Tag: Buckler

Bucklers at Long Lawford by Stan Hibberd

After a certain amount of uncertainty due to the foot and Mouth epidemic, The Buckler Register staged it’s 2001 Buckler Day and Road Run at the Memorial Hall Long Lawford Rugby. The weather was perfect close to 30c, and nine Buckler cars from bare frame to road legal turned up to take part. Our friends from the Ford Sidevalve OC also brought three cars, the tea pot never ran dry all day and a lot of interested people visited to chat and look at the cars.

Bucklers, and an interloping Dutton!, basking in the sunshine at Long Lawford.

It can fairly be claimed that this Buckler Day ranks with the 40th and 50th Anniversary days as one of the best events staged by the Register. In common with those other memorable days the weather was brilliant, also as in those events we had a road run. This in my view is important. Only by encouraging cars to be driven to and at events are we able to increase the number of road legal runners. Also on show were three examples of the Buckler chassis building art. The Mark V rolling chassis of MYG 10 was brought by Ken Green and Chris Hackney, the rebuild of this car should be fairly rapid as Chris is keen to have running it on the road in next years road run!! Brian Malin brought his hybrid Buckler chassis, which we think was intended to have a Ford V8, fitted. As part of the build up to the event my DD2 frame was collected from the lock up and Red Oxide applied by Messrs. Hackney & Green and Hibberd to the replaced tubes in order to make it look a little decent to illustrate what a light strong space frame should look like. 

The roadworthy Bucklers present were Keith Ambrose in the pretty Peco DD2, 800 KBH, Keith retains the Pete Boswell trophy for another year for driving the car up from Bristol. Brian Malin, Mark V BLY 618, Ken Green Mark V DFB 140, the Boswell family brought their Mark VI JVS 347 from Thatcham. My own Mark VI NAC 344 making the shortest journey to the event. One of the things that made every Buckler owner envious was the Mk5 (KBL), brought down from Blackburn by Trevor Anderton, Henry Allen spotted this car in Lawford on Saturday, he ‘phoned me to say that Bucklers were arriving, it was a nice surprise to see the car with it’s very complete history. 

Our visitors from the FSOC were Alan Hart from Shipston on Stour with a very pretty 1962 Ford 100E saloon, John Porter from Nuneaton with a Siva tourer. C. Hammond from Hillmorton came in his Shirley Mk 2 and Rob Daniels visited, but was unable to bring his Rochdale. Keith and Claire Oakes were invited and turned up with their Dutton trials car. Both Keith and Claire go back a long way to the 1960s with the Allen Bucklers in trials, right up until the Dutton arrived and began to do the business for them. 

Everyone turned up pretty promptly, and when we had found parking for all the cars and trailers it was time for our Road Run to get under way. Rhona took the little green car for a spin round the village, sadly the car suffered a repeat of its prop shaft problems, which had led to it arriving on a trailer, so JVS was out of the run. Brian Malin disappeared in his Mark V to get petrol just as the run was getting under way and nothing further was seen of them until the run was over. Henry and I ambled off in NAC dispensing with the route card, as we knew the route, having traveled round it time or two. When we reached the Canal at Willoughby we paused for a few minutes and were joined by two Buckler Mark V’s. Ken and Chris in DFB and Trevor and Steven Anderton in KBL. The narrowboat Martin E arrived with my family aboard, so we had liquid refreshment and chat on board before resuming our wander round the leafy lanes.

A little while later we found a Buckler DD2 in a gateway and it’s driver round the corner in the pub, so we paused for lunch with Keith Ambrose. Also in the posh bit at the pub were Rhona and family but we settled for a very good and reasonably priced Ploughmans in the bar. During lunch I was lectured on the difference between a right and a left turn, funny how we all managed to end up in the same pub. I think my mistake had the cars running around a bit on the approach to Shuckborough, my claims of deliberate mistake didn’t go down too well. Then the highlight of the day for me. Our little convoy of Bucklers then set off toward Lawford and the finish, we all enjoyed the drive “home” it’s nice to drive our Bucklers but it’s much more enjoyable in company with three others. Trevor Anderton described it today as ultra relaxing. 

Back at base in the Hall lots of interested visitors, both enthusiasts attracted through the Internet, and several locals who came and looked round. Tea and snacks went down a treat, plenty of chat, David Hayes drove down from Manchester and identified his Buckler car (so far unseen by the Register) as being a modified DD2 with alloy body. Geoff Roe from Nottingham spent the day with us and brought a piece of the original rear frame from the Carnegie Buckler Mark V for us to see. The welding was typical Buckler – funny shape though! By 4.30pm people were drifting away, the car park emptying, the washing up done, by 5.00pm we were cleared up and all the cars away by 5.30 pm. 

A memorable event hopefully the first of many of it’s kind, ideal venue, superb weather, good turnout (on the day) a new car turned up. Trevor Anderton was presented with one of the Malcolm Buckler 50th anniversary mugs to mark his turning up with a “new car” and driving it round with us on the run. We also recruited two new members. Magic……

Rhona’s Buckler

One of the really nice things about Classic Trial’s is the variety of machinery and crews taking part. Every event seems to bring out something or somebody new and the March Hare was no exception with Rhona Boswell making her début in the family Buckler Mk 6. The story of both car and driver are fascinating.

Rhona Boswell in action in her Buckler Mk 6 on Falcon Motor Clubs millennium March Hare Trial.

Rhona’s Buckler was re-built from a wreck by her husband Peter, who joined the MCC in 1992. Peter made a new body himself, using the nose cone from Stan Hibbert’s Mk 53. Peter used the car quite a lot on MCC events but Rhona never passengered him. Sadly Peter had a heart attack while he was at work a few years ago and died.

Rhona decided to keep the car and to keep it on the hills where it belonged. This was in the tradition of the cars history as it was used to hard work and had received a trophy for “most used car” at shows. It needed a lot of work but this wasn’t a problem as her daughters partners, Gary Booth and Steve Maskell are both pretty keen and it was Gary who drove the Mk 6 on the 1999 March Hare. This year Rhona decided to drive herself and enjoyed herself, despite a bit of clutch trouble. Lets hope she repeats the experience.

Some other Bucklers

There are quite a few Bucklers in the MCC. Mike Furse has one (or is it more?) and so does Exeter organiser Ken Green who owns a Mk 5 and also runs the Buckler register. You may have seen this car on this years Clee when it was driven by Dave Lucas.

Stan Hibberd is another enthusiast. Stan bough his car back in the early 60’s, used it mainly for autocross and has owned it ever since. He used to race it back then and it made it’s re-acquaintance with a race-track when Stan drove it in a most spirited fashion in a lunchtime demonstration at last years MCC Silverstone bike meeting. Not bad for a guy who had recently recovered from a heart operation!

MCC General Secretary Mike Furse driving his Buckler Mk 5
Derek Buckler generally supplied his cars without any bodywork, thus avoiding the owners paying any purchase tax.

Bucklers

The Buckler was one of the first commercially available “specials” or “kit cars”. Derek Buckler started by making a car for himself in his well-equipped engineering shop back in 1947. DDP 201 had a tubular construction, space frame chassis and a Ford 10 engine.

Derek used his car with some success in club motorsport of the day and decided to go into production with the design. He had referred to his own car as the “Buckler Colonial”, but he started production with the Buckler Mk V! Derek’s expertise was in building the frame or chassis. Constructed from 40 ton/sq. in tensile CDS alloy steel tube these frames weighed in at 60 to 75 lbs., depending on the model, and being extremely rigid did not require the panelling to help stiffen up the chassis. In consequence, most Bucklers are very light, some weighing little over nine hundredweight. Derek’s idea was to sell the Mk 5 as a general-purpose two seater competition car, that you could use for anything, from 1172 formula racing to trials.

The first production Mk 5 was ERD 96, purchased for speed events by Mike Parrott. Mike bought from Buckler without the body, which was made from aluminium by the man next door! Derek generally sold his cars without a body, thus avoiding paying the 30% purchase tax of the day. The guy next door built bodies for a lot of the cars but owners were free to go where they wished which is why many Bucklers look so different.

Derek went on to build about 500 Bucklers in his Reading factory before ill health forced him to sell-up in 1962. The new owners only built a couple more cars before they closed the business. The number of cars that still survive are testimony to the strength and success of the original design. The great variety of specifications is due to the sheer number of options that were available, most of which were produced in-house. I.F.S conversions, special springs and wheels, alternative diff and box ratio’s and many stages of engine tuning were just for starters. Clearly an enthusiasts dream.

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