David Tennant from Ottawa, Canada recently contacted the Network enquiring about the whereabouts of VG 3260 a Coachbuilt saloon he owned in the mid-fifties. We know that David’s old saloon body now sits on a Minor chassis in Devon while VG’s chassis is now adorned with a CMS Sports body. The photos below depict VG 3260 when in David’s ownership in the fifties (TL), as a Semi-Sports replica (TR), as purchased by Mike Houston (BL) and with it’s restored body, before it was separated from the chassis and sold. David writes:
I obtained the car in about April 1956 from my brother, a car mechanic, who had owned it for 18 months or so (before this he had a 1931 or 32 MG F Magna). He gave it a pretty extensive engine overhaul and I think I paid him about 50 or 60 pounds for the car (about the same as the oil pressure when cold!), he in the meantime had gone upmarket to a 1932 4-door ohc model!
I was a sergeant in the RAF at the time stationed at RAF Langtoft near Market Deeping in Lincolnshire and my first journey was from my home in Belton near Gt Yarmouth to camp, about 100 miles or so. Over the course of the next 6 months or so it made numerous trips back and to Langtoft with never a missed beat and always getting 30 plus mpg with 3 occupants. As well, as I was in charge of the transmitting and receiving radio stations at RAF Langtoft and these were physically well separated, I used it as my daily transport between locations rather than using an RAF issue bicycle! The photo you attached may still have the Bosch windscreen wiper motor which I installed on it. When I bought it was Blue with black mudguards and I repainted it with Valspar enamel and it looked, to my eyes anyway, pretty good. In about September or so 1956, I part exchanged it for a 1937 Morris 8 series 1 with a fellow sergeant Albert Watchman. I was demobbed in Nov 1956 so I don’t know its history after then. Bert Watchman was a long-term regular airman so he may well have moved on from RAF Langtoft although I think he was nearing the end of his service. His home town was West Hartlepool. My right calf muscle is a little larger than my left likely as a result of the braking pressure required. The only other problem I recall was, I think a common one, that the oil seal into the cam box was nowhere near 100% effective and the dynamo performance suffered somewhat through leakage. However, at that time it was a maintenance problem although a previous owner had obviously cut down the oil feed to the cams and it showed. I think I replaced a couple of tyres 4.00X19 ( a contemporary upmarket wheel diameter!) When I had it the folding roof mechanism was still present but inoperable. You will note the photo I attached has been cropped. Somewhere or other I have the original. On the left was a split-screen post-war Minor and on the right was my brother’s 4-door 1932 Minor. Collectively in this day and age worth a bit! BTW I am now 88 years of age.
