SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

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'Weekend Witness/VSCC Cars in the Park' has its share of characters and Robin Inggs is one of them. We stopped by for a chat.

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Make it up, make do or fix it yourself

Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday May 7, 2011 as part of the publicity build-up to Weekend Witness/VSCC Cars in the Park

Most restorers get into the game during their middle years or after retiring. Robin Inggs is one of the exceptions; he started at the age of eighteen and forty-eight years later, is still at it. That very first project was a Matchless G9 motorcycle that he bought to restore and use as daily transport. It cost him R50, money he borrowed from his employer at the time, one Alex Murray of plumbing fame. He paid it back at R8 per week, leaving him R1-97 to live on after paying his parents for room and board at R2 weekly.

Over the years that followed Inggs restored, by his reckoning, about 25 motorcycles and would probably still be doing so had he not hurt his back during 2008 and lost partial use of his legs.  Cars don't (usually) require much pushing or kickstarting, so after selling or trading away his bikes, he turned his attention to four-wheelers.

Pride of his growing collection is a 1928 Chevrolet National four-cylinder with Colorado disc wheels. A contract pilot found it in Uruguay many years ago and shipped it to South Africa. He then sold the car to Chris Brown who kept it in his collection in Kloof for some time before disposing of it to Inggs last November. Paintwork and the fabric roof are believed to be original, as is the leather upholstery. According to Inggs, all he had to do was repair the fuel vacuum chamber and restore proper gravity feed to the carburettor.

Sometime during its 82-year lifespan the vacuum chamber failed, so the owner at the time bypassed the fuel line directly to the carburettor. This resulted in difficult starts and erratic performance. Inggs says that now that it's fixed the car runs perfectly. Sometimes the original engineers did know best.

Parked alongside was a 1928 Willys Overland Whippet six-cylinder with wooden spoked wheels. This car arrived in 'sort-of-running' condition from an enthusiast in Nieuwoudsville. Inggs traded two bikes; a 1928 AJS and a 1911 Triumph 500 belt drive, for it during 2009. Ignition problems were sorted and the car runs perfectly. Other cars in his shed are a 1929 Austin Seven Chummy, a 1932 van from the same model range, a 1930 'Top Hat' Austin Seven, a 1928 four-cylinder Whippet that he wants to fix and dress up as a sheriff's car, a 1928 De Soto, a pair of basket-case Morris 8s that he found housing chickens in the roof of a garage at Assagay (R12 000.00 to take away today, anyone?) His most recent project is a 1929,  41/2 litre 'Blower' Bentley that will possibly run one day.

He plans to show the Chevrolet, the operational Whippet and possibly the De Soto, at Weekend Witness/VSCC Cars in the Park along with two of the Austins as 'partly restored' and 'as found' projects.

Why does he do it? "It's an interesting hobby that requires one to figure things out and overcome problems," he says. A case in point is that, sometimes, there is no way out other than to make a part oneself.  "The first one is usually not very good," he admits, "so you do it again." The hobby doesn't have to become unduly expensive either, according to Inggs. "All it takes is enough money to buy the initial project and some mechanical ability to do your own metalwork." Hmmm: having trained as an apprentice under Murray the plumber, he has a head start on the rest of us, doesn't he? Inggs also points out that when parts are not available, one can often make do with substitutes. Pistons from 1950s Bedford vans apparently fit 1940s Harley-Davidsons, for example. There is always a way, he says.

Make it up, make do or fix it yourself; restoration is an absorbing hobby guaranteed to provide fond memories and fascinating tales forever. Ask Robin Inggs.

 Robin Inggs' 1928 Chevrolet National two-door

Robin Inggs at the wheel of his 1928 Chevrolet 

Two Austins, a van and a Chummy, await completion

This shell will be a Blower Bentley one day 

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax. 

So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?

Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.