Restoration

Walking down Dock Lane towards the canal, I happened to pass a yard and noticed this lovely old car. A guy was working on it so we got into conversation, which proved to be most interesting. 

The car is a 1929 Model A Ford, which the owner said he had rebuilt from scratch. He now uses it for pleasure trips and at 1940s re-enactment events. I'm no expert but it looked beautifully restored and appeared to be in pristine condition. He told me its top, bone-shaking speed is 35mph so it obviously cannot be driven far on normal roads but he has a large van into which it fits, so he can drive anywhere and unpack it when he arrives. 

This little cluster of buildings comprises the old pumping station for the Bradford Branch canal (below), alongside an even older lock-keeper's cottage. I first mentioned them on my blog HERE. Chatting to the owner of the car and cottage, he told me something of its history. As I mentioned yesterday, the Bradford Branch canal, opened in 1774, suffered terrible pollution and caused a canal-side outbreak of cholera after which it was closed for a while. It seems that a lack of fresh water flow was the problem so the pumping station and system was built in 1872, to bring in water from the main Leeds-Liverpool canal. 

There was a lock behind where the pumping station is now. The lock-keeper's cottage was built at the same time as the canal, when it was a tiny one-up, one-down place. In the 1800s it was extended, more or less doubled in size. The canal, as I said yesterday, closed in 1922 and was filled in in the 1950s. The man I was talking to bought a parcel of land and the buildings many years ago. He commenced a painstaking restoration, extending the cottage some more but retaining many of its old features. He converted the pumping station for residential use and sold it on. 

Later, the pumping station house again came up for purchase and was bought, strategically, by Bradford Council, apparently with an eye to the planned regeneration of the canal and canal corridor down into Bradford. Of course that was an ambitious scheme that came to naught and the pumping station remains empty and unused, no doubt deteriorating as time goes on. It seems a great shame as potentially it is a lovely house with an interesting heritage. 

Green Panther

Chipping Steam Fair - This metallic green was a thrilling colour. I like the abstract image but the whole car - a 1974 Panther J72 - was rather thrilling and beautiful too. It was for sale; it could have been yours for a mere £27000!  Though how you drive one on the road, heaven knows... Imagine trying to turn out of a side road with that amount of bonnet (hood!) sticking out, before you could see what was coming! (Yup, I'm so practical...)

Chevvy

You never know what you're going to see from one day to another in Saltaire... This lovely old Chevrolet was parked in the church car park one weekend, looking as if it owned the place! ('They don't write songs about Hondas.')

Car - verley!

The final few steps of our 5 mile Calverley circular walk, back to my little red car...  This will not be my little red car for much longer as I am buying myself a new one - though the new one is also a very cheery red. I will be sad to say goodbye to my trusty friend. It was my mum's car until she died a few years ago and although it's now 15 years old it still has less than 50,000 miles on the clock. It has never given either of us a minute's trouble and, with that reliability in mind, I am buying another Toyota Yaris, but this time a Hybrid model. I only hope it proves to be an equally wise purchase and will last me a good many years.

Close Encounters at the Industrial Museum 5

It was the colour of this vintage car that attracted me, such a glorious acid yellow. They don't seem to make many brightly coloured cars these days - white or silver seem the favoured shades round here, or black of course. 'You can have any colour as long as it's black'!  Jowett was a small manufacturer of cars and light commercial vehicles, based in Bradford, from 1906 to 1954. The Industrial Museum has several examples. They started by making cycles and motorbikes but then began producing innovative 'light' cars that were suitable for the very hilly terrain around this area.

A penny for your thoughts...

Can you guess what this is?

It was up for auction at Tennants Auction rooms, on the same business park as yesterday's chocolatier. It is a Mini car covered in (old, pre-decimal) British pennies. Two 'Penny Minis' featured in promotional videos for the release of the Beatles' single Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever in the 1960s, though it isn't clear if this is one of the original cars used or a copy. We spotted it tucked away in a yard and unfortunately I could not get a clear picture of the whole vehicle  - but in a way the details are more fun, I think.  You can see the whole thing here though (and a pretty girl as an added bonus!)

Cute

Bingley Show - Among the classic cars on show were a number of 'bubble cars'. I had a great uncle who once had one of these and I recall being delighted, as a child, with a short trip to the local shop in the vehicle. Such a novelty to climb out of the front! Here, I wasn't sure if the car (a Trojan from the early 1960s) or the little dog (a pug) were the cutest attraction. Look at that pink tongue!

Vintage bus

Inevitably, given its attractive situation, Saltaire's church seems to host quite a few weddings. It's not often that you see a vintage bus parked there though. The scene looked rather good, I thought. Congratulations to the happy couple, whoever they are.

Cars I have known # 2

At one point in my life, somewhere in the late 1970s, we had a car just like this, a pale blue Morris Traveller. It was much loved though not in quite such good condition as this one. Ours had moss growing on the window sills!  I can't quite remember for sure but I think that may have been the car that met a very sad end, when some hooligans set light to it outside our house.

For 'Cars I have known # 1' see here.  Isn't it awful when the cars you most fondly remember are 'classic' now (not quite vintage yet!) and featuring in car shows.

Postman Pat

Among the classic cars on display in Roberts Park the other Sunday there was this gorgeous little mail van, just like Postman Pat's, complete with the black and white cat. The notice in its window said that it was first used in and around Keswick in the English Lake District in 1939. (That same area, coincidentally, inspired the fictional setting of the children's TV programme.) Just imagine it pootering along through the pretty little lanes up there. In 1949 it became a milk delivery van, later sold to a farmer. It was rescued in a derelict state from a farm lane and has been lovingly and beautifully restored to an immaculate state.

Morrison's van

This van has a story to tell.  It was manufactured in Bradford in 1948 by the vehicle manufacturing firm Jowett, which produced cars and vans between 1906 and 1953.  This was a delivery van for Wm Morrison Provisions Ltd, a company that started life in 1899 as market stall in Bradford selling eggs and butter.  Its founder, William Morrison, was succeeded as the director by his son Ken in 1952. In 1958 he opened the first of his shops in Bradford, which became the first self-service store in the area. The company opened its first supermarket in 1961 and has grown to become the fourth largest supermarket chain in UK, after Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys.  Morrisons still have their company headquarters in Bradford.

Jowett Javelin

This is a Jowett Javelin car; these were produced between 1947 and 1953 by Jowett Cars Ltd based in Idle, a district in Bradford. (A district, incidentally, about which there are many jokes... the Idle Working Men's Club etc!)  Jowett Cars was a small manufacturer of cars and light commercial vehicles, that existed for about 50 years in the first half of the 20th century.  Not surprisingly, there are a few private collectors in this area and several vehicles appear in museum collections, such as at the Industrial Museum.  I can't be bothered with what's under the bonnet but I do like the design features of old cars and I was rather enamoured of the sweeping lines of this car's grill.

Mean machine

One reason for the crowds around Bradford's City Hall last weekend was the annual Classic Car Show - a popular event for young and old alike.  There was a huge variety of cars, including a beautiful 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, a Jaguar R3 Formula One racing car once driven by Eddy Irvine, a Mini converted into a hearse, numerous MG sports cars, made-in-Bradford Jowett cars and vans and a few big mean American machines.  It's nice to see that kind of variety, from ordinary little family cars to high performance super-cars and lots in between.  I'm no connoisseur but I loved this one above. A 1959 Cadillac Eldorado?

Don't get distracted by the 'London 2012' sign - this is Bradford!

A quick snap!

As it was such a pleasant sunny evening when I left work (a welcome change from the incessant drizzle we've had for days) I walked the long way home tonight, along the canal and up Victoria Road.  I was just in time to see this lovely old car, doing a U-turn outside Salts Mill.  I had my compact camera in my bag so I snatched it out and caught this very quick snap.  I have no idea what kind of car it was - it was round and off almost before I had registered it properly.  I did note that it was a left-hand drive model, unusual in this country.  But isn't it gorgeous in that cream and red livery?  Somehow, it looked entirely at home, there on the cobbles in front of the old mill buildings.

My first car!

There was something for everyone at the Saltaire Festival, including a feast of classic cars.  As I said the other day, I still have a few 'vintage' clothes.  Sadly I no longer have my first car... if I did it would be 'classic', and I was delighted to see one in the line-up.  It was a Rover '90' (the mascot above is from the '80', which was very similar; the '90' is below.)  Ours was black with grey leather seats (the front one was a bench seat, oh joy!) and real walnut fascia - and it was old even then.  So solid and heavy, but I used to love driving it. 

I remember well the long debate we had (my then-fiancé and I) in the university Student Union cafeteria, consuming quantities of 'Wagon Wheels' (a kind of chocolate biscuit - remember them?) whilst we wrestled with whether we could really afford £100 to buy a car.  We did - and it did us proud for several years, until, exhaust held together with baked-bean cans and gun-gum bandages and with various other ad-hoc repairs painstakingly carried out in my dad's garage, someone ran into the back of us at some traffic lights.  It was never quite the same after that (nor was I!) so we decided it had to be scrapped and we moved on to a sleeker model (a Ford Cortina, I seem to think).  But that Rover 90 has a special place in my memories.  Ah, happy days...