Harold Wilson's collection
Harold Wilson was a pioneer of the classic car movement and still rescues cars wherever he finds them. We caught a glimpse of his sprawling collection concealed by the iron doors of an old warehouse in an otherwise unremarkable Port Talbot backstreet. Meet ‘Mr Barn Find’...
Harold Wilson was a pioneer of the classic car movement and still rescues cars wherever he finds them. We caught a glimpse of his sprawling collection concealed by the iron doors of an old warehouse in an otherwise unremarkable Port Talbot backstreet. Meet ‘Mr Barn Find’...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
‘I collect
everything’
Harold Wilson was a pioneer of the classic car movement and
still rescues cars wherever he finds them. Meet ‘Mr Barn Find’
Words SAM DAWSON Photography CHARLIE MAGEE
Harold Wilson’s vantage
point as a roofing contractor
led to some of the best
discoveries for his collection
28
29
[Harold Wilson]
Isuspect you’re wondering how this all started?’ asks
Harold Wilson as he hauls open the iron doors of the
old warehouse and lock-up that conceals his sprawling
collection in an otherwise unremarkable Port Talbot
backstreet. ‘Well, when you’re a roofing contractor you see
what people keep in their back gardens. That’s how I found
a lot of them.’
Captivatingly, he recalls a long-lost world before the
term ‘classic car’ even existed, and the mistake that set
him down his lifelong path. ‘I was a Scoutmaster in the
Sixties and I was emerging from a church parade when I
saw a rusty old car under a canvas sheet. It was owned by
Tony, another Scoutmaster. He told me I could have it for
10 shillings [50p] because a halfshaft had broken. I roped in some
Scouts to push it to my house but there was a minor riot when my
wife saw it, so I took it down to the docks to store.
‘A few days later it had gone, I assumed for scrap. But ten
years later, when the tide receded, I saw the chassis poking out
of the mud, so I dragged it out and sold it to a chap in Bristol for
£250. The oil and mud had protected it – it really was like new
underneath. Its ‘KV’ registration plate stuck in my mind, so I
started researching it. It turned out that during the war Singer’s
three factory Le Mans racers were sent to Wales to escape the
bombing in Coventry. All were registered with KV plates. The
whereabouts of two was known, but the other one had been sold
on because it had a broken halfshaft…
‘It was then that I realised how important it is to preserve
history and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I collect
everything to do with transport, from the horse to the aeroplane.
One day I hope to open a proper working museum.’
1929 Hillman 14
‘In the Sixties there were only a few of us who liked old cars – no
clubs or shows,’ Wilson says. ‘We’d meet at The Bear in Cowbridge
and one day I said, “I’m fed up with my car – anyone know of any
others?” Someone said there was a Hillman in Llanelli, so I went
to look at this lovely old saloon. I bought it and drove it for years.’
Today the enormous Hillman hides under a tarpaulin in the
corner of the lock-up, looking like a stereotypical barn-find. ‘It’s
never been restored,’ says Wilson. ‘I haven’t driven it for 20 years,
but I turn the engine regularly to make sure it doesn’t seize.
‘This car made me vow I’d never buy a new car. I mean, just look
at the quality,’ enthuses Wilson, opening
the rear-hinged back door and gesturing at
the wood and leather interior. ‘I suppose
I bought them at the right time, in that
they were cheap. But I don’t see them as
investments – they’re pieces of history.’
1934 MG PA
Nearly all Wilson’s cars are undergoing restoration work, but his
distinctive blue MG has seen the most intense activity recently
because he’s rebuilding it for the second time. ‘I first encountered
it in a garage in the Sixties – it was in for a decoke and repairs to a
front wing, but the student who owned it couldn’t afford to pay, so
the garage wouldn’t let him have it back.
‘I went to see him and bought the car for £20 then went back to
the garage and asked for a decoke, the valve clearances setting,
the wing straightening and a respray. That came to £50, so for £70
I owned an MG.
‘I first restored it in the Seventies, but one winter’s day in 1976 I
left it outside and some kids accidentally kicked a football through
the hood. People remember that year’s heatwave, but in the
winter we were hit by incredible snows. I had no idea there was a
hole in the roof, so when the snow thawed the interior was soggy
and rotting. I put the car away and didn’t do anything with it. I’m
restoring it now with my son. I was about to sell it, but he said he’d
always loved this car and stopped me.’
1934 Rolls-Royce 20/25 Barker Continental Tourer
‘You could have bought Rolls-Royces for £10 each post-war – the
horsepower tax cost more than the car,’ says Wilson. ‘This one
was ordered by diamond merchants Oppenheimer and stored in
an underground garage off Harley Street in London. The area was
blitzed in 1939 and the entrance was blocked. It wasn’t uncovered
until 1955, when Bill Medcalf pulled it out and took it to the south
of France. He used it until 1963, when I bought it.’
The 20/25 is also undergoing complete restoration, although
Wilson reckons it’s in better condition than its flaking paint
suggests. ‘It’s all aluminium – no steel – so there’s no rust.
‘Barker’s Continental Tourer is a rare and beautiful design, with
a neater tail, a spare wheel each side and an extended bonnet to
accommodate three toolkits. When I stripped the interior I found
spent machine-gun shells from 1934. Diamond merchants, eh?’
Daimler Conquest Roadsters
Wilson has become an authority on Daimler’s unusual sports car –
he owns five of them and has traced the histories of all but a tiny
handful of the 65 built in order to co-author the definitive book on
the model with Dennis Mynard. The sole factory racer, ORW 655,
originally driven by Ken Wharton, is the most notable example.
‘I suppose I bought them at the
right time, in that they were cheap’
The quality of his
Hillman 14 prompted
Wilson to vow he’d
never buy a new car
car name the collector
Wilson owns five of the
65 Conquest Roadsters
built by Daimler, including
works racer ORW 655
Barker-clad 1934
Rolls-Royce 20/25
is rust-free thanks
to its aluminium
construction
After filling with snow
in 1976 this 1934 MG
PA is undergoing its
second rebuild
1929 Morris Cowley
cost Wilson £20 plus £5
for a box of chocolates
Among car parts, horse
brasses and a model of RMS
Titanic, Wilson has artwork
for a stillborn roadster
penned by Ken Atwell
Keeping them running
‘I’m no mechanic,’ confesses Wilson – and it
comes as a surprise to hear him say it. ‘But
I’ll tell you something: AA mechanics love
cars like these – it’s often the only chance
they get to work on something simple and
straightforward.’
He adds, ‘I have a friend called Graham
Jones who’s a mechanic, and we get a car
roadworthy from time to time as a hobby.
He’s a clockmaker, with such an intricate
eye for detail. People give him broken
watches all the time and he gets them
working again, so for him a car is pretty
simple in comparison.
‘For me, though, it’s just a case most of
the time of saying, “Let’s get this one on the
road,” usually one car at any one time – and
we don’t even have to MoT them any more.’
31
1951 Bentley Mark
VI stirs poignant
memories for Harold
Wilson of his late wife
THE COLLECTION IN FULL
1919-26 Morris Cowley ‘Bullnose’
(‘Constructed from bits
of various Bullnoses’)
1929 Hillman 14
1929 Morris Cowley
1930 Morris Minor Culverhouse
Cross coachbuilt saloon
1934 MG PA
1934 Rolls-Royce 20/25
Continental Tourer by
Barker
1951 Bentley Mark VI 4½-litre
saloon by Mulliner
Daimler Conquest Roadsters x 5
1970 Morris Oxford
1978 Attwell-Morgan
‘Lady Docker, one of Daimler’s owners in the pre-Jaguar era, saw
how successful Jaguar’s XK sports cars had become and thought
it was crazy that Daimler had nothing similar, so she ordered her
engineers to build something for the 1953 London Motor Show,
which was just six weeks away. They fashioned a body out of solid
wood and used it as a buck to build this car around. It still has
some blocks of wood lodged in the rear wings.’
1929 Morris Cowley
This car has lived an unusual life. ‘In 1972 I took my coachbuilt
Cowley saloon for a cylinder rebore and the mechanic remarked
that he hadn’t seen an engine like this since he worked on “the
chimney-sweep’s car”. I asked him who he meant and he directed
me to David John Davis of Maiden Street. I knocked on the door and
asked the man there if he was the chimney sweep. He demanded,
“Who told you that?” and slammed the door in my face.
‘I went back to the mechanic and he said, “You shouldn’t have
gone there all dressed up – he’ll think you’re the taxman!” It
turned out he was working cash-in-hand. I went back, explained
who I was, and we went to his garage. At the back was this Cowley
tourer, full of coal. I offered £20, a lot of money for a car like that
then, but he wanted more. I only had another fiver on me, so I
offered him that too and said, “And this is for chocolates for your
wife.” She was there and he accepted the offer.
‘It had only 5754 miles on the clock and when I renovated the
car I found the cooling fan had been fitted the wrong way – and
he’d laid it up because it kept overheating. He’d been in the Home
Guard during the war and as a prank they all dressed in black and
went parading round town in the Cowley, pretending to be Hitler.
They were arrested as German spies and spent a night in the cells
– he didn’t use it much after that. Bizarrely, I found a coupon for a
free 6000-mile service at Baud’s Garage, which still existed. When
I turned up the guy behind the counter said, “I don’t know who
could service it – they’re all bloody dead!”’
The car found fame in Eighties TV series The District Nurse after
the producers asked Wilson to source a car for star Nerys Hughes
to drive. ‘It was “damaged” in one episode, so they used glassfibre
wings and a smashed headlight. I’ve still got them.’
1951 Bentley Mark VI 4½-litre Mulliner ‘Long Tail’ saloon
This car is close to Wilson’s heart. ‘My wife was diagnosed with
cancer in 1991 and didn’t want to be sitting around at shows
in some draughty old tourer, so I decided we needed a refined
saloon. I rang Harry Griffiths at Beaulieu and he told me about this
Bentley, originally owned by the director of Yale Keys in America
– who specified a raised rear roof for his top hats – and then by a
doctor who used to go to the Proms in it.
‘The doctors gave my wife only a few months to live, but she
lived for another three years and in that time we went touring all
over Britain and Europe in this car.’
Ken Atwell designed
and built this high-tech
Morgan for his daughter
1978 Atwell-Morgan
This Morgan-based roadster is Wilson’s weekend fun-car and
is unique. ‘Ken Vivian Atwell – one of the men behind the Ford
GT40 and creator of the KVA continuation GT40s – wanted to
build a GT40 for his daughter, but she said she preferred a Morgan.
Atwell visited Morgan’s factory and ordered all the components of
a 4/4 to be sent to the KVA factory in Swansea so he could build
it to his specifications. The wooden body frame was replaced by
an aluminium spaceframe chassis, the traditional Morgan sliding
pillars went in favour of Triumph TR4 suspension, the track is
wider – more like a Plus 8’s, with wire wheels imported from
America – and it’s got a Lotus-Cortina engine.
‘Ken’s proud to be a Welsh car manufacturer, so when the DVLA
tried to register it as a kit car he growled through gritted teeth, “It
is NOT a special.” So officially it’s an Atwell-Morgan – the only one.’
Wilson is good friends with Atwell, who still lives locally. He
digs out drawings for a minimalist roadster Atwell penned in 1978.
Featuring a Rover V8 in a car weighing just 750kg, it predates the
similar Westfield SEight by more than a decade. Sadly, it never
made production.
32