My understanding is that the cars first owner was a Bank Manager in Leeds, who owned the car for the first 10 years of it's life. After the first ownership it was purchased in1959 by it's second owner - John Smith, who was in the RAF and moved around the country as he was posted to different RAF bases.

Whilst waiting to become eligible for RAF married accommodation, it was necessary to acquire a 22ft caravan to utilise as accommodation -this caravan was also towed by the Roadster to each RAF base posting.

When John was posted abroad he took the car back to the dealer that sold it to him, the dealer offered only a small percentage of its true worth, so the car was kept and put in to storage - the storage was not ideal, it was in a pig sty !

When John returned from his overseas posting some years later, the car was liberated and some minor restoration work was carried out. Since then the yearly mileage has been very low - John owned the car for 45 years before the Fire and before I acquired the car as the 3rd owner from new with 99,000 genuine miles on the clock. The car is very original for its age and it has never had a body-off restoration.

Since owning the car I have repaired the fire damage, repaired the accident damage, made and installed a new wiring loom, carried out a complete engine rebuild to including line-boring the camshaft bearings and replacement liners - at the time of writing this the car is a very usable 'rolling' restoration.

When I met with the last owner, I was given the original 'FOR SALE' sign that was on the car when he purchased it in 1959 along with the original bill of sale, plus it's first MOT certificate when they first started in 1961 and I even have the original Log Book. 

Memory Lane

 

September 1961

 

December 1960 Towing a 22ft Caravan

 

Hard Top made froom Aluminium Dural and Fibreglass - Kinloss 1976

 

RED and 'Hard-Top' off at Bracknell in 1977 

Photographs:  John Smith 

 The Fire

The car caught Fire during the night in March 2004, a battery trickle charger was thought to have been the cause of the fire.

Fortunately the fire came to the attention of the then owner, who managed to stem the flames with a nearby hose until the fire brigade arrived to put the fire out and make the car safe. The Roadsters stable-mate at the time was a Triumph Stag, the Stag suffered very little damage as did the garage, however the damage to the Roadster was quite severe.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs:  John Smith 

The Restoration

 

 This is what we started with

 

 Complete front end strip down

 

And a visit to the Paint shop

 

A new wiring loom was made

All ancilary burnt parts were either repaired or replaced with parts salvaged from other cars. The car was rebuilt, some wood was replaced and taken for an MOT !

 

 Back on the road by the end of May 2005

Photographs:  Ray Cope

We kept the car  on the road throughout the Summer of 2005, but we took the engine out again and did a lot more front end restoration work through the Winter. We hope to improve the car during the winter months in the future, but aim to make sure that the car is always back on the road for the summer months.

We have named the Roadster 'Charlotte' (Char-a-lot) the name was mainly inspired by the word Char = to burn !