12 minute read
Motoring
Motoring End of an era for driveway DIY bibles
By Miranda Robertson booklet about the project, newsdesk@blackmorevale.net drawing all the illustrations In the 25 years my husband produced on a stencil and I have been together, we duplicator sold out in 10 days must have owned well over at five shillings a pop. 100 cars. Later, he helped to fix an I totted them up about 10 Austin Healey Sprite while years ago and reached 70 and doing his National Service in age has not dimmed my little the RAF and realised the grease monkey’s passion for official manual wasn’t a lot of chopping and changing use to the layman. He motors. founded the company in This drives my dad up the wall, him being the type of GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNIN’: John Haynes with one of his many manuals and inset, in his RAF uniform 1960, but it wasn’t until 1965 that first Sprite manual was of YouTube videos out there, you can even pick up produced. No wonder – it the Haynes manual is still the manuals on vehicles from took time to perfect the bible. It feels odd there won’t literature and films, such as format of the pistonheads’ be any more. However with the Doc’s DeLorean time ‘bible’. vehicles getting ever more machine from Back to The These days Haynes manuals complex the company, which Future. Other manuals cover are written by two authors was bought in 2019 following caring for a baby, a Bluffer’s and take between 20 and 30 founder John Haynes’ death, FONDANT MEMORY: Miranda’s has taken the reluctant wedding cake decision to stop producing new printed guides for himself. The 250 copies he chap who cannot be doing driveway enthusiasts.with change for change’s You’ll still be able to order a sake. manual for anything builtBut husband loves messing pre-2020 and newer guidesabout under the will be bonnet. He’s rebuilt publishedengines, changed online, but it is more ball joints the beginning of MANUAL TRANSMISSION: The Haynes publishing HQ and drop links than the end for I could count and those well- Guide to Brexit, and pocket man-weeks. A car or replaced a zillion thumbed manuals for kids for anything motorcycle is bought at the turbos, aided by a handbooks, from sharks to dinosaurs. beginning of the project and trusty Haynes often to be The company is now creating sold at the end. manual. Our found with an ‘exciting and The vehicle is usually wedding cake even black, oily comprehensive new retained for a couple of featured a classic marks around automotive maintenance and months to ensure it is car bought from the SPECIAL DELIVERY: the turbo chapter repair product that will cover functioning correctly after the Haynes Motor John Haynes’ first in our house. around 95 per cent of car rebuild. Museum, with a ever manual The first Haynes makes and models – an The beauty of the guides is fondant me sitting Workshop increase of around 40 per that they show people how to looking brassed off while a Manual was published in cent over our current strip a car completely and fondant, be-kilted Pete could 1965, aimed at owners of the Workshop Manual reassemble it – and people be seen lying underneath the Austin Healey Sprite. coverage.’ loved them from the outset. chassis. It was an instant hit, and Haynes re-built an old Austin The first run of 3,000 copies So the news that Haynes, Haynes has since published 7 into a new special while sold out in less than three based at Sparkford, will no more than 200 million still at school in 1956, having months. longer be publishing any new manuals on 300 cars. The persuaded his headmaster to By the time he launched the printed guides feels like the amazingly detailed cutaway allow him to miss his rugby Haynes International Motor end of an era – if you’ll drawings by Terry Davey lessons so that he could Museum in 1985 Haynes had excuse the pun, a real were featured from 1972. rebuild his £15 saloon. The sold millions of the guides wrench. Haynes has also printed 17-year-old sold the finished and branched out into a Despite the enormous number books on 130 motorbikes and car at a profit and wrote a number of sideline series 68
Motoring as Haynes stops printing new guides
based on that success. There’s now a manual to suit almost everyone, with cooking, history and almost everything else under the sun covered. The manuals are printed in 15 languages – the Haynes Manual is a global phenomenon. The museum was created in the remains of a Second World War American munitions dump in Sparkford. It initially featured 29 of John Haynes’ own vehicles, as he had limited storage of his own, and was ‘beginning to lose track of where they all were’. It now houses nearly 400 vehicles from around the world, from classic, historic and vintage to supercars. For me, there’s nothing so evocative as the smell of an old car, and this is not just a random collection of gleaming steeds standing about for posterity – the vehicles are all driven to ensure they are in fine fettle mechanically as well as cosmetically. Sadly, the museum had to close when Somerset went into Tier 3, but when it reopens visitors are assured of a safe visit. Keep an eye on the museum’s Facebook page or haynesmotormuseum.com for news of reopening and to book.
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Motoring Farewell to much-loved attended pumps
n From front page The café is long gone but over the years the family have added an MoT tyre and exhaust garage, car and caravan sales, a glamping/ holiday cottage site and a gym. Michael’s two sons, sister and nephew own or run these distinct businesses which will all remain open, although the garage will close at the end of February. He believes the filling station could be revitalised with a Spartype mini-market in the existing shop and says he has already had an expression of interest in leasing the forecourt. He added that he would give “serious thought” to the business in the coming months when the future is easier to predict. He cites profit margins on fuel of 3p a litre and insurance premiums leaping to £33k this
Gaunts filling station in 1927
year as examples of increased costs and greatly reduced business due to coronavirus. Michael is ready to hand over the pumps: “I’ve been here 55 years and I don’t want to open a shop or run (the filling station) anymore. I have done my time.” Once upon a time, there were eight filling stations between Shaftesbury and Sherborne. Then came the supermarkets and now there are two. The Blackmore Vale station opened in the 1950s and when Fred and Joan Farrow bought it in 1966, there was no A303 or M5 through Somerset. If Londoners went to the West Country, they took the A30 through Basingstoke, Salisbury and onto Shaftesbury and Sherborne. It was boom time for the Farrows. “We were exactly halfway between London and the Cornish border. It took five hours to drive here, the families would need something to eat and small cars would be just about out of fuel.” The café was also recognised as the first AA Rest Stop on the trunk road, the forerunner of the service stations, and stayed open 24 hours on Friday nights. The family stayed up home cooking throughout the night for Londoners, coach loads of tourists and motor bikers. The café also attracted night hawks from surrounding towns and musicians returning from gigs. Paul McCartney was among those who stopped by to order ham, egg and chips and Leo Sayer put his record on the jukebox so people would know who he was. Mike Farrow still has the jukebox as a reminder of
Honest pricingQuality work Exceptional customer service
Arnolds service station in the 70s
the good times. There were two other stations on the Causeway back then: Gaunts and Arnolds, which both opened in the 1920s. The 1927 photo of Gaunts show a cigarette vending machine right by the pumps. But the independent stations began to wane when Tesco began selling petrol in 1974, just as the small stations were recovering from the 1973 oil crisis, which had trebled petrol prices. Arnolds spotted the change and diversified by opening a shop, which won an award from Shell in 1974. But the supermarket price cutting took its toll. Arnolds and Gaunts stopped selling petrol in 1989 and 1994 respectively, by which time Tesco’s had become the UK’s biggest fuel retailer. On the A30, Arnolds’ second station at Five Bridges and two in Henstridge also closed. Today, only Riverside at West Stour and the Milborne Port station still survive as independents on the road between Shaftesbury and Sherborne.
