Re: breakdown truck
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:10 pm
That Iso was standing in a lean to behind a big HMO on Harwoods Road, just off Rickmansworth Rd in Watford, between May and early July of 2000, at this time I was down that way for just over the month as the owner of all of the cars on the premises - many of them Reliant kittens and Rebels - had agreed the sale of the Harwoods Rd property, so muggins here travelled down in the old Volvo 144DL with the intention of making as many of the cars as possible fit to be moved.
The collection was extensive, including but not limited to the Reliants, a very original early MK1 Fiesta, a rare Fiat 600, an early Fiesta XR2 left behind in lieu of owed rent by one of the tenants of the HMO, several Italian rarities, a Marina-based Tandy camper van, a Volvo 244DL (brown, of course, 'cos it was a '70s one), a Datsun Prairie used by the owner of the collection to scavenge Rebel parts from far and wide, the Datsun wasn't taxed or tested, had next to no brakes and left clouds of blue everywhere it went! Also present in the collection were a 1940s Fiat Topolino, a GRP-bodied kit based around fifties Ford Pop chassis, engine and transverse trap spring suspension, a Lotus Sunbeam, several ancient motorcycles and a handful of other exotics, most of which were sticking out of the lean to, which had collapsed partially at one end, amazingly without having crushed any of the cars.
The owner of the collection, the late Captain William "Bill" Dick, a retired airline pilot, was possibly one of the last of the great eccentrics, he used to pull out a roll of fifties every time we went anywhere after parts for the cars. Come to think of it; he would take me to the local greasy spoon for my breakfasts during my time there since the HMO's electricity was off and I was sleeping in there in the absence of hotels that were affordable for that length of time and even in the caff, he'd pay the tenner or so for our meals with one of his fifties.
The Cap'n had brought a whole aircraft full of the remaining Reliant parts stock from the Jamaican Reliant dealer's premises into the UK with him on one of his flights and sadly, that stock was snapped up by someone in the Reliant Club who - if there's any justice in the world - will be stuck with it now as a result of his obscenely OTT asking prices for the stuff.
Wharmby, if you're looking in, I never forget when someone takes me for a mug. Just saying..