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THE MAGIC OF MERLIN
The owner of this vehicle also attended the same seat of learning, albeit a decade or so later than myself. Craig Pidgeon and his three brothers, Michael, Grant and Hamish had an upbringing steeped in the wonderful curriculum of the Canterbury Branch of the Vintage Car Club, their father Bruce having a passion for not only owning more than one old car, but an equal passion for driving them. Everywhere and often. It wasn’t unusual to see the whole family of six, and additional hangers on, take three cars away for the weekend, as Bruce was well known for his generosity in lending his cars out.
A further coincidence that should be disclosed is that my first home in 1977 was located directly over the road from Equipe Pidgeon, so I was well placed to enjoy the comings and goings of this motoring family for some 25 years. Bruce had a particularly soft spot for the Fiat marque, and then there was a change of direction and Bugatti became the favoured one. He restored the now well known 37A which I lusted over, and he promised to take me for a spin. I thought he had forgotten, it was well over a
year later and I was home alone looking after our youngest, who at four months of age was just a babe in arms. Bruce suddenly appeared. “Would you like to come for a drive John?” he said. I stammered that I was home alone with a four month old child to mind. “Bring him with you” Bruce commanded, and I did. Snug in the cockpit the three of us despatched Marshland Road in a time that would not be shabby in a modern, then home via the airport back roads.
Which somehow, in a rather roundabout way, sets out some background and brings us to the subject of this article, a 1936 Riley Merlin 12/4, which has been in the same family ownership for 55 of its 83 years.
Its tenure with the Pidgeon family started in 1963, when Bruce purchased it for his wife Adrienne in Gisborne as an everyday family runabout, a forerunner to a Corolla of today. Five years later car and family emigrated to Christchurch. Around this time Bruce spied another Merlin in the then NAC staff car park at Harewood and left a message under the wipers for the owner to contact him. The owner turned out to be Bruce Winder, another well known identity in the Christchurch VCC. This was the start of a lifelong friendship that some would liken to marriage. Both Bruces restored cars together and raced the Ransley Riley (affectionally known as Thunder Guts) and the Brooklands Riley, winner of the 1949 New Zealand Championship Road Race at Wigram. Hill climbs, rallies and race meetings all over the South Island were on their agenda for almost two decades, until Bruce Winder’s untimely death in the late ‘80s.
