Humber reunion

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

The picture shows two young Englishmen posing beside a 1927 Humber 9/20 Tourer belonging to the one on the left looking cool in his shades who was a little older than the one on the right who thought he looked cool in his Yak coat purchased in the Istanbul Bazaar two weeks earlier. The bent nearside wing, and missing hood and windscreen are the result of an accident which occured on the night they arrived in Istanbul after taking eight trouble-free days driving there from England.  The chaos of Turkish roads and the excitement of arriving in one piece so far from home might make you forgive our two travellers for the accident, but they were sitting innocently in an open-air Englebert Humperdinck concert at the time and it was the students who had be-friended them and helped put up their tent who stole and crashed the car. The central throttle pedal had evidently confused the thief and when confronted with danger he accelerated into it.  It was 4am in a Turkish Police Station when our travellers, speaking faultering schoolboy German, learned that their car had been found upside down and the driver was in jail with a broken leg.

It was a sorry sight - all their stuff strewn across the road soaked in leaking petrol, oil and water. Yak coat thought he'd never see home again and cool shades wondered how he could mend his beloved Humber. They pushed it back onto its wheels - all badly bent when the car rolled -  and pushed the car to a different camp site.  The engine started OK, but made a terrible din so out came the engine and as cool shades fitted spare big end shells, Yak coat took the pressed steel wheels down to the banks of the Bosphorus and hurled big boulders at them to try and straighten them. An Englishman wandered over from a neighbouring tent one day and asked them to tone down the langage please, he had young daughters, and would they like to come over for dinner?

This went on for two weeks as our two young 'Ingleezes' won the hearts of the whole campsite (and their daughters).  The day came to set out for home and gifts of money, water, food and petrol were heaped upon them - and lots of kisses. They nursed the old girl along for two days into Greece before the big end went again, so camping at the roadside, scraped in more white metal bearings and tried again to straighten the worst bent wheel.  Suddenly they heard much hooting and shouting as a car screeched to a halt and out jumped their favourite Czech family from the campsite who had only left 5 hours before. More money, food, water, kisses, and off they went. They got the car back to England, eventually,  after the brakes caught fire descending the steep hill into Thesalonika, the petrol vapourised driving over the Alps on the St. Gothard Pass, and cool shades successfully fought off a passionate bent truck driver who had offered a lift to a workshop in Zagreb to machine more bearings while Yak coat continued straightening the bent wheels. It was about now they realised a con rod was also bent - hence the big end failures.

The reason we share this story today is cool shades invited Yak coat to his son's 40th birthday party recently and our two travellers drove the Humber to the party when it was the first time Yak coat had driven it since that memorable road trip.  The gears still make that endearing racket and the whole thing nearly grinds to a halt on any serious incline powered only by its OH inlet side exhaust 1096cc engine.
The story was written up in the VSCC bulletin of Spring 1969 ( read here)  where you will learn the identity of cool shades, who put his mechanical skills to good use restoring Bugattis, and Yak coat decided he had a taste for adventure and became a balloon pilot.

(Text & pictures Robin Batchelor)

Ajoutez un commentaire...