Tag: Alan Bellamy

Bellamy’s Brasilia Blues

This update on Alan Bellamy’s Brasilia was prompted by a family outing to Bug Jam at Santa Pod this summer. We were walking from our car to the track side when the junior member of the family announced “look there’s a Skoder Nash”. Ignorant boy, it wasn’t “a” Skoder Nash it was “the” Skeetle, don’t they teach them anything at school these days?

What we didn’t notice at first was the car behind, Alan’s rare Brasilia, looking very normal beside Dave’s creation and all the other wild rides nestling in the Bedfordshire countryside. It’s quite a few month’s since Alan finished the rebuild and all has not gone smoothly. The first event was the Lands End, when the Brasilia started to run roughly on the way to Popham. Alan stopped to tinker and the so and so absolutely refused to fire up again. Suspecting fuel starvation Alan squirted some jungle juice directly down its throat(s) and turned the motor over. It duly spat the fuel back out of the carbs and the wiring caught fire. The Brasilia was on the retired list before reaching the start!

Once the wiring was remedied the original problem had to be fixed and it was an interesting one. If the Brasilia was left overnight it would fire up and run OK for a while, then cough and die, defying all attempts to re-start. However, if it was left a while it started quite readily again. But would only run a short while before repeating the whole ghastly sequence. Finally Alan found the problem. Have you guessed? That’s right, there was a piece of paper in the brand spanking new petrol tank. It got sucked over the tank outlet, starving the engine of fuel. However, as the petrol pump stopped sucking the paper would eventually float away, allowing the motor to start again. Boy oh boy!

Anyway, the tank problem was all sorted out in time for the Manx Classic, so it was off on the Steam Packet to the Isle of Man. It started well, but half way through the event the engine started a terrible knock which Alan finally diagnosed as a small end on the way out. He retired and limped home, with Dave Nash in close attendance in case the Brasilia expired on the motorway. Surprisingly things didn’t get any worse, but the noise continued, and Alan prepared to rip the motor apart as soon as he got home. No sooner he taken the silencer off when it clanked and rattled as he put it down. You’ve guessed, the “small end” was a loose baffle. Nearly as bad as when I retired from the Edinburgh with loose wheel-nuts!

This was soon sorted and off went entries for the  Testing Trial and The Edinburgh. During the Testing Trial the gearbox started to lock up and Alan discovered that there is terrible play in the diff that needs investigating. Meanwhile the linkage to one of the carbs broke and couldn’t be mended on the spot. Alan set the tick-over up high on the offender and drove home using the other carb!

No time to fix the diff before the Edinburgh. But look out for Alan as he will be driving his familiar Type 3 Fastback. As my friend Rowland Derry used to say when things were not going so well “it’s good here in’it”.

Alan’s new tank came from a VW part’s outlet in Venezuela. This guy can supply practically any Brasilia part except the front wings. The phone bills not to much of a problem, as Alan uses E-Mail to contact him, at the cost of a local call. It’s just as well that Alan found him. Just imagine the reaction of your local VW dealership if you went in “got a tank for a Brasilia squire”.

We have been publishing stuff about Classic Trials on the Web since 1995 and always appreciate feedback. Comments, Corrections, Criticism & Concerns are all welcome. You can leave a comment to have your say here on this web site or our Social Media

The Skeetle – by Alan Bellamy

Have you noticed how most modern cars look the same. Ford or Fiat, Rover or Renault, from fifty yards it’s hard to tell the difference. It’s the same with trials machines. It’s all Beetles, Escorts, Marlins and Troll/Cannon/Dellow. When you do see a new special they tend to be what Tom Threlfall calls a “Latvian tractor chassis with a Beetle engine”. (Letters to Tom please, not me!).

Into this dull world come a couple of characters who liven the scene with something a bit different, Dave Nash and Alan Bellamy. Alan has campaigned a VW Notchback in class six for quite a few years and is currently restoring a Brasilia. After a few years with a very rapid Rapide, Dave Nash embarked on some special building. Here is the tale, told by Alan Bellamy.

The completed Skeetle has yet to be blooded in competition. It has a really super paint job. Will it compete in class seven or eight?
“Noddy” at the top of Calton on the Edinburgh in 1994, before the ruts were filled in. Afterwards Dave re-painted the car a conservative blue out of genuine concern for Alan Foster’s blood pressure.

“Nashy tells me you want to write about the Skeetle.  Well here’s how it all started, from my point of view.  Many years ago, like 35,  I used to do a bit of mud plugging.  Dave was quite a bit younger than me, so he could only come and watch.   I went on to have a go at many other forms of motor sport and lost touch with Dave when he moved to Milton Keynes.

Eventually we got together again, about eight years ago, when I was looking for a navigator for the Lands End.  Dave really enjoyed himself and decided he had to have a go himself.  I was the one with the work shop and tools but it was Dave who had the enthusiasm.  His step-father was a Skoda main agent so Dave decided to support the marque and use one of the Czech rear engined machines for his Classic attack.  We talked about all sorts of ideas and mods, mostly on the long drive home after MCC events.   We could see the potential and started with an ex autocross car from Holland, but the cam was a bit too hairy.  Then came a lovely blue car, which unfortunately ended up losing a head on clash with a fire engine!!!!

Next came the yellow car, and we really started to modify this machine.  However the main problem we had was getting a good power to weight ratio.  A tweaky cam was necessary to get the motor to produce any decent power but this was all at the top end and we wanted it lower down the rev band. So one day on our return from the Lands End we dreamt up the car that ended up as Noddy.  We had the opinion that removing all the interior trim would help to bring the power to weight ratio more in our favour.

Unfortunately we got a bit carried away and ended up removing 24 inches out of the middle of the car.  When we welded it back up again we eliminated all non-essentials, including the roof!  This had the desired effect and with the engine from one of the later Skoda’s went very well, picking up some medals on the way and setting FTD at the Testing Trial.  With my uncle having been the work shop foreman at Frazer Nash for over twenty years, and Dave’s surname being Nash, it just had to be Skoder-Nash .   When it was finished it looked just like Noddy’s car so we painted red blue and yellow!  Unfortunately some MCC luminaries didn’t share our sense of humour so we re-painted it in a conservative shade of blue.  Noddy hated his new colour and detached himself from the A frame while being towed home from the paint shop to the detriment of his body work!

We wanted more power so we started looking at bigger and more powerful engines. The Fiat twin cam was the top of our list, the question was would the gear box take the power?   After much debate it seemed obvious that a new car was going to come about.   With Dave’s passion for Skoda’s and mine for VW’s a bit of each seemed the way to go!  So the Skeetle was born.  Dave managed to get hold of one of the original Skoda Cabriolets, and we eventually married it to a Beetle floor pan.   Now we needed a 1600 VW engine and one came along thanks to a rather rusty Brasilia from Andy Clarke.  Dave wanted to take the engine out and scrap the rest.  But I managed to talk him out of this by giving him a good type three motor.  This fits well and gives a lower centre of gravity and more room in the boot area (enough for a spare wheel to be mounted over the engine).

Well, that’s about it, two years later the Skeetle is on the road, registered as a modified Beetle it sports a 25 year exempt tax disc.  What shall we do now?   There’s a Brasilia to finish, well that’s another story.”

We have been publishing stuff about Classic Trials on the Web since 1995 and always appreciate feedback. Comments, Corrections, Criticism & Concerns are all welcome. You can leave a comment to have your say here on this web site or our Social Media