Dave picks up Dad’s project

Forty years ago Ken Evans put his first car, a 1932 Austin Seven, in the garage at his Shropshire hillside home intending one day to do it up.

Occasionally he would run the engine to keep things ticking over and at times of increased enthusiasm the Austin would get a polish.

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But Ken never did get round to restoring it. He died last October aged 81. Now his son Dave is on the case to reveal the vintage motor in all its glory.

“I’m 47 and I can remember that when we were kids it used to be outside the house, and we used to play in it. I can remember it going in the garage, and that’s about it,” he said.

“My dad upgraded to an Austin Ten. He didn’t throw much away and I think because there was room in the garage it was put in there.

“He was going to restore it himself, but never did, and it’s been in there ever since.

“He used to run it periodically, starting it up in the garage. He was very clever mechanically. He worked at COD Donnington as a mechanic.”

Dave, a commercial bodybuilder at Bulkrite Truck Bodies of Dorrington, says the Austin Seven is complete and the engine has not seized - turning the hand crank still turns the engine.

“I’m not after a spot-on restoration, just to have it running and MOTd, so I can have some fun in it really.”

An old family picture shows Ken, wife Ethel, and Ken’s sister Mary Evans, with the car - YY 4971 - on holiday in the Cheddar Gorge in the 1950s, and Dave’s dream is to be able to return to the same spot for a new picture with the restored car.

As for the background of the car, which has 19,581 miles (not guaranteed) on the clock and a 1963 tax disc, he has incomplete information. He knows it was not new when bought, and the engine block has a 1932 date.

“I know it was his first car. He and my granddad Jack Young bought it between them, paying £5 each.”

By Toby Neal