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My vehicles
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| This page describes the vehicles I've owned since I started riding in 1968. I haven't got many photographs of my scooters, because I didn't own a camera during these years and the ones that I did have appear to be missing. If I find them I will add them because they are more interesting than the others. After all a red Escort is a red Escort, but a lime green scooter is something else! |
Cars | Scooters | Motorcycles
Ford Cortina Ghia
| I purchased this car after selling my Escort 1600 Ghia to a friend. It was a four cylinder 2000ccs with just over 100bhp, which was quite a bit for that time - 1980. |
This photograph was taken high up in the English Lake District. You can see the 7 inch Cibie halogen driving lamps which I installed. Halogen lamps were still not that common in 1980 and these particular ones were identical to those used by rally teams of the day and gave a very impressive spread of light. I kept this car for about two years and it gave good service. It averaged 28 mpg which was about right for those days.
Ford Capri 2.8 Injection
| This was my favourite car of all time. It went like stink (0-60 in 7.5 secs) had fun handling and didn't cost much to run, although the torquey engine and rear wheel drive made the back end a bit skittish in the wet. |
A 160bhp V6 engine giving a top speed of 130mph put this car well above the company rep cars of the day but the hatchback and folding rear seats made it surprisingly practical. It also had direct and excellently weighted power assisted steering, which was not common in those days, although wishy-washy over assisted steering was common on larger cars.
It went through a few tyres in the six years that I had it, but it averaged 28.5 mpg, and the only serious problem was a blown fuel injection system. Normal service items like batteries and exhaust were cheap and lasted quite well. Back in the early 80's (before hot hatch days) this was quite some car, and the only quicker ones were exotics which were priced well out of the range of ordinary folk. Considering that the standard car of the day was an Austin Allegro or Morris Marina, this beast was jaw-dropping in comparison.
Ford Capri 2.8i Special
| This car actually belonged to my wife. In 1987 Ford lowered the price of the final few Capris because they were being discontinued, so we bought one. That meant we had a pair - blue for me and red for her! |
The original 2.8i Capri had been replaced in 1985 (I think) by this model which had a few extras. These were a 5-speed gearbox, part-leather seats (very nice Recaros), superb leather steering wheel, a limited slip differential (less fun on wet roads), better looking alloy wheels, and a change of camshaft (which lowered power by about 10bhp to 150). I believe that the same engine, the 'Cologne', in the Granada of the day used to blow up because it didn't have a rev limiter. The 4-speed Capris did have limiters, but Ford changed the engine specification to be on the safe side. Well that was what the garage mechanic said! The performance was not quite so snappy, probably because the lsd sapped a bit of power anyway.
Ford Escort RS Turbo
| This was my first second-hand car since 1973, although it was in stunning condition and you would never have guessed that it was two years old when I bought it in 1989. It came from my best friend who was given a company car so he had to sell me his, shame! |
RS Turbos were based on a standard two-door Escort XR3i but with lowered compression ratio to allow for the turbo charger and improved engine internals, such as sodium filled valves, to ensure greater reliability. Top speed was 128mph and acceleration was 0-60mph in 8.2 seconds. The suspension was lowered and uprated, and the wider 15 inch alloys with 195/50 tyres improved the road holding and handling dramatically. The turbo charged 133bhp 1600cc engine suffered little turbo lag and pulled like crazy from low revs. The fuel consumption was excellent on a journey - 39mpg to Spain and back including the twiddly bits over the Pyrennes. The only real criticism was the exceptionally heavy non-assisted steering, but I got used to it soon enough even for parking.
Mini Cooper
| This was bought new in 2002 and serves as a replacement for when the bike is unsuitable - as a people and load carrier. Small loads obviously. In general, it has an easy life, but it has to work hard sometimes and in July 2003 it took my wife and I to Spain and back via Monte Carlo. |
These new Minis are made by BMW in England and seem to have become firm favourites with most people. Pedestrians often smile when you go by, and children sometimes point. Its all a bit of a giggle. I'm very pleased with my Mini although it isn't very powerful. With a 1.6 litre 16v engine the power output, at 115PS, is similar to that of a 600cc bike. But it takes about 6 seconds longer to get from zero to 100km/h. For a tiny car it is surprisingly comfortable on a long run (I've got the optional sports seats which are excellent) but the ride is too firm around town. It used to suffer from dreadful bottom-end torque when new - so much so that it was much too easy to stall when pulling away gently. At the time of writing, with 7000 miles on the clock, the engine has loosened up very nicely and it now pulls well enough from low revs. The interior has remained solid and it still feels like new.
Lambretta scooters
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This photo shows one of my later Lambrettas (I owned about a dozen altogether) alongside my friends yellow one. I hit upon the idea of spraying them fancy colours and then selling them to pay for the parts to make another (better) one. |
My friend and I decided that if boats could have names then so too could our scooters. This started a craze in Cardiff for a couple of years with everyone copying us. They sprayed their bikes fancy colours although they usually had hopelessly poor paintwork finish.
If you know your late 60's and early 70's rock music you may recognise from the photos that I named my scooters after Pink Floyd album tracks. However, I sometimes added a twist by distorting the names to reflect the colour of the paintwork. For instance, my aubergine SX200 was called 'Interstellar Aubergine' (from Interstellar Overdrive on the Piper at the Gates of Dawn album) although I can't remember where the original name for my yukky lime green Li150 'Andromeda Lime' came from. It may have been from Astronomy Domine. That's a tenuous link, but its the best I can come up with.
| It didn't matter that the Li150 was slow (because I left the engine un-tuned) it looked flash and I had to fight back the buyers. It was standard except for a 'chopper' style seat and a new chrome megaphone exhaust. I sold it for a handsome profit. |
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After this I named one bike Lucifer Sam, and followed this with Lucifer Sam 2, and then 4. My mate named his 3. Previously he had a bike called 'Arkinsaw Grappler'. I'm not sure if he couldn't spell Arkansas, or if he thought this forced people to give it the correct pronunciation. I never did know why he gave it that name.
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When I saw that other people had copied my ideas (I saw 5 and 6 on the roads of Cardiff) I was going to switch back to imaginative names again. However, I must have run out of inspiration because my very last scooter was un-named. The rich blue colour is not shown well in this photograph. |
Whatever you may think about my choice of colour schemes the quality of my spraying was quite good. So much so that I never actually advertised any of my bikes. People used to approach me in the street and ask to buy it. I soon realised that I could get practically anything for these machines (after I'd put a silly figure on a bike that I didn't want to sell - and the chap paid up straight away without a haggle). I found that tidying up a reasonable machine, painting it lurid colours, giving it a silly name and then bolting on a couple of shiny bits made me a small fortune. Happy days.
It all started when I was 16. I bought a real dog of a 175cc Lambretta which broke down so often that I was forced to learn all about the mechanics of these two-stroke scooters. I even went as far as purchasing insurance write-offs from insurance assessors to cannibalise good ones and spent many a happy day tuning the engines to give outrageous power outputs.
I became surprisingly good at tuning these things. So successfully was I, that I found 350cc motorcycles too sluggish for me. However, with a bit or hard work and knowledge it wasn't difficult to get these to accelerate quite quickly although handling was another matter! I used to alter the exhaust and inlet timing by clever use of a file (yup, I did things cheaply in those days), skim a couple of millimetres off the cylinder head and change the squish shape, pad the crankshaft with cork to raise primary compression, add an expansion chamber type exhaust system and bolt on a 32mm Amal concentric carbourettor. Sometimes, I would even cut bits off the skirt of the piston. The gear ratios were difficult to change (little supply of suitable cogs) so acceleration was terrific but top speed didn't rise much. This was probably a good thing at my age.
| Interstellar Aubergine was my first scooter to receive some serious tuning. It had a decent exhaust, some alteration to port timing, modified cylinder head and was re-bored from 200cc to 225ccs. |
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The photograph of Lucifer Sam 4 (at the top of this section) shows an Amal carb sticking out of the side-panel which was a trick that I used on a couple of bikes. The sound of the induction roar was most impressive and highly unusual in a scooter. I guess that dust would have shortened the engine life significantly, but I rarely kept a bike for more than a few months. This bike was originally a TV175 but I replaced the engine with a 200cc unit which I had rebored to 225. The bike was subsequently stolen, and recovered by the police completely stripped apart but otherwise complete. I couldn't face remaking an old low value bike, so I then used some of the parts (in particular the highly tuned engine) to create a new one with a brand new frame. I managed to persuade the registration authorities than it was therefore eligible for a new registration number and they agreed. This was the blue and yellow bike.
I know what you are thinking, he must have stolen all the parts to make these bikes up; but I can tell you that this is not true. Every part I used was obtained legitimately. In fact it was very easy if you knew how. There were two main sources of complete, or parts of, un-rideable bikes at the time: insurance assessors and police recovered goods auctions.
Insurance assessors had to recover the cost of stolen or damaged bikes for the insurance companies so motorcycle shops, etc used to put in a bid. I entered the bidding and was usually very successful, partly because I was prepared to pay a little more, and partly because I would take older stuff off the assessor (companies weren't interested) and so I became a preferred customer.
The other outlet was the police auctions. Every six months in Cardiff the police used to auction unrecovered property at a special sale. I was nearly always the only person there who was interested in scooters because most people came for the cycles and radios. This meant that the police were practically begging me to take the stuff off their hands. This I used to do regularly. If it was useful, like a modern side-panel, I would spray it and use it or sell it. Anything which I considered junk I would take straight down the rubbish tip.
Both of these outlets gave bona fide receipts which I needed to show customers or the police to prove that my bike was legitimate. This was most necessary to re-register a seriously damaged bike or other ex-insurance scooter. The bike had to be checked out by the police (including viewing the receipts) and then they confirmed to the registration staff that it was ok. It was quite a lot of effort but for an apprentice living in a bed-sit this was my only way of running a tidy machine.
If you wish to see more of these scooters then visit my Psychomoto site.
250cc Honda Superdream
| This was my first motorcycle which I bought new in 1982. I sold it in 1984 because I found the handling and performance too restricting. Well, it was slower than my tuned scooters so it had to go. |
This bike was faultlessly reliable and held its value very well. It didn't handle well, being a bit wallowy if you pushed it around bends, but was the ideal bike to get myself back into biking after three or four years off two wheels. I part exchanged it for my next bike which was...
Honda VF400
| This bike was a revelation for its day. Super high tech engine, light weight, and terrific handling. A superb all-round bike, it was only limited by its touring capability. I took it to Spain but the lack of a fairing was a pain. This was a good excuse to buy a bigger bike after six years. |
The VF400 had an absolutely stunning V4 engine with 16 valves and four carbs - this was really special in those days. It would pull cleanly from 1500 revs all the way up to 13000 when the rev limiter would come in and throw you over the handlebars - well it seemed like that. The engine was so much fun. At 7500 revs it would suddenly pick up and sound urgent and again it would kick at 10,500 where all hell would be let loose and it was touch and go if you could change gear before the rev limiter came in. However, because it was only a 400cc bike it was great fun at sensible speeds. This was the most fun vehicle I ever owned. However, it wasn't much fun going 3000 miles to Spain and back so it had to make way for a bigger bike with a fairing.
Honda VFR750F
| I purchased this bike new in February 1990. It was in the first batch of VFR750-FLs to arrive in the country and I took delivery a few days after taking a test ride. This is the model with the single-sided swingarm and the motoring press were slightly disappointed declaring it boring but beautiful. |
Well it was so boring that I only kept it for 7 years. I know what they mean though, it was so smooth and the engine power was so uneventful that it felt a bit dull. There wasn't a sudden power band and it just pulled all the way without any hint of effort which meant that I kept hitting the rev limiter accidentally. Unless you glued your eyes to the rev counter you never had a clue that you were approaching top revs. A very, very competent bike its only vice was that it used more petrol than Fireblades. So that, and the need for a large service, was a good excuse to buy my next bike...
Honda Fireblade
| It was early 1997 and I fell in love with this one year old bike sitting in the window of my local Honda dealership. A quick demo ride confirmed what I thought - I gotta have it! |
It seems as if everyone, nowadays, sneers at Blades as being old dog-poo, now that R1s have taken over as the best sports bike. If you've ridden one you'll know that, true or not, it doesn't matter one jot. This is a stunning machine, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It is far too good for the road, and anyone who claims that it isn't good enough should be locked up and not allowed on the road. It is a privilege to own and run one of these things - every journey is an occasion. Note the Micron carbon fibre exhaust which looked and sounded superb. Unfortunately, it sounded a bit too superb and I spent most of my time keeping the revs down to stop stares from everyone, although for some reason the police didn't seem bothered by it.
Honda Fireblade
| I decided that the exhaust on my grey blade was too noisy and I suffered from an ache with my right wrist (stop sniggering at the back!) so as there were some good deals in the dealers I traded in for this new 1998 model. |
The performance is identical to the previous model but it did need at least a couple of thousand miles before it had loosened up sufficiently. The handling is a bit quicker, in fact I changed from the original Michelin tyres to Bridgestone BT56s because that gave a little more stability, which I like, and made it feel more like the grey one. Honda have altered the seat and handlebar relationship, somehow, such that this is a much more comfortable bike than the previous model. I will probably keep this one until Yamaha put bungy hooks on the R1.
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