Local Legends.

[Barry Cade]

Just had lunch and a good blether with a local "legend", Bill Peatman. Motorcycle racer and garage owner. He and his brother Alf had petrol stations and a motorcycle dealership here and competed in races all over the country including the TT. More interesting here is that Alf, who sadly died a few years ago, was also a car nut and had a good few classy motors. His daily driver was an old Alfa, but he kept is Aston DBS and Ferrari Dino tucked away.. The Dino was sold at auction after he died and I was told today it's now in South Africa. He used it regularly for a while, then got chased by the police and parked it up...for 39 years!!

 

 

Here is a pic of the Dino.... Seemingly made well over 100 grand..

 

 

Any local heroes where you are?

[John F]

Woo, that is fucked. Looks nice though.

[Guest]

Found the sale catalogue.

 

https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/1973-ferrari-dino-barn-find

 

I remember this little Singer when I was a kid..

 

https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/singer-le-mans

[HMC]

WOW looks almost as frilly as one I read about in c&sc a while back that was buried for some reason. I forget the details but that too was dug up/dug out ( I think that even became its us lisence plate after restoration) and went on to live again.

 

As for local legends round here I would nominate My neighbour Steve. Everyone that passes in and out of Tavistock has a good view of his latest rusty jag/ triumph herald/spitfire purchases as they sit in his front garden and are a local landmark. I frequently get mixed up with "the man with all the jags" as we are both bald car nuts and live next to each other. I'm a small timer compared with his 25 (at the last count) dotted around his property. He's also a good neighbour and friend.

[bezzabsa]

Used to Knock about with Michael Rutter - Tony Rutters son, Both TT and road racers...My best memory was being taken out in Tony's JPS special 3.0 Capri...was fast as F*ck and as the revs rose the fuel gauge dropped..LOL.. 1st time I went 'Over the Ton' great when youre a 8 year old kid!!

 

Used to love it when they got the race bikes out to tune and then test them up their road LOL..

[Dick Longbridge]

WOW looks almost as frilly as one I read about in c&sc a while back that was buried for some reason. I forget the details but that too was dug up/dug out ( I think that even became its us lisence plate after restoration) and went on to live again.

As for local legends round here I would nominate My neighbour Steve. Everyone that passes in and out of Tavistock has a good view of his latest rusty jag/ triumph herald/spitfire purchases as they sit in his front garden and are a local landmark. I frequently get mixed up with "the man with all the jags" as we are both bald car nuts and live next to each other. I'm a small timer compared with his 25 (at the last count) dotted around his property. He's also a good neighbour and friend.

You’re in Tavi? Years ago I used to play bass with a lad whose family lived there. It was a big old Victorian place on the very edge of the village and their surname was Hannington. They had money and a couple of Lotus Sunbeams parked in polytunnels in the garden.

[Squire_Dawson]

Those old Singer roadsters are little beauties. No surprise it did well, as they are popular with the historic racing/old fart fraternity.

[timolloyd]

I used to see John Surtees thundering through Edenbridge High Street in Kent, in a red-ish DB6 (?), I think

[xkjagnz]

WOW looks almost as frilly as one I read about in c&sc a while back that was buried for some reason. I forget the details but that too was dug up/dug out ( I think that even became its us lisence plate after restoration) and went on to live again.

As for local legends round here I would nominate My neighbour Steve. Everyone that passes in and out of Tavistock has a good view of his latest rusty jag/ triumph herald/spitfire purchases as they sit in his front garden and are a local landmark. I frequently get mixed up with "the man with all the jags" as we are both bald car nuts and live next to each other. I'm a small timer compared with his 25 (at the last count) dotted around his property. He's also a good neighbour and friend.

That's not Steve McHale by any chance?

[Wack]

My first job was an apprentice panel beater in 1977, the boss had a dino, red one, bought it as a write off, needed a bonnet, front valance, bumper and 2 wings, took weeks for them to come from Italy and cost a fortune

 

when they opened the boxes they were just dino shaped pieces of metal, not finished, nothing ready to fit like they were expecting, all needed the edges beating to fit the car , hand made meant just that

 

The boss looked at the foreman, the foreman looked at the boss, you can fuck off, I'm not touching them

 

They had to get a specialist in , I was a car nut from a young age so lunchtimes I used to sit and stare at it, first Ferrari I'd ever seen , then one day the boss asked me if i'd help him move some stuff at his house, sure, he walked towards the dino , then past it to the ancient series 2 LR

 

that land rover probably saved my life, he was a dreadful driver, he hit the kerb 4 or 5 times on the drive to his house though there did seem to be a lot of arm movement with not much going on with the road wheels.

 

he sold the dino soon after but not for much money 5k maybe around 1978

[CreepingJesus]

I keep meaning to get pics of what remains if Alf Peatman's garage, I've passed it hundreds of times. I've been fascinated by that period of bike racing since I walked the course in Beveridge Park. That ended up the Bob McIntyre memorial event in its' latter days. Also the sand racing, I keep meaning to go and watch it too...

 

Neatly tying into those, Johnny Dumfries let my (then very young) eldest daughter sit in his Renault Sport Spider, while we had a good chinwag about it. That was in Beveridge Park too.

 

Going back further, I've valeted Rikki Fulton's car (Mk3 Cav GLS in Satin Red), and delivered Murdo McLeod's papers. Both lovely blokes, a pleasure to speak to. Dunno how relevant they are, but...!

[Split_Pin]

It's an automotive cultural desert round my bit but back in Linlithgow where I grew up there's a guy who has run a 1993 E 32 BMW 740 Alpina as his daily since it was new. I suspect he had an even older, identical model before that as I remember the car with its distinctive numberplate from way before the date the current one was on the road.

 

Uses it in all weathers as his only car. Running costs can't be cheap!

 

The same household has only just recently snuffed out their early E34 520i which carried a similar plate to the E32.

 

Good going in my eyes.

[cros]

This bloke used to live in my local town, Bourne.

The V16 his factory produced was not without dramas but 525 bhp from 1.5 litres wasn't too shabby for 1950. Along with Raymond Mays tuning stuff for Consuls and Zephyrs, a friend who worked there told me they were developing a twin cam engine for the Reliant Regal. The question why or what became of it remains unanswered.

 

PS Just found a picture of the BRM reliant engine. One of the camshafts must have fallen off. Seems like it was intended for a 4 wheeler Bond Bug.

Actually, this is a twin cam, the other original shaft is just living downstairs.

[Matt]

Take 'yer pick

 

DC, obviously.

 

Alan McNish, 3 times Le Mons winner (amongst other things)

 

Sir Frank Williams.

[Datsuncog]

Eddie Irvine, ex-Jordan/Ferrari/Jaguar F1 driver, sold my dad a secondhand bootlid for his Marina estate.

 

 

Context being that my dad's Marina had been reversed into by persons unknown in Stewarts car park, and Irvine senior ran a scrapyard in Conlig just up the road from us (which provided the then-teenage Eddie with parts for the Formula Ford cars he was racing in the mid-80s). Eddie worked in the yard and removed the bootlid for us -  the replacement green bootlid was later painted with Leyland coachpaint to matching sandglow. I can remember us driving along the Green Road at night and seeing old Mk2 Escorts on their side in the illuminated workshop in front of the yard, with Irvine Jr busy pulling bits off.

 

Following his mid-90s success/notoriety, Irvine often appeared at civic events in some species of Ferrari (e.g. switching on the town's Christmas lights), and was pretty much as big a celebrity as Bangor could muster - when he wasn't away schmoozing in Monaco.

 

He still owns an indoor kart track/motorsport venue in a former carpet factory on the Balloo Rd.

 

 

When I think of a local legend though, this old biddy who used to hoon around in her 3rd Gen Celica would get my nomination. I'd be sitting at 70 on the dual carriageway and she'd bomb past me like I was standing still. Fair play. No idea what happened to her or the car, mind; the Celica was really clean, though.

[Matt]

P3230097 Toyota Celica & Driver, Ards.JPG

 

When I think of a local legend though, this old biddy who used to hoon around in her 3rd Gen Celica would get my nomination. I'd be siting at 70 on the dual carriageway and she'd bomb past me like I was standing still. Fair play. No idea what happened to her or the car, mind; the Celica was really clean, though.

 

Epic. FXI 3297 is gone without trace though.

[Aston Martin]

[Cavcraft]

Bill Smith, former TT record holder or something. He's got a motorbike shop near here, thought after having the pleasure* of an encounter with him many moons ago now, I'd think I'd rather contract a rare tropical illness and live in a fridge freezer for 18 months than buy a motorbike off him.

[mk2_craig]

I live a few miles from both Nigel Mansell and Derek Warwick. Never met either though

[bramz7]

Ed China frequently drove past when I lived in Odiham. I saw pretty much all his mental cars.

He's super tall IRL too.

 

I also did work experience at Duncan Hamilton and Son, run by Adrian Hamilton. His dad (Duncan) was a well known racing driver who won Le Man's in 1953.

[Datsuncog]

Epic. FXI 3297 is gone without trace though.

Yeah, and that surprises me - that photo was taken only 10 years ago, the Celica A60 was minty and there's big love (and big ££££) for old Toyotas in Northern Ireland... I expect she returned to half a dozen notes under the wiper asking if she wanted to sell, each time she parked up.

 

Strange that there's no record of the car on the DVLA site - I like to think she had false plates fitted, just to throw the peelers off the scent...

[cms206]

Still pulls on Cartell; if it's not on the DVLA it's had a COD issued.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[DaveDorson]

 

Jonny Smith, mate of mine, EV advocate as well as owning some proper chod, 5th Gear presenter and generally a decent chap.  Knew him before the whole 5th gear thing happened, then met his Mrs a short while after, who I'd actually known in a former life as her parents grew up near mine in Oakham, down the road.

 

Tom Ford, who I met through Jonny, also lives locally.

 

 

That Pontiac, which he turned into a low rider, belonged to my mate Tom (Hunt), a lad I went to school with who now lives in Spain!.  I helped him with the collection, sorted out the sale for him when he parted with it and it went to Tom Ford too

 

Car wise, my mate Pete is a bit of a hero too.

He's got a Mega-Squirted ITB'd XJ series 3 daimler, a 7MGTE Supra engined Ford Capri, a 1920's based BMW diesel powered Rover rat rod, and is a director at Vintage and Classic Restoration specialists http://www.project-heaven.com/ down the road in Kings Cliffe.

[Datsuncog]

Still pulls on Cartell; if it's not on the DVLA it's had a COD issued.

 

Ooh, it'd be a right shame if FXI had been scrapped - though with the transfer of DVLNI records to DVLA a few years back, I know of more than one still-extant NI car (with paperwork) that's fallen through the cracks and right off the DVLA database.

 

Unless the old lady went on the run and Thelma & Louise'd it off Slieve Binevenagh...

 

[DaveDorson]

Here's Pete driving the other directors Ferrari special

 

[DaveDorson]

 

Pete's Supra engined Cappo.

[DaveDorson]

 

His old Rover, which he uses to go shopping in.

[mercrocker]

. Along with Raymond Mays tuning stuff for Consuls and Zephyrs, a friend who worked there told me they were developing a twin cam engine for the Reliant Regal. The question why or what became of it remains unanswered.

 

This was something to do with the 750MC, I think.   Replacement/development of the A7 racing formula.

[Dick Longbridge]

You’re in Tavi? Years ago I used to play bass with a lad whose family lived there. It was a big old Victorian place on the very edge of the village and their surname was Hannington. They had money and a couple of Lotus Sunbeams parked in polytunnels in the garden.

This has been bothering me, so I’ve scoured Googlemaps and eventually found it. It’s pretty much the last property on the way out of Mary Tavy. Looks like some of the large greenhouses are there, but the house looks like it’s been renovated. I reckon it’s new owners as the previous lot were letting it fall into disrepair years back when I used to visit. It used to have a huge Victorian porch running along the front years ago, but it looks to have been ‘improved’ with some poxy modern shite.

I wonder what happened to the Lotus Sunbeams?

[jonny69]

I'm near Ali G country, yo Westside Massive. Fairly certain that, despite being near Brooklands, there are no interesting car folk around here. Sad really, given the local history. Allegedly, there used to be an oval track on the outside of Staines. I think it was somewhere either where the A308 bypass is or where the M25 is now situated. Probably still some forgotten local legends knocking around.