Four Wheels Good

I've always been a sucker for a good looking piece of automotive art. As an avid reader of Custom Car back in the '70s I was entranced by the lines of any '57 Chevy Bel Air and gobsmacked at my first up close & personal viewing of a jacked up Ford Model A compete with full chrome axle in the backstreets of Oldbury.

Sadly, my teenage income didn't run to bagging either of these and I had to make do with turning a standard 1100 escort into a Mexico lookalike (complete with padded velvet door inlays, a Ghia interior from the scrapyard and a recon engine topped with chrome cover).

There's very little I didn't fix or tweak on an Escort, Cortina, Fiesta or Mini back in the day - even down to prop shaft replacement and engine installation on a rain-soaked driveway.

But modern cars leave me cold - coupled with the lure and relative affordability of making a bike my own.

But this one I like.

I spotted this hopped-up Herbie during summer runs & recent visits to Wetherby and finally found time to snap it for posterity. Turns out that while we've never met, it belongs to a friend of a friend of a friend.

And very tidy it is too.

I've always loved VeeDubs. This one has inspired me to drop in to the annual VeeDub do at Hareward House in 2015 - a tad more interesting for me than T'Tour De T'France start held there last summer.

Two wheels without an engine? What's the attraction in that...