on the captions!

[oldcars]

Brilliant, love it. 

[Christine]

Brilliant ! What railway is that?

[junkyarddog]

I think the spares one would look good customised with the roof chopped off.

 

Just leaving the windscreen intact,or maybe fitting aero screens,

a kind of Morgan three wheeler but in reverse.

[Datsuncog]

On 11/23/2017 at 5:16 PM, sierraman said:

Can you use these on the road?

I remember years back when they all got rounded up by the government to be scrapped. How did these escape into captivity?

I understood the death knell was the European SVA regulations for motorbikes in the early 2000s, which basically meant that the government's remaining warehouse stock of new and refurbished ACs/Invacars (held over since production stopped in the late '70s) could no longer be given out as replacements to the few remaining users who wouldn't give up their cars voluntarily, as they would now fall foul of the new safety regulations.

This led the government to take the decision to recall the last 200 or so Invacars left on the road, and draw a line under the whole scheme. Having stopped building and issuing them to new users in 1977 (I think the last ones were on an S-plate - and later scheme users instead received a two-door Cortina 1.3 with necessary adaptations) there was an effort to recall the Invacars in the early '80s, which didn't go down too well. 

But a combination of increasing maintenance and repair costs, bad publicity caused by serious accidents at low speeds, dwindling user numbers and the increasing attractiveness of Motability leasing (paid out of the Higher Mobility Component of DLA, and administered out of the DWP budget rather than the NHS), meant that the whole scheme would likely have come to a halt before long anyway, even without the SVA regs coming in.

I also understand that few were ever privately owned by their users - they remained the property of the issuing NHS Trust, and were inventoried as mobility aids on loan to patients. While some users loved them and were heartbroken to give them up, others in the disability community felt they were stigmatizing and humiliating (see the nicknames mentioned upthread that still remain emotive), not to mention potential deathtraps to some of the most vulnerable road users, in even low-speed shunts.

Most NHS Trusts subcontracted a local recycling business to take on the job of physically collecting and disposing of the remaining vehicles in their Trust area (generally no more than a couple of dozen), but scrap metal values were on their arse in 2003 when the withdrawal took place. With minimal recyclable content anyway, most contractors found that it would cost much more to dispose of the vehicles properly than they'd been paid. Hence many ended up burned; cut up with an angle grinder and put into landfill; crushed with a JCB bucket and bulldozed into a hole in the ground; or (cheapest option) simply abandoned in a field.

After their recall the DVLA licensing category of 'invalid carriage' was revoked, and as Invacars etc were licensed under this category, it was no longer possible to legally drive them with this designation on the V5. They can, however, be re-classified as a 'motorised tricycle' and then licensed and driven accordingly (and although DVLA could have done this automatically, it may have caused issues as some service users had never passed a formal driving test, required for piloting a motorised tricycle but not an invalid carriage). Although V5s for the NHS-owned Invacars were meant to be returned to the DVLA marked as 'scrapped', often these had gone missing. But even then, as the recall pre-dates the current Certificate of Destruction requirement, it's possible for the new keeper of one of these trusty steeds to apply for a new V5.

My understanding is that the cars themselves never became illegal to use per se; but when NHS Trusts withdrew them as mobility aids it meant they were nearly all taken off the road in one swoop. As obsolete devices, it was considered easier to remove and replace with new than jump through a lot of hoops to please a tiny number of people. While it wouldn't have been entirely illegal under SVA regs for a health trust to issue one 'new' after 2003 (as, unused or not, they were all built and registered in or before 1977) in the event of a serious or fatal accident involving a service user, the issuing Trust could have found itself wide open to all manner of damages suits for negligence in supplying a vehicle that failed to meet current European safety regulations. That's a risk no Trust had an appetite for. Apparently one or two refurbished cars were reluctantly issued each year to replace examples damaged in an accident or assessed as mechanically beyond economic repair. With the imperative for NHS rationalisation and modernisation sweeping through in the early 2000s, maintaining inventory and spares for a small fleet of 1970s cars couldn't really be justified.

Because 'normal' Motability cars and battery-powered mobility scooters were widely available, Trust staff genuinely felt that they were doing users a favour by taking them out of antiquated and potentially stigmatising vehicles which fell far short of modern safely standards. It does sound rather patronising, but service users reluctant to surrender their Invacars were rather browbeaten by well-meaning staff:

"Oh, they'll be made illegal soon, you won't be allowed to drive yours anymore; health and safety innit? You don't want a policeman to come and put you in prison, do you? Here, have a Motability booklet for a Hyundai Getz."

Although not entirely inaccurate, this was a much-simplified version of the actual legal and regulatory situation and understandably seems to be the line that most people remember being mentioned in the press at the time. The two-stroke engine also wasn't likely to win any awards for green credentials, and believe it or not people do write to government offices to complain about such things.

The Invacar had lived on for much, much longer than it was ever intended, and its total disappearance was seen as sad but inevitable in the face of progress. Scrappage and destruction weren't heavily policed, because it wasn't like anyone would ever want to return something like this to the road and drive it now, would they...?

[^^This may not be 100% correct, but I was working for The Disabilities Trust just after the Invacar recall, and this is what I remember being discussed at meetings and in information leaflets to service users. Happy to stand corrected!]

[3VOM]

Disappointed it is called TuC and not TWoC. Also had visions of Hammond's(?) truck driving challenge on Top Gear.