Dateline 1970 How the staff of Custom Car discovered green laning

the way they were

The publishers of 4x4 magazine recently acquired Custom Car, one of the longest-running motoring titles left in Britain. These days, it’s all about hot rods and drag racing – so when we started leafi ng through the fi rst few issues from way back in 1970, we were stunned to discover an article from the very early days of green laning. We’ve republished it here, complete with some language and references we certainly wouldn’t accept nowadays, as a historical record showing how much things have changed over the last fi fty years. Some of what the Custom Car team got up to is very much not the way to do it – but as you’ll see, by the end of a rather anarchic couple of days even they had started to learn the lessons we all take for granted today…

Now look, it’s fi ve speeds but you don’t need fi rst unless it’s on a one in three. And you’ve got fi ve in reverse as well, right?’

‘Yes, Bernard. Five in reverse. That will be useful.’

‘And that lever there changes from two to four wheel drive, okay? But not over 20mph on all four, though.’

‘No, Bernard.’

‘Oh, and when you go airborne, back right off before you hit the ground. Else the back axle will fall apart. Right?’

‘Airborne, back off. Right, Bernard.’

Well we’ve turned up at the offi ce in some oddities in our time, but this time we really hit the jackpot. It’s one thing seeing an Austin Champ advertised in Exchange and Mart: it’s quite another to see it in the fl esh, or tin as it were.

It’s not just ugly – it is unbelievably ugly, but with that strange elusive charm that nature awards to its less well endowed. And big with it, as the bishop was overheard to mention about the actress. Land Rovers look suave beside it, Jeeps look positively pert, and you could drive a Moke clean underneath it.

You don’t sneak a Champ into the offi ce car park without anyone noticing. Editors of some of the stuffi er magazines in the building retracted further into their Burton suits and felt their worst suspicions had been confi rmed. Nervous fellow car park users found excuses to move their vehicles to the protection of the local multi-storey. A few old stagers tottered down to offer helpful hints dating back to their days in the mob. Like ’when you go airborne,’ etc.

Why a Champ anyway ? Well the idea was that we’d take a weekend off to try and prove or disprove the theory that you really can get away from it all if you try. The theory went something like this. Stay away from the main tourist routes and areas, arm yourselves with good maps, compass and hot coffee and buy yourself a rugged four wheel drive vehicle which could cope with the conditions you might expect if you tried to go where others fear to tread.

We picked an area – Dartmoor – bought 1” and 2.5” maps from the Ordnance Survey and a compass from the local sports shop and borrowed a Champ from our friend Bernard’s Four Wheel Fun Car Emporium in London. Then we piled on to British Rail’s estimable Motorail service at Paddington and slept the way down to Plymouth ready for an early morning start.

The fi rst day was, er, eventful. Most of Plymouth still slept as we noshed our bacon and egg at the caff near the bus station before heading for the hills. By eight o’clock, photographer Roger was taking trendy shots of Champs rising out of the morning sunrise on the edge of the moors. By nine o’clock it was snowing and by ten o’clock we were stuck halfway up a snowy cart track and cursing Bernard for omitting the authentic WD shovel from the strap provided.

So much for our fi rst excursion off-road – the trouble with 2.5” maps is that they look too easy. Roads are marked as ’unclassifi ed, unfenced’ and lead to intriguing ruins, Roman remains and the like. What it doesn’t tell you is that some are only used once a year to bring the lambs in.

By eleven o’clock we had broken the two shovels borrowed from the nearest farm four miles away and art-ed Ridgers had been despatched for a tow vehicle. By half past eleven, by jamming rocks under the spinning wheels we had freed

ourselves and were rushing back into Princetown to intercept Trevor and to buy new shovels for the farmer. Met Trevor on the way and tipped tow man 10 bob to go back to his good lady.

Princetown, of course, was fresh out of shovels – s’pose they’d all been shipped into the large grey hotel there hidden in loaves of bread. So it was a dash into Tavistock, a mere nine miles away, before lunchtime closing. By noon we’d been reported to the Princetown fuzz by an irate farmer who was waiting to muck out his muckers but couldn’t on account of a bunch of hooligans had eloped with his two best mucker-outers.

By now, your heroes were licking their wounds with a pint or three of Guinness in the local boozer to the accompaniment of Canned Heat, a heap of ham sarnies and the local thighs which were on display on the bar stool. It was all of three o’clock by the time we confronted our erstwhile samaritan with a new brace of mucker-outers which by some strange quirk weren’t nearly as good as his old ones – until, that is, they had been handed over with that charming age-old country ritual, the rustling of the green paper.

So, back to the map and God Speed, or maybe it was God’s Peed since by then it was bucketing down. We found some tiny lanes over and around the hills, an ancient clapper bridge over the River Dart and some open hilltops where we could four-wheel the Champ around the heather without getting in anyone’s way. We saw shaggy ponies, the first lambs of the year, some Roman ruins, an exquisite derelict quarry, now part filled with a lagoon and looking like the Swiss Alps in miniature. And we decided that maybe this was what getting away from it all was all about. We hardly saw another human being, yet we were still no more than 20 miles away from Plymouth. We learned to live with the 2.5” scale map and to know that when it said ’minor roads in towns, drives and untarred roads’, they were likely as not a sheep walk through a bog.

Back to Tavistock to find a B&B (well if you think we’re camping out in February…), where the local populace were heard to remark that it was a pity they ever did away with national service, noticing astutely the by-now tousled aura of our King’s Road haircuts and the sheep’s jaw relics tied to the Champ by photographer Roger as a sort of charm to protect him from the further madnesses of the editorial staff.

Then off to wine and dine at the Horn of Plenty, just outside Tavistock at Gulworthy, where proprietress Mrs Stevenson performs culinary miracles translating specialities of the French Languedoc into dishes from local produce. We

‘Our spinning wheels coated three members of the pushing party with treacly back mud. Then we broke our third shovel in two days, borrowed from a charming lady in the nearby cottage who also undertook to rinse the beauty mud pack off Trevor’s bird Jill who was beginning to wish she’d stayed at home’

reckon to eat around a bit in London but this dinner left us breathless with admiration – try the mackerel pâté, the langouste and sea food en croute, the hare pâté and the local venison. And all for nearly half the price of equivalent standard in London.

Over coffee, someone remembered a poster in Tavistock which promised the delights of a boxing and wrestling evening at the town hall, open to anyone resident within ten miles of the town. And there was still an hour of it left…

We watched a 6’ 5” farm hand collapse exhausted over the ropes after chasing a 5’ 3” Scots PT instructor round the ring for two rounds, then we got threatened with a good knuckling by the local partisans for our light-hearted support of the same PT instructor who was wrestling in the next bout. Couldn’t understand why they were taking it so seriously – until we saw the size of their knuckles.

Next day, we were away at the crack of 11.30 and by 12 o’clock we had been reported to the Princetown police. Again. The Ordnance Survey aren’t very good at indicating rights of way. And some ways are wrong ways, especially when they go over the local farmer’s land. So instead we wound our way through the hills around a remote reservoir and confused some Army manoeuvres which were taking place in the shrubbery. And ruined some lovely friendships which were blossoming in the backs of cars up country lanes.

Over a 1.5lb lunchtime pasty and pint, we discovered some intriguing tracks which wound

steeply up and down the narrow valley sides of the Tavy estuary and even crossed it in places by means of fords. We found the fi rst ford – about 150yds wide, beneath a spectacular weir and with the river in spring fl ood. We inched the Champ into the swirling current in fi rst gear and four wheel drive. Water lapped over the hubs on the upstream side but the Rolls engine beat on so we continued, congratulating ourselves on the fact that a normal car couldn’t have done that.

Over on the other side, we wondered why we had bothered until we found the narrow cart track which climbed rapidly to about 300ft up above the estuary. We needed four wheel drive for this and the view through the trees to the water would have been worth it had we not had to push the thing to the top.

According to the map, revised allegedly in 1961, there was another ford further downstream. We found the track to it, right along the banks of the estuary, then it got wilder, over grass, through muddy puddles… and just as we were in sight of the remains of the causeway, which must have been impassable for at least 25 years, there was a smelly slurp and we sank to the axles in a thinly disguised bog. And in the distance, the tide was turning in the estuary. Four wheel drive failed to budge us an inch, except downwards, and four spinning wheels coated three members of the pushing party with treacly back mud. Then we broke our third shovel in two days, borrowed from a charming lady in the nearby cottage who also undertook to rinse the beauty mud pack off Trevor’s bird Jill who was beginning to wish she’d stayed at home.

The incoming tide was beginning to lubricate the churning wheels so, cussing Bernard for not having fi tted four new tyres and a winch or two, we called out the local tractor to save us from a watery grave. We’d have given him anything he asked but he refused to lift more than a sheet of green from our muddy wallet. Chastised, we crept back to Plymouth covered in fi lth and repaired to a Chinese nosher to compare notes before getting on the Motorail home. We decided primarily that it is possible to get right away providing you follow a few simple rules: 1) equip yourself well beforehand for all, but all, eventualities; 2) if the going’s getting dicey, get someone to walk on ahead to check that all’s well; 3) if you aren’t sure about rights of way, ask the nearest farmer or check with the local town hall.

But the whole gig was a whole lot of fun – the Champ is an ideal vehicle for this sort of stunt and will take you where a conventional car just couldn’t operate. It’s fairly cheap to buy – about ninety quid upwards – and handles reasonably around town. It’s not cheap to run – about 12mpg the way we used it – but spares are not too much of a problem. The goodly Bernard does a good trade in the London area in the Battersea Bridge Road, with Champs in good running order from £150. Make sure you get the shovel, though.