MASCOT January - February 2007

This and That

Dave True

1 don't recall that picture of MUO 786 arguing with a digger that appeared in the November/December issue, which is a bit unusual, because I am getting to the time of life when things that happened yonks ago are now crystal clear. I expect I sprinted past briskly, blowing horn and pushed the digger into the ditch.

I agree with Barry that the North Wales rallies put on by Ted Broadhurst were great. These were carried on, at least for a while, by Ted Junior after Ted Senior died, but I don't know whether they are still going.

My 4AD MUO 786 is still around, and is now with my son Nevil, who is one of those comes-and-goes ASCO members. In 2004 he got an MoT and drove the car from Epsom to John o' Groats, then diagonally across to Lands End and then home to Epsom, a distance of some 2,200 miles. Nevil was supposed to write a report on this but alas! The car ran perfectly with no problems - he just had to watch the engine oil very carefully. These engines only did about 250 miles to the pint when new and my Roadster was down to about 200 on a straight 40 oil. I did try multigrade at one time but the seals weren't up to it, resulting in drips everywhere.

MUO 786 has never been pristine. I acquired it for £20 in 1974 as a heap of bits. I understood that the chap I bought it from got it from a breakers yard in West Drayton. I didn't actually restore it in the usual sense, but spent months putting it back together, and it was on the road again in 1976. I drove it for 14 years and the last major trip was to Holland for the 1990 Lustrum. The exhaust was clanging on something but I couldn't see what. When I got home I found that the main leaf of the nearside rear spring had snapped near the bush and the car was being held up by the rear wood framing bearing on the rest of the spring. And I'd driven round Holland with it like that. Yes indeed! 4ADs don't actually let you down. They're a much better bet than the earlier Roadsters. 30 years ago a certain John Oliver referred to Roadsters in a proposed Singer promotion poster as "pedestrian", which eventually led to the formation of ASCO.

Regarding the article about the M11 oil filter in the March 05 Mascot, I did wonder whether it was a good idea to adapt a modem oil filter for use on a 4AD. Modem engines run on thin oil and I would have thought that the filtering medium had fine pores accordingly. It seems to me that trying to put SAE 40 through such a filter would lead to rapid clogging. (I asked Aunty about this and she doesn't think thick oils would clog modern filters. If the finer pores filter do clog it will be because they have filtered out even finer particles of foreign matter, and in any case, the filter is not `Full-flow' so no serious damage would be caused. - Ed.)

Went on the 30th Anniversary Rally in Norfolk ably organized by Barry Paine. He's done it all before you know - 17 years ago in 1989 we had a similar tour round Norfolk, when we also went to Caistor Castle and Fritton Lake. Then we went to Grimes Graves and Castle Acre - now I can remember that. We had some difficulty this year in finding Barry's new rabbit hutch in Little Melton - it's certainly tucked away. We had a good B & B for 4 days at Bawburgh just outside Norwich, which was very handy for the evening meal at The Ugly Bug in Colton and for Barry's get-together. The only disappointing thing (not Barry's fault of course) was the minimal interest in spares, but I suppose there's no reason to think that the market for Singer spares would be any more buoyant than for any other make. Car restoration must be at a very low ebb - the sale of real autojumble is way down.

Talking about autojumble, I bowed out of Beaulieu this September and probably for ever. It has just got too expensive and the takings have gone down and down. It seems to have become more of a collectors fair. Car enthusiasts no longer buy spares when they see them to put on their garage shelves. Often they say if I need one I know where to come. When they need one, they're probably going to be out of luck! I still have quite a few Singer spares available - in the old days it was known as The Emporium. I must prepare a list for possible inclusion in the Mascot. Members of longer standing (how's that for political correctness?) will remember the crafty and devious Ian Rabbitt, with his rather dim friends Guff and Bunkum, whose Singer 4AD adventures appeared from time to time when a certain Dave True edited and produced the ASCO Magazine. You'll be pleased to know that Ian is still alive and hopping and not so long in the tooth as all that, and still living in the Cabbage End area of that not-so-delectable warren of Grotton-on-Sludge. Maybe we could bring him back - we can all learn from Rabbitt. (All donations gladly received - Ed.)