Discussion
Like the Who I spent my formative years in the wilds of East Acton and Shepherds Bush. My elder brother raced motor cycles and friends owned various fast cars, various Jags, Lancia Appia Zagato, Alfa TZ2, Talbot 110, Elva Courier and many others. I was doomed from an early age to fritter my life away doing my best to deplete the world's fuel stocks.
My original budget for a bike was £5, a car £25 although later I could afford a bit more. Things were easier in those days, you could readilly get an MoT through the post if you needed one and scrap yards full of goodies abounded. Being streetwise and well read I was able to buy classic spares for pennies and then re-sell to finance a new car or some tuning gear, best deal was an 18/80 MG engine and box bought for a fiver and swapped for a smart Austin Healey Sprite.
In those days my enthusiasm was boundless but my garage equipment and knowledge hadn't quite caught up, there were tasks that just had to be farmed out. Chris Lawrence's garage did some of the clever bits, I bet Chris never found out but we needed an 'old bloke around the corner'for the more basic or silly stuff. Chris Lawrence developed the racing Morgans and raced his own Deep Sanderson (@ Le Mans)so couldn't be asked to do anything really dodgy.
My OBATC was known as GG Mobike, he had workshops between terraced houses on either side of what is now a prime yuppie road. He had drills, milling equipment, welding equipment, hydraulic presses and every sort of wierd and wonderful tool. His treasure trove was an apparently endless supply of old parts and general scrap that he could turn into othewise unobtainable bits for your prized machine. When approached he always said 'Tell me', few ever heard him utter any other words and nobody ever found out if he ate or slept, he was always, 24/7, busy on one job or another in his workshop. He never wore a welding mask preferring to screw up his eyelids, his machines didn't have safety guards and his hands and face were always caked in grease. No job cost more that a couple of quid and he would find a way to do pretty much anything although the results were not always pretty.
GG shortened the steering head of a Lambretta I owned to help turn it into an unsucessful sprinter, he made unobtainable Austin brake rods, produced adaptor plates to fit large scrap carbs onto poor unsuspecting A series engines, made up brackets to fit a supercharger onto a twin engined Moped (really), another Gnomeflop and welded up special, loud, exhaust systems. Shamefully he also welded a patch on the side of the engine in an Anglia we were trying to sell, I know they did it in Formula Ford but this was rather more low tech. He made up body patch panels that we fitted with pop rivets and blended in with liquid lino, that was when the panel shape was too difficult to reproduce with an old Duckhams Tin. Cheap Fibre glass put a stop to all of that. His contribution to marginal motoring was immense.
I have little doubt that GG would not be able to operate these days, the H&S boys, and probably the police would see to that but he wouldn't have to as his two houses would be worth around £2M in these days of silly property prices.
Does anybody else have a story about an 'Old Bloke Around the Corner' (OBATC) that they'd like to share?
My original budget for a bike was £5, a car £25 although later I could afford a bit more. Things were easier in those days, you could readilly get an MoT through the post if you needed one and scrap yards full of goodies abounded. Being streetwise and well read I was able to buy classic spares for pennies and then re-sell to finance a new car or some tuning gear, best deal was an 18/80 MG engine and box bought for a fiver and swapped for a smart Austin Healey Sprite.
In those days my enthusiasm was boundless but my garage equipment and knowledge hadn't quite caught up, there were tasks that just had to be farmed out. Chris Lawrence's garage did some of the clever bits, I bet Chris never found out but we needed an 'old bloke around the corner'for the more basic or silly stuff. Chris Lawrence developed the racing Morgans and raced his own Deep Sanderson (@ Le Mans)so couldn't be asked to do anything really dodgy.
My OBATC was known as GG Mobike, he had workshops between terraced houses on either side of what is now a prime yuppie road. He had drills, milling equipment, welding equipment, hydraulic presses and every sort of wierd and wonderful tool. His treasure trove was an apparently endless supply of old parts and general scrap that he could turn into othewise unobtainable bits for your prized machine. When approached he always said 'Tell me', few ever heard him utter any other words and nobody ever found out if he ate or slept, he was always, 24/7, busy on one job or another in his workshop. He never wore a welding mask preferring to screw up his eyelids, his machines didn't have safety guards and his hands and face were always caked in grease. No job cost more that a couple of quid and he would find a way to do pretty much anything although the results were not always pretty.
GG shortened the steering head of a Lambretta I owned to help turn it into an unsucessful sprinter, he made unobtainable Austin brake rods, produced adaptor plates to fit large scrap carbs onto poor unsuspecting A series engines, made up brackets to fit a supercharger onto a twin engined Moped (really), another Gnomeflop and welded up special, loud, exhaust systems. Shamefully he also welded a patch on the side of the engine in an Anglia we were trying to sell, I know they did it in Formula Ford but this was rather more low tech. He made up body patch panels that we fitted with pop rivets and blended in with liquid lino, that was when the panel shape was too difficult to reproduce with an old Duckhams Tin. Cheap Fibre glass put a stop to all of that. His contribution to marginal motoring was immense.
I have little doubt that GG would not be able to operate these days, the H&S boys, and probably the police would see to that but he wouldn't have to as his two houses would be worth around £2M in these days of silly property prices.
Does anybody else have a story about an 'Old Bloke Around the Corner' (OBATC) that they'd like to share?
Hi Gnomesmith
I have a character for you , when i started out driving Lambrettas (well you gotta start some place) there was a guy called Said sellim (Egyptian) who had a small shop specialising on Lambrettas , i use the word specialising advisedly, i brought my first scooter from him (in parts) it was an Li150 totally in bit`s and set about re-building it in my mums back garden , it was like this you would keep going untill you could not go any further and then after about 2 days of trying to find the bit you were missing you would go to Said and explain the problem he would fish around under a bench and then give you the missing part which would look like it had been under the bench for about a thousand years you go home , until next time this happens .
Any way his shop was more like a youth club than a place of business ,but he helped keep virtually all the Lamrettas for many miles around running , and back then there were many many of them , he was (is) a good guy , and stories of him crashing bikes during test drives where many and normally hillarious as he drove by Egyptian rules , as you say places like this do not exist anymore, last time i saw him he had moved up market and good luck to him , its thanks to him i learnt a lot about lateral thinking and making the best out basicaly nothing .
I have a character for you , when i started out driving Lambrettas (well you gotta start some place) there was a guy called Said sellim (Egyptian) who had a small shop specialising on Lambrettas , i use the word specialising advisedly, i brought my first scooter from him (in parts) it was an Li150 totally in bit`s and set about re-building it in my mums back garden , it was like this you would keep going untill you could not go any further and then after about 2 days of trying to find the bit you were missing you would go to Said and explain the problem he would fish around under a bench and then give you the missing part which would look like it had been under the bench for about a thousand years you go home , until next time this happens .
Any way his shop was more like a youth club than a place of business ,but he helped keep virtually all the Lamrettas for many miles around running , and back then there were many many of them , he was (is) a good guy , and stories of him crashing bikes during test drives where many and normally hillarious as he drove by Egyptian rules , as you say places like this do not exist anymore, last time i saw him he had moved up market and good luck to him , its thanks to him i learnt a lot about lateral thinking and making the best out basicaly nothing .
Great stuff Marki, don't feel too guilty about the Lambi's I even passed my bike test on one when I was 16, seemed a bit like going backwards as I learnt to ride on a 500 Norton some six or seven years previous.
The Egyptian riding style reminds me of the chap with one leg who used to demonstrate bykes for E&S Motors, a Royal Enfield dealer near the Chequered Flag in Chiswick, to see him disappear down Chiswick High Road on an Interceptor was an experience not to miss!
The Egyptian riding style reminds me of the chap with one leg who used to demonstrate bykes for E&S Motors, a Royal Enfield dealer near the Chequered Flag in Chiswick, to see him disappear down Chiswick High Road on an Interceptor was an experience not to miss!
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