A Celebration of the Invacar: Dez Meets 3 On The Column Classic Car Podcast.

Those of you who follow classic car social media will have recently seen a blue Invacar, heading north on the M40 to Gaydon for Rustival 2026. In this podcast episode, we are pleased to welcome, Dez, the owner of this car, as our guest.

Dez expertly takes us through the history of invalid carriages from their inception in the 1890's, through the peak of the Invacar in the 60's, 70's and 80's, to their all but total removal from daily use and subsequent rise as a collectible classic vehicle.

The Invacar is probably the most misunderstood classic vehicle in the history of cars: easily dismissed by people who never owned or drove one, though all of us, who are old enough, remember them well.

Dez is a big fan and a knowledgeable historian of them. He expertly debunks the myths surrounding them and explains why they were so brilliantly fit for their purpose, and why, when they were withdrawn from service, they were missed by many of their drivers. 

Dez keeps his Invacar Model 70 as a daily driver and with good reason: he is a wheelchair user, living in Central London. We think that qualifies Dez as an expert to make the case for the Invacar as a classic vehicle, which should be remembered as a vehicle that was brilliantly fit for purpose.

And yes, they are allowed on the motorway and yes, they can do a steady 60 mph quite happily. Mind you, Dez wasn't flat out that day!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello, good evening. Welcome to another episode of the Three on the Column podcast with Brian Thomas and Andrew Roberts. Hi Andrew, there's a wonderful chap that I met at Rustable a couple of weeks ago, who, with the exception of HubNut, I think is probably doing more than his fair share of work to put a very, very British classic vehicle back on the map. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce Des, who's a look at, who's going to tell us a little bit about his certainly rare car. Over to you, Des. Hello. Thank you. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Hello, all right, hello. Um, as an introducer, my name is Des, and uh I'm a big enthusiast of what's called the InvaCar, which a lot of people remember as small little blue, uh light blue turquoise color, three uh fiberglass three-wheeler, single CSO. Um, built at this table, uh given out for free by the NHS, DHSS, the government back in the day. Uh and I'm a really big enthusiast of these because they are a vehicle that I remember from my very young childhood, it's sat dormant in my mind for a very long time. And then a few years back, I suddenly realized um, oh, I've not seen one of those for 20 years. As I as I get a lot of times when I'm driving mine about the place, but with me, it was like, I wonder what happened to these all. And uh so, you know, because like I said, I remember them. Um uh and I basically fell down a big rabbit hole, which I've been falling down ever since. Um because I realized that a lot of the information that's out there about them is not true. There's a lot of uh false information, uh prejudices and preconceived notions about them that I really quickly realized oh, this this isn't this this is all this isn't right. You know, there's there's a there's a big there's a much deeper story to these things. And uh and uh like I said, uh fascinated me uh from a very young age. Uh one of them that used to live on the street near me, it's one of the very was basically the first car I ever noticed walking as a three-year-old, yeah, with my mum in hand. Uh, I saw this car and I asked my mum, why does it only have three wheels? And she said, because it's a car built for the disabled. Um and it wasn't able to and uh indeed it was an invert car. And um uh yeah, so that's basically like what I'm about. I I researched these vehicles a lot. Um, I have one myself. Um I daily drive it, and as a disabled user myself, I also find it works very well indeed as disabled transport. Um so so that's a sort of I suppose a brief introduction um as to um my general story. Um yeah, so uh then I can shoot off in either any direction.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Do it. Thank you. I I I think the wonderful thing about these cars, um when I was a child, sort of growing up in the 70s, my first sight of them really was when you watch grandstand and you watch the football, there was always these wonderful light blue cars with people sitting in them, sitting actually on the pitch behind the goal. And I thought to myself then, without really knowing what they were about, how cool it would be to have a ringside seat at the football at Chelsea or somewhere like that. And then as I got a bit older, I saw them on the road and I started asking questions and things, and um as I was sort of growing up, I I don't think they were sort of thought of as a particularly good thing, but but looking back on them and actually reading and seeing how people used them and looking at specifications of these vehicles and how they were designed, they were wonderfully fit for purpose, weren't they? Because they came into a um sort of designed and requested by the NHS, they came into a time when they fulfilled a need perfectly because there wasn't actually something else that was giving people mobility, and it was very special for people, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yes, I very much I very much agree with that thought, and that was basically what I had found was um that the thing the thing about the the invalid vehicle, you know. So the old the the what these are known as generic. We well, I say yeah, I say Invocar because that's what people recognise. But InvaCar is actually a one company, Incar Limited, based out of Bentley Essex. Sort of that same sort of became a generic catch, or the same way people say Hoover when you need a vacuum cleaner. Yes. Um, but so I'll just use InvoCar for now. But in general, the Invalid carriage. The thing about that that general thing is it was a class of vehicle that was specifically designed and built for the disabled from the ground up. It wasn't taking an existing vehicle and trying to make it fit and clutches in, and oh, this doesn't work because there's a transmission tunnel in the way or things like that. No, from the ground up, we have you know disabled, and uh and uh to that end, I think that that that that did that very well. And I've always thought now I I one of the things I don't like today is people today seems to try to weaponize Invocar. Um we should give them out to today in place of this, that, and the other. But no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think anything should be given out as punishment or anything like that. No, very much think uh that there is a there is a there is a gap in the market between what mobility pushes on on the small end, so to speak, and you've got proper, you know, you've got modern adapted cars today, you know, which are very good with today's technology, but I do feel like there is somewhere in between for a purpose-built vehicle for people that want that, for people that genuinely want or or need that sort of thing, a vehicle built from the ground up, specifically to get a distinguished person from point A to point B. Yeah, for people who don't, you know, want a really big car today, you know, um, you know, if they're just going to the shops. And so I very much agree, and it's one of those things that I felt very sad for the car. All the um because in the 1970s, the media latched onto it as the thing to hate, so to speak. You know, the way the media and um it got it got a lot of shtick, unfairly so. And it's like um, and I thought that was very sad because as a disabled user myself, I I I have I've I like I said I have an invicar myself, um that I daily drive, and it works very well. And it and and and there are a lot of stories about the disabled users who are very happy with their invicar. Because um, and it should be noted one of the big common misconceptions about it, going back to like people using it as using trying to use an invicar as punishment, give it to all the everybody is one of the things that was often said against the InvaCars, think about the InvoCars as a single seater because it was designed specifically for the disabled person to get them from point A to point B and their folding wheelchair or any other disability implements that they may have. A lot of people say, Oh, how could they give one of these back in the day to a mother of five with children, you know, children to just like the thing to realize is they didn't. If you were a disabled mother of five, even before the motability scheme, they did try to their best take a regular car, often a mini, mini traveller, Morris Minor, Morris Minor Traveller, and some other cars, going as far as to uh they even handed out the Renault 4 because of the the gear change on the Renault 4 came out the um the dash as the dash change and something about the flat four floor that specifically meant that they handed that out for free on the same scheme as as the InvoCar was handed out if if you had multiple humans. But if you were just a a simple, you know, this was a single person who just wanted a vehicle to get from point A to point B, that's what the InvoCar was there for. And to that end, I believe it did the job very well. And it's backed up by the fact that um there was this big outcry about it in the i in the 70s. And so the government basically went, right, if everybody's so unhappy about this thing, we'll just get rid of them all by 1981. And then suddenly there was a really big everybody who the silent majority had been spoken out and went, whoa, whoa, whoa. We really like our InvaCars, we don't want to lose them. That never happened, and it's pretty so and and so many people like their Invicar. So so it was only until 2003 did the last InvaCars, well, 2004 did they come off the road. So to wind to wind back a bit, because I've been rambling a bit, the invalid vehicle ski, so invalid carriages had been around for a very long time. Um we're going back to like the 1800s here in terms of going back always to the what's called the bath chair and oh yeah, yeah. And with a with a basket. It was basically a thing with with a basket, you put somebody in was usually there was something dragging it along, either a person, a dog, or donkey, something, you know. Then this involved into the self-propelled, uh hand-controlled invalid carriage, uh, which was normally um some sort of hand crank. Um right, yeah. One thing you'd fab in front of you with your arms and turn. Right. Or levers that you'd work back and forth with your arms to propel yourself down the road. And then obviously come the turn of you know the late eight uh 18, you know, um you know the late 19th century, you know, 1890s into the 1900s, obviously, you know, engines are becoming a thing, electric uh motors are becoming a thing. And so they did start to uh motorize these. Wow. And so began the motor loop carriage. Um um and uh well, obviously at this point you had to be rich enough to basically afford to buy one yourself. There were grants available from the Red Cross like injured servicemen. There was the obviously the NHS was many years away. Anyways, fast forwarded it uh till there's the formation of the of the NHS in 48, and they obviously realized, you know, there's a lot more wounded pieces people basically, both servicemen and civilians, and they started up what was called the Invalid Uh Vehicle Team run by the Invalid Vehicle Service, the IKS. And it was basically a scheme by these invalid carriages um for free. And right around this time, you had your established players in the invalid carriage market, like um uh Stanley Engineering Co. of Eggham, um, you had Carter Invalid Carriages, um you had Rostelko, um you had Harding of uh RA Harding of Bath, uh not separate from the Bath Chair, that's they're not the reason that the Bath Chair. It's just ham to be in Bath, yeah. And you had these established players, and they were producing a mix of various electric and um petrol-powered machines. And the division between electric and petrol powered was basically if you were if you you were really disabled uh to the point where you couldn't control a fast machine or had problems operating up to levers and things, you've got to give you generally electric and machine was your your market because they normally had a motor that was anywhere between 0.75 horsepower at one and a half horsepower. So you're not going anywhere fast, top speed in the load 10 if you're lucky. Um and they normally very simple controls, um, you know, uh very easy to control. Uh, you could all think of these as the trick to the model schedule in that regard. Uh and then you had the petrol machines where if somebody had a little bit more control and was able to handle it, you know, go a bit faster. But then uh one of the revolutionary things that happened is there was a chap called Bert Greaves had a disabled current, uh cut uh cousin called uh Derry Preston Cobb. And um was very disabled. I think Derry had basically one operable hand, you know, that could do something. The rest of him was you know, couldn't do anything. And um uh Burt um wanted to help him mobilize. So he built for him a one-off invalid carriage. Um but the thing is, he managed to design a petrol-powered thing that could that Burt could control with his one good hand. Wow. They realized there was a market for this. So uh there was a bit of development during the war, but obviously it was the war, they couldn't really do anything. But immediately after the war, they set to work uh commercializing what they called the InvoCar. Yeah, I'm sure, you know, they they they founded the company, and the InvoCar was revolutionary for two reasons. Uh, one, it was one of the very few petrol machines that could be entirely controlled with one hand. So if you had only if you know, they managed to get uh the clutch, the acceleration, the brake, the gear change, all off the board, but one hand and one arm. Um and they also fitted the machine to suit. They paid special attention to they were happy to fit the machine to your disability. Uh it was just a really good product, so they very quickly wrestled, managed to rise to the top spot of the invalid carriage market. And this was also right about when the uh the NHS was formed, and they were looking for uh contracts that were giving out, you know, um, we need a supply of invalid carriages, and uh they so they took an InvoCar in for evaluation along with a bunch of others, and eventually Invocar got a contract, a nice juicy contract, to build Invocars for the ministry. And this obviously allowed InvoCar to grow greatly. Um other companies did get them too, you know. Uh uh Stanley, Stan, uh Stanley with the what's called the Stanley Arcs, they got contracts as well. There was and so that that's just the formation of the the invalid vehicle scheme, as we as most people probably remember it today. Um this is also where uh the preconceived notion uh that all invalid carriage and rubber cars are government owned, which is um the majority, 99% of the ones you probably do see and remember were, but that's not to say that they were exclusively or could only be owned by the government. Well, as I explained, invalid carriages go back way before the NHS was a thing. So anything before 1948 basically was by default a private machine that somebody bought with their own hard-owned cash. And even after that, um, if you wanted to, nothing stopped you going to a manufacturer with invalid carriages and saying, um, please, you know, can I purchase one? And um, certainly in the early days as well, this was still quite common. It it took a while for the invalid vehicle scheme to grow, and uh certainly if you wanted a more luxuriously appointed machine, um, because there there were like um because there was a whole evolution of these machines. Um, most of what people remember will probably be what's called the Model 70, which was the very last line of invalid characters, which is a full-bodied saloon machine, which I'll go into into details later. But the first of these machines, powered invalid characters, well, think of them, they had a very tubular skeletal frame, no bodywork. Think of them like a very motorcycle-looking, like um if you if you go into Google and search Stanley Arton, you'll get a picture of General Think. The Arton was the top the top dog until Invocar came along. And even the early InvoCars were on pack. Again, they had the special support key, they had no bodywork. Then started to become weather protection, which is one of the things that you could get always if you paid extra, but wasn't uh uh a priority of the of the the NHS at first. Obviously, you know, they started the scheme up, and then people were like, Okay, this is great and all, but now we want some weather protection, and we'd like a bit more, a bit this, that. And so the machines evolved. Um, and until eventually uh in the 50s, they started experimenting, various companies started experimenting with creating um invalid carriages with bodywork. Um, Stanley got bought out by um uh C. E. Harper Co. Um and the C.E. Harper sort of they kept the Stanley Arkson name work going, but they came out with a new carriage that was called the Harper, the Stanley Harper. Um Harper Mark I, this had a fiberglass body shell. Um this was in 1950. Um around about this time also came the first uh some people not familiar with a company called Tipping's Letons, they made the Tippin Delta. So up until this point, they were making uh they had a couple carriages, one called the Tippin Coventry and the Tippin Convalite. Uh the Coventry was your basic uh uh look at the same characters as the standard art and uh and the general style. If you look at one, they they're quite different to the yeah, but the general, yeah, and then they they they come out with the tip and delta, which is their fiberglass body machine. But these early fiberglass body machines they still owed a lot to um uh the old style, basically, you know, and then finally in 1957, um industry lays down what I call the 1957 specification, and this is when the full body machine starts getting serious and start becoming looking like miniature saloon cars, if you will. Um in 1957 um uh you get stuff like uh the Invocar Mark X, which is the first uh Invocar on a full body work, uh Invo Mark VI. Um again, this is a very stylish machine. This again, full full saloon body work, looks like a small saloon car. And also, you're probably wondering at this point, but what about AC? Lots of people think about AC, yeah, people will say AC Invicar. Now that's saying that's a bit like saying Ford Voxel, AC and Invicar, completely separate, you know, different companies. But for some reason, the same way that people say Robin and the Lion, you know, people say AC Invicar. But what you're probably at this point, I haven't talked about AC. Now, um, going back to what I was saying about the thing about weather protection, you know, the ministry you know took on board the cons the concerns of you know of of of the people of the time and so and went to AC in the fit in in the late 40s and said, Can you design us a bit of a fancier invalid carriage, something a bit different, something with weather protection and a bit more bodywork? And it was the AC All Weather Invalid Tricycle or Invalid Tricycle, depending on who you ask. So you know, uh some people call it the AC All Weather Tricycle, um, other people just call it the AC Invalid Tricycle. Um, the uh the official handbook I have for one of these just calls it the AC Invalid Tricycle. This was when AC joined the picture. This is when AC first shot. Um, and they came out with this machine. This machine was a big machine, very, very big and heavy, still for a single person, and uh it's also one of the first machines that had space to carry a folding wheelchair uh uh with with the user, although it wasn't quite as seamless as it was in nature machines. Um and this is when AC joined the picture. So they come out with this machine, but it's really big and heavy, it's a bit awkward. In fact, it's so heavy that it's over the weight limit of what's legally allowed to be an invalid carriage at the time, which creates licensing taxation uh issues, headaches for the for the for the ministry. Um and um so they come out with a few of those, um, but then a few of them have issues. Um and AC withdraws basically from the scene um uh for for a few years in the 50s. And then they come back, going back to 1957, they come back with what's called the ACS Tades, which is a totally new machine, but again. It's one of the first of it's the first of the 57 specification where the full body work comes into play. And um by this point, they've standardized on what was known as the Villiers um uh 9E um engine. Um and uh this is also 57 specification is when uh stuff like the dinostart get a a a foot a foothold, which is a a dynamo and a starter in one. Um so yeah, so um so you have you today um the basis this is what the filiage machines as I call them start. And uh so these get laid down, and you know, at first there's a there's a usual happy people are happy with these things, but as always, uh people want more. And this and this is starting in the 60s, is when basically after the mini got launched, and because the mini was launched, you know, um basically as Alec His in the goes, you know, uh Alice Alec is to go in his art to to all the bubble can't, you know, getting rid of them. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, um the disabled fraternity obviously look to the mini as well. Um and and suddenly there was comparatives to this. So this is when the the the there was a bit more the media start to pick up on things and a little bit more talk about, you know, oh why can't we just have a mini? Why can't we hand out minis to everybody? Ignoring the fact that you know to adapt a mini, you know, to to would not make a suitable vehicle for somebody, you know. Try imagine you've got one arm or one one operable hand and you need to try to have a mini. You know, it wouldn't work out, it's not designed, it's not designed for the disabled. No. Anyways, so over the over the 60s, there are iterations on the vineyard's machines. Um by by by by by the start of the 60s, uh things basically um cool down and slow down a little bit in the development, and you get the basic uh, for example, um so AC has the metal-bodied acid, and I call it metal bodied because in 67 they introduced one with the fiberglass body, uh, the metal-bodied acids, uh, Invicai in in 57 have the Mark 10, which is then replaced by the 10, 10A, the 11, and then by 59 is replaced by the Mark 12, the one Mark 12. And then Tip and Delta just keep iterating on the uh the Delta tip and at this point becomes um basically a third horse in a two-horse race between Invoca and AC, and Harper, although they had a very promising vehicle, the Mark 12, uh, sorry, the Mark VI, Harper Mark VI, which certainly set the scene, um, they sort of fall by the wayside as well. They do come out with the Mark VII, which is a remar a revival, which they they just called the Stanley Mark VII at this point. But by this by by the mid-60s, it's all over for Harper. And we're left with basically Itsy Invercar, um Frank Chippins and sounds producing the tip and delta, and uh there's a few other minor concerns like there's um W and F Barrett, who produced the Barrett Midget, which is uh an invalid carriage specifically designed for small people. And this is one of the great things I I I love about the whole scheme, is they they went the ministry went out of their way that it you know, even you know, small people, uh people you know with with dwarfism and things. What if you have one of those classes that has a disability and needs an invalid couch? They went out of their way to specifically get an invalid courage designed and built for this relatively niche market, which again you don't you don't get that today, you know. Anyways, so you've got AC and Invocar. AC has their Aces, uh Invocar has their Mark 12, and there's iterations on that. Like the early machines, for example, don't have glass uh um side windows, it's just a celluloid, celluloid material, like you see on early reliant three wheelers. Then they get glass side windows and bigger back windows, indicators show up, um, heaters join the fray. Um basically by by by the 90s, the mid-60s, things are starting to look very dated. You know, it's it's it's a it's a single jingle villa's by this point updated T11E, but it's a lot of a lot of this can go trace its roots back to the original 1957. So the ministry go to AC and basically say, right, everybody's got you know these concerns and these complaints, and the the the uh the the media are really working themselves up into a knot here. They went to AC and said, design us the best invalid carriage to end all invalid carriages, basically. You know, because you you have experience doing sports cars and things, you know, maybe you know you can do something good. And so AC basically starting development is what will become known as the Model 70. And the Model 70 so happened to also be the last invalid carriage that was basically produced in Britain. So the last one that the ministry would order, you know, after the model 70 ended production, that was the end of the scheme. And uh they basically went to um the ministry basically then turned to Invocar and said, You're gonna have to make model 70s if you still want um to have a contract with us. So this is where the confusion sets in because now you have Invocar and AC producing two identical looking vehicles. And I imagine this is where people think AC Invoca. Right. Yeah, you don't normally, it's like it's imagine if uh Voxville suddenly started producing Morris Marinas. Yeah, it's the same situation, it's not something you normally get, but it happened. Invoca wanted to continue getting contracts, uh and the model 70 was a big leap forward um for the for the invalid carriage because previously with the Villiers machine, you had a single jingle vineyards eight and a half horsepower Viley's two-stroke engine driving a full-speed manual with clutch um in an in a fairly lightweight vehicle. Um and the the Infocar had they got rid of the the Vineyard's uh engine and ended up with a uh an air cooled flat twin engine from Austria by a company called Stur Ding. Stur Butch. I'm probably um butchering the pronunciation of that somewhat. Um we forgive you. Carry on. Uh and they mated this to a CBT automatic gearbox um system. So got rid of the clutch, and had a much more powerful engine, and they uh the vehicle was built much more robustly. Um to give you some idea, the Model 70 weighs 410 kilograms, um, or well 46 to 413 kilograms, depending on where you look and which exact revision of the model 70 you're looking at. For sake, the Reliant Robin, which is a uh four-pizer four-cylinder crew with a car, also weighs 410 kilos. So the model is actually pretty heavyweight, it's lightweight compared to we think of, you know, yeah, still only 410 kilos. But what it is as a as a as a single piece of car, yeah, they they they put a lot of a very robust chassis into it, they put a lot of thought to design. Uh, there was a whole new front suspension developed, a parallelogram front suspension developed for a model 70, which they did take because the development of the model 70 was a lot like the Rootmaster bus, and then it happened at a fairly long active period, and there was a lot of testing involved and a few prototypes, and it was like they wanted to get this right. So uh in the in about 1970, um 1969, they took the front suspension that was developed for the model 70 and said to anyone making Villiers machines at the time, put this front suspension onto your existing product as a holdover until we can get the Model 70 uh up and running, basically. Um so they came up with the Model 70, which were a great leap forward. But by this point, the um there was turmoil in the um uh in the in the oh the media, they were they were running away with it point. You had you've probably people have heard about like Graham Hill, Graham Hill having an information.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Oh yes, indeed. May I into may I join the conversation at this point? Because frankly, I don't want to stop you. You're wonderful. I want to hear more. But I'm going to reinforce what you're saying. Let me, if I may, read to you from AutoCar, 26th of April 1973, and it's about the P70. The technical editor recently drove an invalid carriage at the type issued by the Department of Social Security and was not very impressed, etc. So he writes lots of rude things about it. Um also, and then of course, Graham Hill is seen with the then Prime Minister Ted Heath, because Graham Hill fronted the disabled driver's action group, if I remember rightly. And he was there to promote a converted four-seater car, claiming that it was probably no more expensive, it was actually cheaper to convert an automatic mini than to make the InvaCar. And of course, uh Des, I'd like your view on this. Apparently, the InvoCar was the cause of isolation, domestic tension, and even breakdown of marriages.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah, so um, as I was as I was saying earlier, um on that on that point, um, first of all, if you're if you were a disabled like person with with dependent yourself, like children, you wouldn't get given an infocar. They would give you an adapted uh Morris, Morris Minor, Mini, and some other cars were given that. Um and um the other thing to consider also is that the InfoCar was always considered uh an appliance. It was designed to be a disability aid. So it was designed to help you as a person do your daily things, go to work, go to the shops, in the same way that you don't get two seats uh wheelchairs. A wheelchair is specifically designed to help us a person get from point A to point A.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

So that was it's almost as if the the invalid carriage is an extension of you, like a prosthetic limb, for example. Yes. That it's part of you, that it's going to help you as an individual live a more independent and fulfilling life.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Exactly. So this whole um, you know, I I understand the concern of oh, I would like to take my my my wife with me, um or take my friends with me, you know. Yes, I I understand the concern, but it's also it's like that's not what the Invocar was built for. Um, you know, your friends, your disabled, I mean your able-bodied friends, should you let's say you all want to go to a club together, so you would take your invocar and drive to the club, your able-bodied friends would be expected to make their own way to the club by the car or the bus, or you know, in the same way that if you're going somewhere in a wheelchair, you don't get somebody sitting on your lap. Um they walk beside you.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Okay. Well well, I'm wondering if one of the um and again, I you're the expert and I'd like to hear your views. One of the impetus behind converting a standard small car would be the introduction of the automatic gearbox in a mini, which was available from 64 onwards, which certainly may sh did that spur on people because before then there was no full automatic option on a small British car. The DAF, of course, is from the Netherlands, and the earlier setups were semi-automatic. So did that sort of thing, uh or small car like an automatic mini, and then of course you have the disabled drivers' group saying it's cheaper to convert that than the model 70 by the early 1970s?

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Um, certainly yes. There was that even before the automatic mini, um, well, I think even the regular mini caused quite a bit of attention, you know, expectation of the ministry to do better, basically. And uh certainly once the automatic thing came along, um, yes, but the thing is the ministry issued automatic minis. Um again, so where where somebody needed something a bit more than an invoca, I think going back to a cat, I'll go back to the mother with children, uh sort of married couples, um, especially disabled married couples, um, they issued adapted um um minis, but again, there's only so far much you can do with that because it's you're still taking an existing platform and trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, if you will. Um again, because going back to the Graham Hill thing, the thing that frustrates me is I I you get this even today, got it a lot in the 70s, of they'll take a Model 70 or even a Vinny's machine, and they'll give it to some random person, someone like Graham Hill, you know, or some even just random MP or person, you know, somebody able body, and they'll just chuck them in there for like five minutes. And the thing to keep in mind, one, Graham Hill is used to driving like well wasn't driving sports cars and things. Like, yeah, of course, if somebody's used to you know, F1 cars, they're probably gonna think most other things drive, you know, horribly in comparison. The other thing, of course, the control scheme, the general layout of an InvoCar is completely different to a normal car. There's no okay, there were invocars with steering wheels. If if your disability needed that, I mean, you know, I can explain what the reasons for different controls were. But most of them were telecontrol or handlebars. And it's like it's like taking somebody who's never driven a motorcycle. Most most motorcyclists will probably concede a motorcycle is a fine mode of transportation. They're half Davidson, they're higher booster, they're the SVP 550, which is your plain J, you know, large motorcycle that everybody learns to ride a motorcycle on. Adequately fine vehicle. You take somebody who's never been on a motorcycle before and literally see sitting down in front of the handlebars, they'd probably find it terrifying. They can pop a car do a massive wheelie and end up um you know 500 yards down the road. Um and there's a you get a lot of that within the car. Um people people say it's terrifying, not because of any deficiency with the vehicle itself, it's just because they they they're looking for foot pedals that aren't there. Um, but if you've actually driven one in anger, used one for a long time, you've worked, you've familiarised with the controls, as I said myself, I have an invocal myself, um, which I use, I would totally have one regardless of anything. But I also have mine, because it works really well with my disability, I have through palsy. So um uh I have a lot of trouble uh uh mobilizing it. And the fact that it's all it's all hand controlled work really well for me. Uh handlebars, um, you know, uh, and it's fairly simple, like no with a steering wheel, there's no like twirling the wheel. You want to do a you know uh a tight turn or trying to parallel parking, you're twirling the the wheel around left, right, and you know, oh no, no, no. Handlebars are just basically things your way around comments, it's brilliant. You know, and it's very it's very intuitive once you you know you're familiar with it. And um so yeah, so so so that's what I'm saying. So the mini certainly would have been a good option for some people, but not everybody. And this was born out I and I think this was borne out by the fact that after a while, you know, it's it's starting by by the end by getting towards the end of the 70s, obviously along comes uh the motability scheme, which was uh the charity set up to allow people to lease a regular car and get it adapted uh for their disability. Um everybody wanted. And sure enough, lots of people wanted that for everybody, and it had the ministry pushed their hand on people, they were finally able to say, right, no more. Well, again, they ended the scheme, the InfoCar scheme ended in 1978. That's when they basically said uh no more, uh, we're not issuing them anymore. Except uh if you're a war pensioner, you have the option to choose of InfoCar Model 70 until 1983, although production ended in 78. But this is also why there's quite a few late rich Northern Ireland model 70s that were placed. Um and it should be said that you know, if you had one, if you have an issue, you could keep using it for as long as you wanted to at that point. In 78, the ministry said, you know, because everybody said they're gonna get rid of them all by 81. There was the big outlash, it's all right. Okay, if you have one and you're happy with it, you can keep using it for as long as you want to, yeah, you know, for the foreseeable future. And and it goes to show how many people did, because most people remember these as street furniture into the 80s and 90s. Yeah. Long after the scheme had ended, they stopped handing these out in 78. So by 78, the numbers were only going to go down, but lots of them, because for a lot of people, they were exactly what people wanted. People didn't want a regular, big, regular car, you know. Um you know, um, you know, even trying to get, you know, uh, you know, you may, you know, by by the late 80s or something, by 90s, you maybe get issued a Nissan micro or something. That's even an even a micro from the the 80s is pretty big compared to an invocar. You wouldn't want to try and have to, if you're just going to the shops and back, you don't want, you know, you just want to. So so yeah, so you know, so I think it it was a it was a checks and balances thing. Certainly the people there were arguments against and for the Invocar, but I I think I think again a lot of the media stuff was blown way out of of proportion, and you know, I I think they got a lot of unfair, you know, because I tell that there was a lot of thought that went into the design of the Invocar Um to make it suitable for the disabled. Um and uh and as you say, unfortunately, the the the the the ministry, yeah, I mean the the the the media ran off with it, and then they um then they obviously started the the whole safety campaign about it. Oh, what if you get into an accident, it's not very safe and it crash. Um uh but this is things the ministry did to address later revisions of the Model 70, uh because they did do a series of crash testing with the Model 70 and use the data to you know it was already considered pretty adequate at that point. Um, I mean keep in mind how many other cars of that time period. I'm not I'm not obviously compared to today, it's not based on enacted in any certificate, but compared to I wouldn't want to crash in a mini or two C V anymore. I'd want to crash in an indoor car, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 41:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Um, and that's the thing, isn't it? Um at that time, you didn't have the kind of motor industry five-star safety thing. Um you you're absolutely right. Um cars from the 60s and 70s, their light is behind the cars we have now in safety, and probably would be fairly comparable to an an invocar. And and it isn't just about the structure of the cars. Um there was also comments about you know, they're gonna roll over and kind of but as you touched on earlier, i if you're Graham Hill and you're driving one round of racetrack, it isn't the purpose of that car, is it? So it it's not going to respond well to being treated like that. And for a lot of people, um it was brilliantly fit for purpose, and when you think now of being able to drive into towns and cities and you look on the roads day to day. I mean, when I drive to work, if I see another car that's got more than one person in it, it's like, oh, there's more than one person in a car, and the average commuting journeys is usually with one person on board, isn't it? And you know, people with a disability will be doing those kind of journeys as well. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

This is what I was gonna say, is is it's kind of funny because um now come out like the citrus have come out with the citronamic. The amic is lovely, I love it. And I couldn't help but laugh, or find a lot of amusing. Uh, quite a few people were saying, uh, and some companies were advertising, oh, uh, here's a tsunami with with hand controls adapted for the disabled. I'm thinking, hang on a second. We've we've been here before. And it's like again, I think a s a citron Ami vehicle, but designed specifically from the ground up for the disabled, basically an invitation, would be a very fine thing. I'm not saying instead of motability, no, no, no. I'm not trying to weaponize, I'm not trying to but I say as a middle ground, in between a mobility scooter and a and a full-size motability car, I think there should be a small motability vehicle.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

There's a couple of issues here. I mean, certainly with standard cars, safety became a major marketing tool here from memory around 1967, you know, which was reflecting the federal safety regulations in America. And so you have cars such as Triumph Heralds, you know, sold on various safety features, active safety features such as their and very strong chassis. You have the motoring press emphasizing safety checklists in the motor, you know, sort of like anti-birth locks, seatbelt mountings correctly, so on and so forth. And as this intensified, I think, during the 1970s, any small car that was seen to be vulnerable, not just the invalid carriages, but also reliant three-wheelers, were coming under increasing fire because the culture was changing. So I think three-wheelers anyway in the motion press, um, I mean, particularly some titles seem to have a visceral loathing of them, were always going to be, were always going to be attacked. So that I think, I mean, you know, you cannot take this out of you know context of you know the image of cars at that particular time. I mean, motoring which they were pretty keen on listing car safety features of the moment go in their tests. So as the 70s progressed, and also because this the inble carriage, shall we say its opponents had enough ammunition, possibly, you know, Des may argue through ignorance, but they did have ammunition.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Yeah, yeah, it is, and and it's what it's again, it's one of the things that on the safety front, for example, starting when I say only the late by the late 50s, early 60s, um, all ministry issue invalid carriages uh had a fire extinguisher on board, not because they had a propensity to catch fire or anything, but because it was seen as a safety. A good idea. Yeah. Um and uh how many cars even today have a fire extinguisher? And then and then and then going forward from that, again on the Model 70, like Model 70 was a very robust vehicle. It weighed as much as a reliant robin, but was a single seat of a two-cylinder car. So, in terms of if you had the misfortune of getting into an accident, it generally stood up pretty well. And then further from that, it's funny, the ministry did did send a few to Mira for crash testing, and obviously the media were all over it, you know, they wanted the thought, you know, oh let's see how the Model 70 did Mira. And a lot of people will blame say the ministry tried to stop the reports from being released. But if you look at the Hansard reports, uh, which is a really good source of information, period period uh information, because by this point, yeah, the Model 70 was a very much a government concern. You know, there's lots of talk about it in Parliament. And the reason the Mira report did not initially get released released was um manufacturer uh commercial confidentiality, basically. Um, because it included comparisons with vehicles from other manufacturers and other small vehicles, those manufacturers did not want the report to be released. Um but it was but Mira did say that the the vehicle performed pretty much the same as any other vehicle of its class, any other small class. And again, on the on on and then the ministry took this and used it to improve safety even more. So later model 70s had beefed up um chassis rails front and rear to improve uh protection in the event of a crash. And uh they also had um rollover protection, a rollover bar. Now, this is not to say a model they visit that again because model 70s fall over. Trust me. No, I know a lot of people will see a three minute fall over around the next pen. No, if you drive one like a complete lunatic, you can get real.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

But but then all cars slide off the road into trees if you drive them like a lunatic, don't they? Yes, exactly. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

The only time I ever saw a reliant regal tip over when I was on my way to sixth form. But that's because the driver was an idiot. Complete an utter idiot.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

And and and that's the thing, the the Model 70 had in late is starting from um uh let's see um July uh about uh was it March? Yeah, it's March 1976. I want to say a bit later than that, maybe it's mid-1976, um, had rollover protection. They had a rollover bar. How many cars back then had rollover protection? You roll over an MGB, your face is you know, scraping along in the dirt.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Yes, I think in 1976, and again I'd be very happy if listeners called me wrong, the stag was unusual in having a roll bar. Whereas the MGB, as you say, the MGB were much older designs and didn't have one, etc. Nor did nor did the Spitfire or the TR6 if it comes to that.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Or nor did the Mini that you know you you know it and it's what it's all about. And again, the models, the invalid carriage, they always had seat belts, for example. My Model 70 um has a proper three-point belt, and so did the vineyards machines. And they even issued a false harness, like a multi-point harness. Because if you think about it, if you've got one arm and no other limbs, and regular seat belt isn't going to work for you. But the minute didn't shoot, there was a proper harness for that situation, and again, that that's the sort of thing that the uh, anyways. So this is that's basically I've rambled on for like almost an hour now about the the history.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

We'd like you to ramble on more because it's wonderful, but I think we have to say at this point that you, sir, caused alarm and consternation only a few weeks ago that your image did go, as this modern phrase have it, viral. You made people doubt their very senses as they saw you on the M40. Yes, is this not the case?

SPEAKER_02 51:03

So, as I mentioned before, I have an Invocar, an Invicar model 70. Because as I said, I I remember them when I was very young, and I sort of had a re rediscovery of them because uh I have a very good friend, Zell, who I know through uh other interests. One of my hobbies is I collect light bulbs, and I knew Zell through that. Zell has the same interests as me, you know, interesting old light bulbs and old vehicles. And he had managed to get an in uh model 70, an AC model 70 for himself. And I happened to be subscribed to his YouTube channel. Now it's not a YouTube channel he uploads regularly to or anything, it's just a dumping ground for short clips and things. But being my a friend, a good friend of his, you know, I obviously subscribe to, you know, effectively you know, give him a good stalking, you know, I can see when he's something.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Um which is what's done with YouTube and things, isn't it? All the people that like people are really just stalkers, aren't they? Really?

SPEAKER_00 51:59

And I think he's walking my hobbies.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

He uploads he uploads a video, short video of like a first start of his invalid, if his invocation in in many many years. And I was like, oh, an invicar, I've not seen one of these for years. So as I mentioned earlier, I fell down the rabbit hole, and basically I ended up wanting to get one. I made it my my life mission to get one because I knew that as a disabled person, you know, um, because like life had kicked me to the cow. I'm not gonna go through my whole life story, I don't have time for that. But life had been pretty shitty for me. But I thought, I'm going to get an invocate, I'm not going to let let life bullshit me out of this one. I worked very hard and eventually through um, unfortunately, no longer with us, but there's a very nice lady called Jean Hammond. She founded with her husband, I think it was Edward Hammond, the Hammond Microcar Collection. They used to be a little museum, private museum of sorts. Um, I think it's been split up a bit now. But um uh the basically part of the form, there's a there's a slightly sweary forum I'm a part of called the AutoShite Forum of the figure there. Very good. Because we all like cars that nobody cared about back in the day. The Morris, you show up with a nice beige Morris marina, and you're gonna be very popular there, for example, to sum it up briefly. So obviously, I'm there with my Invocar fascination. They arrange a private uh private visit to this museum. I show up there and I get talking to Gene. And I mentioned obviously I'm looking for an Invocar. I'm really enthusiastic about them. I keep a list of all the known surviving Invocars, I try and find new survivors. I'm always there to help people out who've got one. If you've got an Invocar and you've got a problem, let me know. I'll gladly help you out with it. So, but obviously at this point I'm looking for one. And Jean very kindly says, I've heard that somebody I know is selling a couple of them. And sure enough, proper old-fashioned word of mouth, she takes my number down on a piece of paper. Basically, end up uh with my very own Model 70, which um was sold to me as more or less roadworthy. Turned out it'd been off the road for 20 years. Because um I uh I had an insurance document for that. It said uh from 2002, and mileage on that was ending in 71. Mileage on the car when I picked it up was 72 on the end of the uh Domus. So I'd done a mile if that in 20 in 20 years. So obviously it needed a bit of work, and that itself was a journey in itself for various reasons. The pandemic gets in the middle of it, blah blah blah. I'm again, I'm I'm not I I've disabilities my own mic, so and uh, you know, my my situation, you know, is is difficult to say the least. But thank some very kind people on the forum helping me out with it, and eventually get the invocar. Uh back on the road in uh late 2020 four. Uh my invocar is REG 451R, uh Romeo Echo Victor 451R, uh Romeo. Um, and if this sounds a bit familiar to you, if you've seen the Ali G in the House, that film from 2002. Remember there's an Invocar at the start of that where to show off Ali G as the douchebag protagonist uh that he is, and the show of him taking the disabled spot from somebody driving an invicar. That is the Invoca that I own. Uh if you remember what happened to that one, I've got it now going as well. Fantastic. You've got a film star car, I love it. Maybe consider it a bit of a lame claim to fame, but it think the thing though, don't matter what I was saying, um, 99% of the influence characters by this point, model 70, you know, all the model 70s were were built for contract for the government. But again, you could go to AC or Inficar and say, I'd like to buy one, please. And they would tell you what, very few people did by this point, because why would you when you could get one for free from the government? But what, as I call her after the first three lessons of I would treasure mark, she was one of these examples that were bought privately, and that's how my particular example, A, got into the movie, because there's no way that the government would let someone know. Maybe like that, but because it was privately owned, it could have made no sense. And it's also how mine survived. Because when the government government's policy with these was to always destroy at end of life. Um, now the majority of the ones that do survive today are government ones because they all managed to sneak out the back either sneak out the back door somewhere, or because they were fiberglass, they just sat around in a scrapyard for 20 years, 30 years, forgotten about until people like me come along um and rescue them. Um but my particular example did survive because it was a private example and the government had no say over it. So I finally get that back on the road. And um and I've been running about with it. Uh I've done over um over two and a half thousand miles in it since late 24. You know, about I think it was like October 30th, I got it, got it back um finally, like properly, and it's been a bot send. Um until this point, I'd been housebound due to my superpolvy, um, because I don't get on well with public transport at all. But the invocar works really well. And I I live in central London and it works really well. It's small, it's automatic, it's got hand controls that work really well for me. I just uh bomb out the place, you know. Um I hop in and drive, and it's been pretty much um very reliable. The only issues I've had with it, um um, I've only had three breakdowns in it. Uh one was that the original CVT drive belt uh snapped, which was my fault because that was one of the things that I never got changed on the car until it snapped. So the belt could have easily been 30 years old or for it been on the list uh, oh I know I need to proactively change it, but I never got round to it until it snapped on the M25. Okay, got recovered off the M25, got a new belt on there, put a new pulley on there for sure. Uh the other one I had was a snap throssel cable, which is one of the things that happens in any car. Doesn't help the cable in Rev is about 10 feet long, but uh, you know, uh got that got that sorted with minimal fuss. And then the other the only other breakdown is the replacement CBT belt I I fitted, that did go pop um about 1300 miles later. And we think that may have just been either bad luck or because the belt itself was old stock. It's old stock anyway, yeah. So I I've made sure to procure, but otherwise, no problems with the with the vehicle itself. That's the only time and like I said, well, the second time the belt went pop, uh the recovery man was able to just put a new one on on the side of the road, and I was able to continue my journey.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

So, what's it actually like to drive?

SPEAKER_02 58:49

Um, it's pretty fun. It's perfectly um capable. Uh it's not scary at all. Um, it certainly is a bit loud at speed, I won't deny that. When you're bombing at miles an hour, it is pretty loud, though. Recently I've got a pair of a nice pair of ear uh ear protection bars. Even why it's a testament to how well it does cruise on the motorway. It was never built to be a motorway cruiser. Yeah. The fact that it still happily do 200 miles up and down the end or even 50 years later, my car is from 1976, so it's 50 years old, been through who knows what in its lifetime, it still does it just fine. Yeah. Um, it's perfectly stable. I'm not being blown off the road. You know, yes, if a tra high if a high top transit van doing 90 miles an hour looms past me, yeah, I do get rock rocked about a bit. But it's not like you would in anything, yeah. But it's not like I'm suddenly finding myself getting blown across three lanes of traffic. And even overtaking lorries is just not a problem. Yeah, I can feel the wind uh uh coming off the lorry, but it's oh, there is some wind. It's not, oh my gosh, I'm fighting the wind trying to it's perfectly, perfectly it does it perfectly fine. And like I said, around town, around London, it it's it's it's it's perfect because it it it's love running around town is basically the ideal conditions for it, it's what it was built for. Um and uh as mentioned, I went to Rostaville recently, uh which was a 200-mile round trip up the M4C and back down the M4C. And uh I was somebody somebody managed to grab a picture of me on that and posted it on one of the big there's a bunch of there's a whole bunch of like Facebook pages out there, public pages about like if you see an old car on the road, you post it there. And somebody posted it there, and the comments because because there are so many preconceived notions about this, so many people, um, and there's a very common misnomer that these were banned from the road. They just stated on the vote, no, that was never the case. It was what happened, it's the same way that the way London Transport withdrew all its bootmaster buses and got rid of them all, so it's the same that deemed the car. The ministry went, right, in 1998 they told all the existing users by 2003 we're getting the last, you're gonna have to do jump to something else. Is it we we we no longer want, you know, we're finally washing our hands of these once and for all. And so they all came off the road to be scrapped, but there were never there was no legality over saying you can't drive an invalid carriage through. Again, keep in mind there were privately owned examples. You couldn't go to a private individual who paid their own hard hard-owned cash and tell them, sorry, your vehicle's illegal to drive on the road now. You know, um, you know, the government property ones were government property and they like to destroy them all. But those that survive to this day can be put on the road. The ministry basically, the government doesn't care about them. They basically are no longer government property, basically the same property of the scrap that took the contract in to destroy them, and then the vehicle service itself doesn't exist. The governmental department, it's like saying uh um imagine you've got like uh uh something that's a uh government uh uh property of the Ministry of Silly Walks, but then they give silly walks, then what is it property of? You know, um you get you get the idea. That's basically what happened with the few that survived. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

And now and now for something completely different.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

Yes. Um so so again, on this Facebook post, so many people like, oh I thought these were all banned. Uh again, a lot of people think they've been very fast, but again, it's it's more to do with the people that often had an invocar was a disabled person. So quite a few 16-year-olds and young people ended up with them back in the day, and they were certainly driven like menaces, like a 16-year-old do. Because as a 16-year-old, you can legally drive a disabled 16-year-old could drive an InvaCar. But some Bright Park, when they set up this law to govern mobility scooters, which was to lay linked down in the chronically sick and disabled act of 1970, um, they also called mobility scooters invalid carriages. So now you've got this confusion, you've got laws for invalid carriages and laws for invalid carriages. You see the here? So lots of people confused, but no, the laws for an original invalid carriage are still in place. Uh and this is where the motorway comes into it. Because I was pictured on the M40, and a lot of people have this notion that you can't drive an invalid carriage on a motorway. Sure enough, if you look at some old pictures of motorway slip roads, you'll see signs say no drivers, no moped, no motorcycles uh less than 50 CC, no animals, no invalid carriages. And so you might ask, surely what you're doing is illegal? Ah. But remember one other thing about the weight of the Model 70 and going back to the AC or weather tricycle how it was over the weight limit of an invalid carriage. Because the legal definition of an invalid carriage has a weight limit in it. A legal definition of an invalid carriage for the motor act like that, the vehicle that is designed and built, not merely adapted specifically for some sort some person suffering from some sort of defect or disability, not and the vehicle not weighing more than 254 kilos or 500 weights. And that is what the no invalid carriages on the motorway signs apply because the model 70 weighs well more than 500 weight, 254 kilos, it's not considered an invalid carriage for the road traffic act. And it's considered, depending on how many wheels and how much it weighs, it's either considered a motorcycle or a motor car, depending on specifics. Um, and that's how it's perfectly legal to drive one on the motorway, and always has been. Um, and if you look at the it's funny because for as many people as there were, oh, you can't take one on the on the motorway. There were people commenting saying, Oh, no, no, I had one back in the day. And sure enough, I did get some police officers who never came to anything because I was legally allowed uh to be there, you know. Wow. Um, and that's one of the fascinating things I find about the invalid carriage, the British Invalid Carriage, there are so many facets and details like this. And it's why also, if you look at the logbook for an invalid carriage or vehicle model 70, until recently, the body type would say invalid vehicle and not invalid carriage, because uh what an invalid vehicle is isn't necessarily always an invalid carriage. More recently, the DVLA have changed this to say. Mobility vehicle, but the same the same applies, you know. Um so there is an important distinction here. Um, and um, and again, it it's why if you look at the MOT exemption form, the V112, there is a separate checkbox for an invalid carriage weighing no no more than 306 kilos because the law and govern w when an invalid carriage needs an MOT has its own weight limits. See, um so there's the whole fascinating um uh and so yeah, lots of people on the internet freaking out about that. I'm on the motorway. I can't believe again, I can't believe that I was cruising at 60. Again, uh we'll will happily cruise at 60. Um it's just that a lot of people have this notion they think of an invalid carriage, they think of an old grandma driving one.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

I think of the young which which is not you, is it? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

Yeah, you have to forgive this this whole ramble has been a bit of uh what's the call? Uh a bit defensive in some regard, but if I've ever sounded a little bit angry at times, it's because in some regards, I am annoyed at the uh but that's still what I'm here for. I'm pleased that I've been given this option, this uh uh this this this window of opportunity to debunk some of the bits. Um as you can tell, I in the earlier parts of this podcast, I've you know, I've I've researched a lot about their history. Um you know, I've talked with um I have a very good friend of mine. Uh his name is Stuart Stiphers. He's like the predecessor to me. Um my my my my good friend um Stuart Cyphers also, he spent many years um um researching the carriages. Um and uh he was very happy when I came along because suddenly there was somebody else who actually took these enthusiastically. Um uh you know, we've done lots of research together. On the author type form, I've got a big 500 page thread and know that's not an exaggeration. I do where I basically use a big running blog of sorts of especially the first part of it of me researching. I yeah, you can take that from page one when I didn't know the slightest clue about infant characters, uh just passing and finding out more about them, and I realized that I'm all I'm I'm sort of on my own here. You know, and until I came across Stuart, especially, I was on my own. I had to I had to really uh knuckle down and figure out what these were. And this is why I find them so fascinating because they have they are such a misunderstood vehicle. Well, I feel sorry for the for the tight, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

Um I'm really really pleased that you feel you've had a platform on these to give these wonderful cars a bit of publicity, a bit of respect as well. Because for a product that was produced for its end user, it's certainly stood the test of time, hasn't it? And um you're proving that by uh using one daily. So I suppose we've kind of got to wind this one up a bit, really, time-wise. Um, but one question, which I think I know what you're going to answer. If the government said to you, here's a nice 26 plate version of what you've got now, or you can have an everyday car, what would you like? What's your answer gonna be? You can have a new model 70, brand new 26 plate, or a normal car.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

I would I'd take the model 70. I thought you might say that. You know, it's it's not just it's not just the because I'm an enthusiast. You know, in the same way that if you told somebody who was reading into escort, if you take a plan in your escort, of course they would have as a disabled person, like I said, uh the the the disability adaptations of the my model 70 with its handlebars worked really well for me. So I wouldn't wouldn't have it any other way as a um, you know, it it's one of those things. Um I do happen to have I acquired um at the start of this year very much on a whim, just because I do have an interest. The invalid carriage, the invad car is my main focus, but I do like all sorts of old cars. That's a sort of thing I you know it comes with the territory, and I'm very enthused. And somebody was selling uh a Vanden Pla 1300 S, also Massive. Oh wow, okay very good price, and you know, I knew the history, I'd been following the car on its journey, and I thought, oh okay, I'll you you know, uh I'll just I'll just go for it, you know, because yes, there's the considerations of okay, I'll have to look after it, I'll have to pay for parking and insurance, but yeah, yeah, yeah, uh you know, uh um what's the what's the right to have uh I'll I'll you know to to hell with it, you know. I'll just just chill. And that that that that's to the credit of the car itself, well, apart from the fact that it's recently eaten a wheel bearing, um, it's funny. I do 200 miles around in the Invercar, that handles it no problems. Um I do 145 miles round in the Vandon Twa. It sprang a massive oil leak at the show. Thankfully, the critics kind members of the 1100 club um sorted them out for me at the show, the 1100 club gathering that they were having. Uh I went to fill it up with petrol, put a bit of petrol, uh, but thankfully that stops itself. And then on the way back on the M40, it ate a wheel bearing. So I'd say the Model 70 is done much better than the one. Yeah. Apart from that, it it's done fine. You know, I I mostly use that to get help my mum get about the place. But it even that has an automatic, you know, you know, uh, which helps a lot. Um it's still not as good for me to drive with the invicar because the invicar is a lot less painful to drive, like physical pain, than the land apart. I can drive the van part, I can even drive cars free. I I do have a manual driving license, I can manage. But the invicar is just that much easier. If I'm doing on my own, um take the invicar. Um, hence why, yeah, when it was like, okay, it's a rusty well. Yeah, I I thought nothing about um 200 miles up and down the infrared. I didn't really do any, it wasn't it wasn't like I took the vehicle to a workshop garage and got them to go. No, I just I made you got in and drove it, yeah, like you would any other car. Yeah. I checked the tire pressures, I checked that all my lights worked. Cool. It starts, it drives. I set I set the sat nav and uh you know I went.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:52

Um fantastic. Well that sums it up, really, doesn't it? Thank you. It has been absolutely amazing. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Um I hope you I hope people do enjoy it. Again, if I if I appear Yeah. If I appear a bit uh complaining complainative in some of these, again, it's just it's just my anger at the the media of the 70s and people's misconceived notions about it. So I should be said for as much negativity as there is about the InvoCar, when I am driving about it, people have nothing but positive things to say about it. It's either, oh my gosh, I haven't seen one of these in a million years, and that's amazing, or I have no idea what this is, it's amazing. Can you, you know Tell me about it. When I show people the disability functions, the functions that for the disabled car, like the like when I get out of the car and I and I it's got sliding doors, for example. Get out, you know, the doors aren't up, you know, they don't swing away from you where you can't get to them, you just slide forward. People are like, oh my gosh, it's got sliding doors. And then I put them the fact that it's got a seat that you can pull to slide to the curb and transition from your wheelchair into the seat, slide the seat into the central driving position, and pull the wheelchair in with you into the folding wheelchair, and drive off. People, you know, people generally rightfully so are very positive about it. So, yes, I just I think I think it is it is, yeah, and I'm pleased. And that's one of the things that that's nice about driving it is bringing your smile to people's faces. You can have somebody who's having a whole commute, um, but then they see you drive past in the invocation, suddenly they have a smile on their face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:41

Um anything that brings pleasure to the roads these days is good by my standards, I think, definitely. So uh thank you. It has been absolutely amazing. Um we wish you a very good evening, and um yeah, it it's been an incredible story, and uh I think you've uh definitely done these casts justice this evening, don't you think, Andrew?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:09

Absolutely. We look forward to meeting Des at the next Rustable.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:13

Definitely, you'll be going, won't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:15

Uh we'll all be in well, yeah. I think I think the next one's in oh I don't know, it's later this year. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:20

September the 26th, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

Yes, I I should be uh I should be uh it's only another 200 miles. I've done that before.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

Oh, it's easy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:35

It is uh like very kindly a few people at Rust of all push me about in a wheelchair, which I'm very thankful for. Thank you to everybody who uh accommodated me that um um so we'll yeah it's all very much uh will depend on how how things are feeling, etc. Um but the uh yeah, which is one of the reasons why I drive the Invocar where I can, because it it leaves me with that little bit more pain budget to play with for doing other things compared to you know the van and plough, for example, which which leaves me in a bit more pain, you know, you know, you know, it's it's yeah, so so we'll see. But I do I hope I hopefully hopefully we'll be well. Um I'll I'll I'll see about rest of all and uh um you know um it was certainly well received uh this time. So uh uh yeah I hope yeah at some point I hope to get I have a bunch of other friends who do have Uber cards. I do hope at some point that we can get them all together.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:31

Get them all there, yeah. Definitely. That'd be absolutely amazing. So uh thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:38

No problems. I and all the very best. And remember, like and subscribe. Oh yes, yeah, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:48

I do have to mention our friend Dan Ferrari Ford um with his YouTube videos, and uh he's just done a YouTube video on the Ford Festival in the Isle of Man. So you can find him on his YouTube channel, and uh I did promise him that we'd mention it because he actually mentioned free on the column on his YouTube. So thank you very much, Dan. And I know you're a regular listener, so uh we've gone from fast forwards to um in the cars, so um, we we definitely want to cover all these types of vehicles, so uh but only if we've got brilliant guests, and we definitely have one tonight. So uh thank you very much. All the best. Cheers, guys.