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THE STORY OF MIKE CANNON AND CANNON ENGINEERING
Jan 19th
THE MIKE CANNON STORY – words by Steve Hole pix by Carol Hardy
Michael ‘Mike’ Richard Blackburn Cannon was a very interesting and talented chap. Born in Tasmania in 1928 to a farming family, he emigrated to England and settled into sheep farming at Oxen Hoath Farm in West Peckham (near Tonbridge), Kent. They farmed 2000 acres and lived in a fifty-room mansion.
When his father died in 1952, Cannon and his brother acquired the farm but were forced to sell 1980 acres of it, living on the remaining 20 acres, where Mike built his own bungalow called Crooked Chimneys.
His great uncle More >
KING OF THE ‘DASTLE’ – GEOFFREY RUMBLE AND HIS DASTLE RACING CARS AND TRAILERS
Jan 10th
Words by STEVE HOLE
Geoffrey Dastle was a very clever engineer. He was actually trained as a heating and air conditioning engineer based around the Leatherhead area of Surrey.
He also enjoyed motorsport in general. He built his first racing car, a ‘special’ in 1959 for 500cc F3 and did a few races in it himself.
He built another car called the Mk2 under the ‘DASTLE’ name which came from ‘Geoffrey DAvid STanley RumbLE’ (obviously!) and had become interested in the then very popular GP Midget racing that was sweeping the UK at the time.
The cars looked like scaled-down F1 cars and often More >
REMEMBERING DAVID OGLE, DSC, MBE
Jan 5th
WORDS BY STEVE HOLE – PHOTOS – ARCHIVE AND CAROL HARDY
This time we take a look at the gifted designer David Ogle who was tragically killed in a road accident in 1962 aged just 41. His legacy lives on, however.
Born in 1921, David Ogle was an amazing chap who died far too young in a road accident in 1962 aged just 41.
Ogle Riley 1.5 was a design exercise – two were produced
A hugely talented designer both of industrial items and cars he’d founded his eponymous company David Ogle Associates in Stevenage in 1954 and this was rapidly becoming the ‘go-to’ More >
THE STORY OF THE GRP-BODIED CITROËN BIJOU
Dec 29th
WORDS BY STEVE HOLE
Not a kitcar of course, the Citroën Bijou was an incredibly low-volume car for a mainstream manufacturer and had a fascinating story that we think you’ll enjoy.
Citroën is a marque with a quirky past and never afraid to push the boundaries. In addition to the kitcar industry having a fond relationship with the Citroën 2CV underpinnings with many kitcars based on it they also had a factory in the UK, in Slough (1926-1965) where the 2CV was produced.
Pic courtesy of Draco2000 via Wikipedia
Other Citroën models produced in Slough included:
Type A
Traction Avant
Light Twelve
Light Fifteen (SWB) or Big Fifteen More >
THE STORY OF SHORROCK SUPERCHARGERS
Dec 21st
SHORROCK SUPERCHARGERS – WORDS BY STEVE HOLE
Another of the great sixties ‘speed’ companies was Shorrock Superchargers and their products were in great demand to owners of various car makes with Ford engines being their prime area of success. Their appeal was helped by the fact that the donor engine needed no modifications.
That sounds a bit too good to be true and it slightly was as they did have weaknesses but there were plenty of happy Shorrock customers up and down the land.
The little blighter in question. A Shorrock supercharger
The ‘Specials’ movement of the early sixties took to them for sure More >
ALLARD’S ALLARDETTE FORD ANGLIA CONVERSION
Dec 15th
Many specialist car enthusiasts have high regard for Clapham-based Allard Cars founded and run by Sydney Allard. The company was active between 1945-1966 although the last ‘proper’ Allard was built in 1958.
Sydney enjoyed being an underdog and one of his favourite sayings was ‘high performance through ingenuity’ and it summed him and his company up rather beautifully, I think. He first started driving his own ‘specials’ in trials and was a very accomplished exponent.
Allard Motor Company was a subsidiary of Ford dealership Adlards Garage, which had been founded by Albert Brisco and Sydney Allard in the thirties. The company had More >
LET THE BUS TAKE THE STRAIN – THE CAREER OF ALAN PONSFORD THE DESIGNER OF THE AVA K1
Dec 8th
PHOTOS TO FOLLOW
Crikey, if this was Total Bus magazine the name Alan Ponsford would be very familiar to you. Much like the CVs of Lee Noble or Jeremy Phillips may have escaped the attention of a member of the Duple Owner’s Club, Alan is the big cheese of bus and coach design. However, he also designed one of the finest handling kitcars of all time in the guise of the AVA K1. Possibly the most advanced in terms of looks, too. Some 36 years after it was unveiled it still seems box-fresh according to STEVE HOLE …
I was reading something More >
IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN – THE STORY OF COSMIC WHEELS & ACCESSORIES
Dec 1st
Whenever I used to hear Rodney Trotter say his ironic ‘cosmic’ remark on ‘Only Fools and Horses’ it used to remind me of my dad’s old Cortina Mk3 GT in sunflower yellow that he used to swan around South Norwood and Crystal Palace in when I was a kid. Why? Well, he saved up and bought himself a set of 13in Cosmic RW wheels and a Cosmic Mk2 two-spoke steering wheel.
When I say ‘saved up’, rather he used to pay for them weekly via his mate Dennis’ catalogue. He was the man around town, with his Hush Puppy slip-ons in More >
CLASSIC KIT CARS & SPECIALS – GREEN CREDENTIALS – EVERGREEN ROADSTER
Nov 23rd
A very underrated kitcar that I always felt should have done better was the Evergreen Roadster, marketed by a Cornish classic car restoration company called Evergreen Motor Company. They were run by Peter Murphy and I think the ‘Evergreen’ name came from his Irish heritage.
The car was a very close replica of the Volkswagen Typ 14 Karmann Ghia, devised by German kitcar manufacturer, Rudolph Perfect Roadsters GmbH based in Mechernich in Germany’s ‘west midlands.’
They were founded in 1992 by Ralf Rudolph and brought its factory shutters down for the last time in January 2018.
The company was one of Germany’s leading More >
THE STORY OF THE MAYA GT AND A TRIP TO CAMBER SANDS
Nov 16th
George Holmes was a trained agricultural engineer who had been running a grocer’s shop in the Croydon area before moving to Camber Sands, East Sussex. His friend, Derek Bishop, from Greenwich, had previously run Heron Plastics and had been responsible for the Heron Europa and also for producing the bodies for Don Sim’s Diva operation. Meanwhile, down in East Sussex, George had bought a Nissen hut that was being used as a garage with two petrol pumps outside. A desolate location.
Camber GT – those headlights might not have been, ahem, road-legal!
The Camber was underpinned by a square tube steel chassis More >
