General 🎵Is it love baby or just corrosion 🎵
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General 🎵Is it love baby or just corrosion 🎵
Nothing a bit of T Cut won't cure.View attachment 436745View attachment 436746View attachment 436747View attachment 436748View attachment 436749View attachment 436750
Those kiwis simply just so not look after their Bambinas
Reminds me of a Studebaker Lark or Hawk I was offered free in the 1970s, on inspection on opening drivers door I could walk to the propshaft without lifting my feet off the ground!
I just found an old 2008 camera memory card and the pictures are from the Horopito car yard in New Zealand which I stumbled upon whilst on a trip. Surely one of the most unique places on earth. At the entrance an old lady sat in a kind of office and invited an offer of $1 or $2 to enter the premises. I asked the lady about the place and she said that her father started dismantling vehicles in the 1920’s and never threw anything away. There were large two storey barns and sheds full all manner of car parts then complete vehicles or bits of. Outside there were rusting wrecks as far as you could see.
Some lovely pics there. We used to have scrapyards around our way like that, usually on a steep hill leading down to a water course, so HSE /Environmental get involved to close them down, but in the 1970s you could find just about any part you needed.
Found this 500 in a museum just north of Wellington.
Also visited this collection which I believe was near Napier. Got lucky as there was limited access for the public. The owner had a soft spot for Morris Minors.
Finally back to Horopito
Did I say finally
well there is just the White Island Tractor 
And a Cyclops Rover above it, A friend had a rare prototype Rover I think that they based the gas turbine one on,
Looking at those photos is like going back to my apprenticeship.
Even the old CA Bedford reminded be of going out with the works Land Rover Series one to rescue it after a gang of plasters on their way to a job had overturned in the lanes, complete with a large tub of mixed sloppy plaster everywhere
Looking at those photos is like going back to my apprenticeship.
Even the old CA Bedford reminded be of going out with the works Land Rover Series one to rescue it after a gang of plasters on their way to a job had overturned in the lanes, complete with a large tub of mixed sloppy plaster everywhere
I thought you might like those pics Mike, I have digressed from the Fiat theme but a 500 owner in NZ had been asking me about getting a rare Dellorto FZD carb. I suggested that he might try Horopito as he was on the north island. He went there and they picked one right off the shelf. I have only shown a fraction of what they had there.And a Cyclops Rover above it, A friend had a rare prototype Rover I think that they based the gas turbine one on,
Looking at those photos is like going back to my apprenticeship.
Even the old CA Bedford reminded be of going out with the works Land Rover Series one to rescue it after a gang of plasters on their way to a job had overturned in the lanes, complete with a large tub of mixed sloppy plaster everywhere
I wish I had taken more photos in the past, but later when I did often ex wives were in them so I threw them out as too many memories.
As a teenager I had a friend who was the foreman of a Honda motorcycle dealership where I bought several old English motorbikes cheap, Francis Barnetts (£7 and £9), Triumph 350 3TA's(£25) etc as they had been part exchanged for new Honda Dreams and later Super Dreams, so I acquired the nickname of Sam Harris, it turned out later that it was the name of a guy who ran a scrapyard on the moors where all sorts of stuff could be found. Years later his daughter wrote of her experiences growing up there, which were quite hard by today's standards.
Going around scrapyards in the past was always an adventure. Some years later when I had the old 1947 Karrier Bantam breakdown lorry, I used to visit an open day at an old airfield where a guy collected all sorts mainly buses and coaches but also some lorries, one thing I recall was a very rusty Sea Tractor that had been used when the tide was in to take people across to Burgh Island where Agatha Christie based some of her stories in the Art Deco hotel there. Strangely enough she used to visit the old local cinema my godfather was the manager of before her death.
You stirred a few memories there
we made a few trips on the Burgh Island sea tractor as a family on holiday down there. I believe that the engine drove a hydraulic pump which in turn drove the independent motors at the wheels. Walked around the small island a few times and rather took a shine to the Pilchard Inn 
That is the later version with hydraulic power, the one that was rusting away and actually had a sign on it saying it was too dangerous to climb on was chain driven via if I remember correctly, a side valve V8 Pilot style engine.You stirred a few memories there
Re the Pilchard Inn, the Landlord at my local in Torquay at the time, 45 years ago arranged a trip to "drink the pub dry" which after being driven there in a Ford Transit bus we did our very best to do, only to discover this was an end of season regular event as the Pilchard closed for the Winter
