Here are some pictures of the track in the 1970s. I took these during the holiday fortnight, when me and a friend went into the building when it was empty ...
My first car was a Scootacar, which I owned when I lived in Coventry. I bought this from my sister’s work colleague in about 1966 for £35, which I borrowed from ...
The first new car registrations for 2017 come out in March, but this article takes us back to the very first vehicle registrations in Warwickshire in 1903.1
Although vehicles had been ...
We’re accustomed these days to the sad news of fatal car-accidents on a daily basis, but in 1899 petrol-driven internal-combustion vehicles had only recently been invented and were an uncommon ...
Donald Healey’s first racing and rally driving competition experience was in 1921-1922 when he drove a Buick in a speed trial run by the Truro Motor Club near Perranporth, and ...
Triumph worked on developing a truly competitive sports cars and at one stage took an Alfa Romeo apart to see why it was a successful design. Healey also went to ...
Healey considered several names for the car, such as Invicta, Railton, and Vindex, but after advice from Victor Riley he decided to use his own name. The Donald Healey Motor ...
During his visits to the USA Healey had spotted a gap in the market for a lighter, smaller British sports car. He was aware that Austin’s A90 Atlantic engine was ...
Donald Healey started to look for another partner to produce a Healey sports car and was approached by Kjell Qvale, who imported British and other cars to the United States. ...
Part of the reason the company ended its boat building venture was that the company moved from the Cape to a former cinema at Coton End in Warwick and the ...
Donald Healey moved back to Trebah in Cornwall in 1963 because of his wife Ivy’s poor health. Trebah included 26 acres and had room for workshops. Former Donald Healey Motor ...
The Standard Triumph Competition Department was situated within the same building as the service division, on the Birmingham Road, Allesley, Coventry. The competition shop occupied roughly a third of the ...
When D day arrived, we all assembled on the car park at Allesley, truck loaded, tools, cars, lined up for loading, waiting for the car transporter to arrive. Ken Richardson ...
Come the race day, the cars looked great. We were running 928 HP (no. 59) and 929 HP did not run due to a bad engine oil leak. 928 HP ...
Towards the end of 1960, big changes came about; the Rally-Racing Department at the Allesley Service Division was closed down, and Ken Richardson and a small number of people were ...
In the early 1970s a new department was set up within the service department for press cars. We worked under Mike Brooks, who was also with Austin-Morris Press Cars in ...
My earliest memory of Rootes was the annual visit to the pantomime at the Coventry Hippodrome with the other kids of Rootes workers. We all got a Christmas stocking of ...
A Rootes product, but ironically never built in Rootes territory in Coventry and Warwickshire, the Imp was built at a new factory in Linwood, in Scotland. Nonetheless, Rootes was a ...
When I first went there I went from GEC, and I arrived there in my Volkswagen Beetle, and the security man wouldn’t let me take it in there! He said ...
Naturally, the changing industrial landscape of Coventry and Warwickshire means there are a number of car manufacturers who have fallen by the wayside over the years. This article sketches the ...