invacar LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...

[LightBulbFun]

haha

 

so far just run a couple, want to conserve my lookups for those that actually "need looking" up rather then idly looking up different invacars as fun as that would be

 

today I have looked up the following:

 

Q202LDV the first Q reg Model 70 thats somewhere in Sweden now I think

 

and interestingly that ones fake chassis number is 77022

 

almost looks Mk12,y to me but its a good few digits down from even the MK12A we know about, maybe it came off of an early Mk12 No suffix or something

 

WPG607G (another ringed Model 70) comes back with *redacted*, that might be the chassis number of an earlier AC something or other, but ill check that with stuart

 

and finally OYP595 the first ringed Model 70 i came across comes back as *redacted* which may be the chassis number of the AC Petite whos ID its currently wearing (curiously comes back as AC Petite on the DVLA, but as AC INVALID VEHICLE on the VIN plate thingy website)

 

(seeing as the VIN plate website resets at midnight, I wonder if it does so via the local users time, or just so happens the servers time is in GMT, once I run out, ill have to try setting my time forwards or backwards and see how that effects things)

[egg]

Good work. Q202LDV, yeah that does look pre MK12. Any idea when it picked up its Q-plate?

[LightBulbFun]

id say march 2004 going by the DVLA dates

 

but ill run the details via stuart at some point and see what he says

 

(I suspect based on the what the owner told me, that TPE409S or WVW312S might be one of the ringed Model 70s but he was cagey about details because he was worried about getting busted by the DVLA LOL)

[egg]

BTW, I picked up this story from here:

 

http://www.virtualgaz.com/invacarpage.htm

 

Prior to the final months of the ministry’s cancellation of invacar orders I believe our company as a whole was put up for offer and this was taken up by a fellow by the name of P.H.Simpson a fellow who lived but a half mile or so from the factory and had for a time worked under me in the test and rectification department. He had previously gained experience of managerial running of small concerns and decided this was an opportunity not to be missed, and a deal was struck whereby part of the main factory would be cordoned off, Elmsleigh Engineering would be moved into the rented area together with a few of its original staff to run the relevant machinery of which they were familiar with, and the rest of the factory either let or sold to alternative tenants.

 

This is after the big fire. Did this smaller concern make the last Norn Iron Invacars?

 

There still is a garage called 'Elmsleigh Invacar' managed by a Jeff Simpson on the Manor trading estate where the main Invacar factory was

 

http://www.elmsleigh-invacar.co.uk/contact.html

[egg]

And look, that garage (streetview image August 2018) has a Greeves plaque on it - which I believe is a plaque to say the motorbikes used to be made there.

 

 

And look, another image on the building about hand controls?

 

 

Wow.

[greengartside]

If you look on google maps, there seems to be an Invacar sat at the back of the building mentioned above. It’s in a bad way and incomplete, but it’s there.

 

[egg]

Well done! Another one for LBF to save!?

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome finds guys! Won’t be at my desktop until late tomorrow probably so can’t look into it now but I’ll keep yall posted

 

Looks like it’s a 70 painted in 57 colours I think,

 

WPD607G maybe?

[LightBulbFun]

I affectionally call this piece invacar by tube light   

[busmansholiday]

Well done! Another one for LBF to save!?

Does it involve me going to see it ?

[LightBulbFun]

side note: anyone that wants a reg run to get a vin plate PM me the details if you don’t mind me seeing said details etc, I figured there will be days I won’t use up the quota so I may as well do something back for the community   (I can run vin plates too and get details out but I don’t think it works with anything odd format ie i can look up a reg of a model 70 and get the vin but I can’t feed that vin back in it just says not found)

 

(prolly going to get flooded with PMs but ah well LOL, as above it will prolly take me until tomorrow to even start as currently on my iPad away from Le Desktop)

[LightBulbFun]

I do wonder if anyone fitted a bonkers engine to one.  Surely it has been done? 

 

Yay your still alive 

 

Only a 500cc kubota oil burner sadly? (Did you see the invacar donuts thing however?  ) 

[cms206]

Mental. Absolutely mental.

 

Fingers crossed for a Model 70 with your name on it Dez, if anyone is more commited to suicidal plastic bath machines it's you.

 

 

As an aside we used to run a pair of Q-reg Douglas DC8s (Q676/7 ATV) which were registered as Reliants; I reckon they were about as far removed from a Rialto as you could feasably get.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Zelandeth]

I do kinda wish I'd had the space to keep KPL as I really fancy making a scaled down 50s hot rod with a suitably mad engine in. I'd probably have gone with a big V-Twin like the two litre one in the current Morgan 3-wheeler, as I think the thunderous beat would be a far more fitting soundtrack than a screaming Hyabusa or similar.

 

My admittedly so far brief experimentation suggests that handling wise it could surprise - especially if lowered a bit further and with bodyweight reduced too.

 

Couldn't help but see her as a huge blank slate for my imagination given the state of the body. Never know, so might find a totally stripped chassis one day...

 

Go on CMS, what's under the bonnet of the Douglas? Gardner 6LX/LXW?

[Jon]

I have an excellent picture book, 'A Day in the Life of London', which portrays just that, when numerous photographers from around the world went round photographing people and things on Wednesday, 14th September 1983.

 

 

Here's a fella who features on Page 95:

 

 

The blurb reads:

 

Second World War veteran Mr. R. House, photographed beside the war memorial on the Fulham Road. Mr House, a member of the 5th Batallion - The Buffs - which served in North Africa, lost both his legs outside Tunis in 1943.

 

 

I think Madness wrote a song about him.....

[cms206]

Go on CMS, what's under the bonnet of the Douglas? Gardner 6LX/LXW?

Not entirely sure and both those and I are no longer at Glasgow Airport to check! They were ex-British Midland and I reckon dated from the mid-70s. Drove them a few times, I think they were Deutz.

 

The later DC10Hs we ran ('80ish onwards) were Deutz powered, but Cummins, Scania and ISTR Rolls Royce was an option in those too; our DC10Hs were ex-BA but were neither Q-plated nor licensed as Reliants

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[wuvvum]

Did that Douglas DC8 ever tow a Douglas DC-8?

[egg]

UPD 104 pictured above is still on the DVLA!

 

Stanley built 1952, last taxed July '81.

[LightBulbFun]

UPD 104 pictured above is still on the DVLA!

 

Stanley built 1952, last taxed July '81.

 

Yeah

 

its pretty amazing it stayed in service so long, I wonder if it was a privately owned one or not?

 

(its also one of the very few early style invalid carriages you can even look up on the DVLA these days)

 

 

 

so as some of you probably put together from the picture above etc, I spent a couple days at Zels place

 

this was mostly a trip for non car related stuff sadly, but I still had a good look over TPA while I was there of course (we noticed some interesting anomalies to do with the fact some sections/parts where painted from the factory and those that where not, despite all of TPA being from AC, we also tracked down where engine number is  at, its by the dipstick tube, and I also noticed a cool little Steyr puch logo on the fan cowling )

 

 

(I initially thought that number was the engine number, but we think its just a part number for the cowling/shroud)

 

still in a lot of pain from the whole adventure, hence why iv been a bit slow to catch up with everything, but I will get round to everything soonish

[egg]

Liked for you doing the visit, not for the subsequent pain of course! Hope it settles down soon.

[LightBulbFun]

if things go well im hoping to be back to "normal" levels of pain in a few weeks although iv got a dentist appointment on the 20th which is going to be fun* (well Im not even sure if i still have that? I had a check up done while on ESA so it was free, and had this apointment booked, but in the meantime iv lost ESA, so is this dentist appointment thats coming up still going to be free or what? something I need to look into)

 

Mental. Absolutely mental.

Fingers crossed for a Model 70 with your name on it Dez, if anyone is more commited to suicidal plastic bath machines it's you.


As an aside we used to run a pair of Q-reg Douglas DC8s (Q676/7 ATV) which were registered as Reliants; I reckon they were about as far removed from a Rialto as you could feasably get.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

thanks for the words of encouragement 

 

seen you post that aircraft tug elsewhere on AS too, so awesome that you got to drive those, iv had fun running around in them in Grand theft auto LOL

 

is it called a DC8 because it was designed to tow one or was it just a happy coincidence? 

 

I wonder how they ended up as reliants, did someone really ring them as such or what? LOL

[LightBulbFun]

the Q Plate invacar chap has been keeping in contact with me

 

looks like he has sent off his V62, so looking forward to seeing how that goes, and he is slowly getting her running again, currently having some blocked jet carb issues (seems to always be the case with Model 70s LOL) I also warned him about the whole distributor thing, luckily his timing seems to be correct

 

I also decided to link him to this forum, maybe he will sign up maybe he wont, I dont know if forums are his thing, but another invacar thread here cant hurt right? 

[dieselassist]

I'm 40 and grew up in Wicklow / Dublin car obsessed and had never seen or heard of these until they were on AS. @dieselassist, were they on ROI or Norn Iron plates can you remember?

 

...sorry for the delay in getting a reply in here; had a bad dose of the flu'

 

I remember one man who drove one (as mentioned on another thread) - I think him n his family had various 'disabilities'- he had very thick 'pint glass bottom' glasses, and according to my mother was the 'most able' of his family, n so he used to drive it into the village maybe twice a week; he liked ' a drop' n so the inva'car was often left with a door open for long periods on the mainstreet, n as a kid I used to like to look into it; I was amazed by the central driving position, n handlebarcontrols but the interior was often filled with bags n tat so while being curious about its 'other controls' - they were never in view...

 

...I seem to remember them being ire (old irish reg) but I might be mistaken, as previous to 1986 'norn ire' reg looked similar to irish reg; norn Ire reg just having more numbers...

 

the other two I remember seeing; one was in a carpark, in better condition n I just heard it being started up n driving off; there was also another that I used to regularly see on the roads being driven by an elderly woman....

 

.

 

that one was in poor condition body wise back then

[dieselassist]

I should also mention, that my mother is/was a nurse; n she used to do 'home help'  for the elderly; so she was familiar with these cars n explained to me at the time that they were transport for the disabled - my mother while back then preferring to drive bigger cars, with big engines; eg; granadas n rovers etc, wasn't what you describe as a 'car person or petrol head'.... I remember thinking at the time how counter intuitive it seemed to me, as a kid, for disabled person to pilot a car that seemingly had bicycle style controls...

[LightBulbFun]

very interesting and cool stuff

 

do you remember if the ones you saw where Model 70s or Mk12s or something else?

 

 

 

BTW no idea how this VIN plate website thingy goes, because I was just able to look up 30+ Invacars without it ever complaining...

 

(where as the first time I was linked I looked up about 10? before it said GTFO)

 

the only difference is, i specifically this time looked up Model 70s i knew would show up (ie taxed or SORNed since after Y2K or so) maybe the website just does not like it when i feed it things it cant figure out? who knows... (Just looked up a Model 70 that was untaxed from 1997, and now its finally said GTFO LOL)

 

but on that note, I now have a private copy of my surviours list mostly all updated with VIN/Chassis numbers, and heres a few interesting bits iv noticed

 

 

bloody hell is TWC early for an Invacar Model 70

 

ATW722L has a VIN number thats almost all the same number but is 1 digit off LOL

 

some of the AC Model 70s have a . between the Letter(s) and the numbers

 

most Invacar model 70s start with 1NV, only SOI7570 starts with INV

 

it looks like reg plates and VIN plates ran concurrently, at least for Invacar Model 70s this is the case

 

(ie TTW906R and TTW991R are 85 numbers apart for both the reg and VIN, also TTW906R comes back as a mobility scooter rather then as an invalid vehicle...)

 

and finally I think TPA621M and UPB262M are part of the same batch

[dieselassist]

AFAIR- all were Model 70s that I saw back then; I'll show my mam some google images of them n ask her if she remembers anything else about them at the time ...

[LightBulbFun]

here this should help

 

Model 70

 

 

Model 67

 

 

 

and finally Mk12

 

[dieselassist]

...as I said model 70; that the one I remember on looking into its interior; I remember its dash; n back then I thought it was case of twisting its handle bars to steer, as per my push bike... if only I knew LOL

[egg]

it looks like reg plates and VIN plates ran concurrently, at least for Invacar Model 70s this is the case

 

(ie TTW906R and TTW991R are 85 numbers apart for both the reg and VIN, also TTW906R comes back as a mobility scooter rather then as an invalid vehicle...)

 

This is good to know, I was hoping this was the case - I hope it was the same for MK12s. I'm wondering how many they registered at any one time? And whether they 'registered on demand' (i.e. as offices around the country said we need 'x' number) or whether they were registered as built regardless of need.

[greengartside]

 

This one caught fire! Bloody good rebuild or what!