Scrapyards near the Ace café
#1
Posted 19 January 2007 - 15:22
I've just established that the original alloy body for my car went to a scrap metal yard across from the ACE Cafe in North London. This was in about '73.
I know the panels won't be there now, more's the pity, but out of curiosity, I'd just like to know exactly where they ended up. Obsesive, me?
Does anyone recall a yard in that area? looking on the A-Z the area still seems to be fairly industrial, even today. Perhaps I should get Google earth!
Who knows though, maybe someone stuck it on top of a container and wrote 'SCRAP bought for cash' on it - seems to be industry standard with any interesting / wierd looking car!
I await a flood of memories alternatively, this will become a 'things I found in / sent to scrapyards thread - might be fun too.
http://myweb.tiscali...racecar/pandora
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#2
Posted 19 January 2007 - 15:36
RL
#3
Posted 19 January 2007 - 15:46
TNF is Great!
#4
Posted 19 January 2007 - 16:25
RL
#5
Posted 19 January 2007 - 16:56
(OK, I know I'm not London-born, but until recently I worked near enough to the Ace to walk there for lunch occasionally)
#6
Posted 19 January 2007 - 17:02
RL
#7
Posted 19 January 2007 - 17:16
"I still regret dumping the original body in a scrap metal merchant somewhere
opposite the Ace Café on the North Circular road. Maybe it's still there!"
Opposite would imply to me that it was on the 'inside' of the North Circular.
Probably flats by now!
#8
Posted 19 January 2007 - 17:57
Directly opposite is pretty much open groundOriginally posted by Mistron
Probably flats by now!
However, I've just remembered - if you proceed from the Ace Caf towards Brent Cross but take your first right you're in Harrow Road, and there's a wrecker's just off to the right there. In the days before the North Circ was upgraded, that could have been just about considered as being "somewhere opposite"
#9
Posted 19 January 2007 - 19:00
Suppose I'll have to ring them on the off chance that "old fred, who's been here for years" might be able to help.......
#10
Posted 19 January 2007 - 19:30
I made a bit of a slip with my earlier - it's not called Harrow Road at that point, but it is still the A404
If you take a Silverlink train from Euston to Watford, "my" scrapyard is on your left somewhere between Harlesden and Stonebridge Park stations. Road access would obviously be from the A404
#11
Posted 19 January 2007 - 20:07
But to check, do you mean Townsend Ind Estate:
http://www.streetmap...20560&ay=185160
#12
Posted 19 January 2007 - 20:33
No, on the other side of the railwayOriginally posted by Mistron
But to check, do you mean Townsend Ind Estate
#13
Posted 19 January 2007 - 20:47
Perhaps I should get Google earth!
You don't need to 'get' Google earth. It is available on web http://maps.google.com/
Somewhere here???
http://maps.google.c...053988&t=k&om=1
Can't see the car body though!
#14
Posted 19 January 2007 - 20:50
http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/f1.htm
#15
Posted 19 January 2007 - 21:01
#16
Posted 19 January 2007 - 21:04
Originally posted by Mistron
OK, the longest shot in TNF history perhaps, but here goes!
I've just established that the original alloy body for my car went to a scrap metal yard across from the ACE Cafe in North London. This was in about '73.
I know the panels won't be there now, more's the pity, but out of curiosity, I'd just like to know exactly where they ended up. Obsesive, me?
Does anyone recall a yard in that area? looking on the A-Z the area still seems to be fairly industrial, even today. Perhaps I should get Google earth!
Who knows though, maybe someone stuck it on top of a container and wrote 'SCRAP bought for cash' on it - seems to be industry standard with any interesting / wierd looking car!
I await a flood of memories alternatively, this will become a 'things I found in / sent to scrapyards thread - might be fun too.
http://myweb.tiscali...racecar/pandora
Wouldn't it be appropriate if you stated what type of car it was and whether anyone knows the whereabouts of your panels ex-breakers opp ACE???
#17
Posted 19 January 2007 - 21:46
http://www.aftertheb...com/acecafe.htm
#18
Posted 20 January 2007 - 07:29
Anybody remember it?
#19
Posted 20 January 2007 - 07:48
Originally posted by Scuderia SSS
This thread reminds me of the old orange vintage car that used to be stuck on top of a pilar or roof(cant remember clearly now) but it was something like an old Austin,slowly rusting away somewhere around the Lewisham-Camberwell route.
Anybody remember it?
Oh , yes I remember exactly what you mean, it was high in the air on a pillar . It was there for many years from the mid sixties.
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#20
Posted 20 January 2007 - 08:36
Originally posted by RTH
Oh , yes I remember exactly what you mean, it was high in the air on a pillar . It was there for many years from the mid sixties.
The reason why you gentlemen remember this old car on a pillar, is because it was at a car breakers yard on the way to .........Brands Hatch, just after Ruxley Corner (Sidcup) on the old A20, if you were Brands bound it would come up on your right hand side. From memory it was "ZB Car Spares" ZB standing for Zak Barwick I believe. I think a Mitsubishi dealership is there now, but I never travel the road any more as the M20/A20 was re-routed.
Sterling
#21
Posted 20 January 2007 - 08:48
I often wonder who put it there in the first place.
Makes me chuckle thinking of the journey home every weekend. We used to get fish & chips and stop off in the old layby that used to be right at the start of the Sidcup bypass. My mum & dad used to call it the lovey dovey spot, as while we were sitting there munching our paper wrapped supper, the odd couple or two in their cars would be, lets say rather "steamed up" . I dont think they were eating fish & chips.
Ahh, fond memories.
#22
Posted 20 January 2007 - 11:26
Originally posted by Scuderia SSS
Yes, you're right, was on the old route. I used to travel up to Camberwell every weekend for the "visit the relatives pilgrimage"
I often wonder who put it there in the first place.
Makes me chuckle thinking of the journey home every weekend. We used to get fish & chips and stop off in the old layby that used to be right at the start of the Sidcup bypass. My mum & dad used to call it the lovey dovey spot, as while we were sitting there munching our paper wrapped supper, the odd couple or two in their cars would be, lets say rather "steamed up" . I dont think they were eating fish & chips.
Ahh, fond memories.
........hmmmn, it's called something vastly different now! The other yard was LB (maybe ZB's brother?) and I travelled the road not only to work, but to see Mott The Hoople and other suchlike bands at The Black Prince at Bexley
Gigs on saturday, racing on Sunday!
#23
Posted 20 January 2007 - 13:43
Originally posted by sterling49
The reason why you gentlemen remember this old car on a pillar, is because it was at a car breakers yard on the way to .........Brands Hatch, just after Ruxley Corner (Sidcup) on the old A20, if you were Brands bound it would come up on your right hand side. From memory it was "ZB Car Spares" ZB standing for Zak Barwick I believe. I think a Mitsubishi dealership is there now, but I never travel the road any more as the M20/A20 was re-routed.
Sterling
I remember it well; an Austin 7 that was pretty much intact when I first went past in the late 60s, and deteriorated over the years to not much more than a bare shell, it didn't disappear until fairly recently either.
It was indeed ZB's on the Sidcup by-pass, and was situated roughly behind where the MacDonalds drive-thru is now.
I think ZB's still exists; I've got to go up that way later on, I'll have a look.
#24
Posted 20 January 2007 - 14:50
Originally posted by 275 GTB-4
Wouldn't it be appropriate if you stated what type of car it was and whether anyone knows the whereabouts of yours panels ex-breakers opp ACE???
I doubt anyone will know the whereabouts of the panels 30 years after they went to the scrapyard - probably recycled into fridge freezers or cans by now!
here is how they looked then (though the nose got a bit squashed by a trailer, so prompting their replacement)
How could even a scrap man have the heart to crush such a pretty body? maybe someone did save them, or the scrap man's son got a nice garden 'gang hut'!
#25
Posted 20 January 2007 - 15:36
#26
Posted 20 January 2007 - 15:45
Originally posted by Mistron
How could even a scrap man have the heart to crush such a pretty body? maybe someone did save them, or the scrap man's son got a nice garden 'gang hut'!
Slightly o/t but referring to your rather faint hope I had a friend whose father was a scrap man (as indeed was he) and the "old guys" had no bother in scrapping anything - all they saw was the value of the metal. My friend told me of old cars being driven into the yard in perfect condition (for example 1920's and 1930's American cars) , a match was thrown into them to burn the interior out and the rest was just crushed. His own tale when he was working for his father was that a Mk 1 Lotus Cortina turned up one day which excited him but he was sent out of the yard on an errand. When he got back the car was a shell and the guys were equally as excited about the amount of aluminium they'd gotten out of the car .....
He reckons he'd be a multi-millionaire now if ......
#27
Posted 20 January 2007 - 18:22
#28
Posted 20 January 2007 - 18:45
Originally posted by Simpson RX1
Well, ZB's is still there, allbeit on nowhere near such a grand scale and with a very dilapidated sign.
Amazing! it must be over 20 years since I have been down that road and I am local
I will go and look next week on my travels ;)
#29
Posted 20 January 2007 - 18:58
When I were a wee lad (early fifties) we lived in Cranleigh and I recall a wonderful knackers yard there that was full of prewar cars. My friends and I would get chased out once a week
I dumped the original body from the George Eaton McLaren M12 in the tip and also the original front body section from my Climax Special sports racer but by then they all had so many repairs you could hardly lift them!
Mistron: I think we all understand your obsession, but really, that body doesn't look that hard to duplicate.
#30
Posted 20 January 2007 - 19:15
Originally posted by David Birchall
Mistron: I think we all understand your obsession, but really, that body doesn't look that hard to duplicate.
I know. and as I've said all along, I really don't expect to find it!
I know it's not hard to recreate - just expensive.....
I'm working on the body buck as we speak, and others on TNF have given me pointers to alloy body builders who are reasonably priced, leads which I am following up.
#32
Posted 21 January 2007 - 10:50
When I was involved in the restoration of Sir Malcolm Campbell's 1937/8 Blue Bird K3 hydroplane, I came across a load of paperwork from Coley's scrap yard in Hounslow. Both Sir Malcolm and Donald were "sponsored" by Bill Coley, and in exchange, anything that was no longer needed ended up with Bill. For years he had complete, empty Blue bird shells, in piles! When Donald built the jet powered K7, all the old piston craft mechanics, ended up at Coleys, including three Rolls-Royce R type Schnieder Trophy engines (Rolls-Royce only built 14 of these!!) and the prop shafts etc, all marked "not worth melting down".
The area is still there, with a lump of soil in the middle, but as yet, no buildings. Last I heard all the Blue Bird stuff, including the engines, had been tipped into a hole in 1978!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#33
Posted 21 January 2007 - 12:32
'David McKinneys' scrap yard is just out of shot to the left, on the north side of the railway lines.
#34
Posted 21 January 2007 - 12:48
#35
Posted 21 January 2007 - 14:27
Anyway, can't be sitting round here on my elbows all day........!
#36
Posted 22 January 2007 - 10:36
I was asked today to help identify these sad remains of what seems to be a late-30s car, laying in the woods somewhere in Croatia. I'm at work now so don't have access to my reference books until afternoon - but so far I have no clues whatsoever. Two straps just bellow the lower window line initially made me thinking it might be a Lancia but what appears as side vents doesn't match.
Images could be seen here.
I'd appreciate if anyone has an idea what it might be and share it with me.
#37
Posted 22 January 2007 - 14:27
Originally posted by dmj
Two straps just bellow the lower window line initially made me thinking it might be a Lancia but what appears as side vents doesn't match.
I'd appreciate if anyone has an idea what it might be and share it with me.
I'd agree Lancia, probably Aprilia, though I can't find a photo of one that exactly matches. The very large twin rear window arrangement looks odd: pre-war Aprilias had small twin, post-war a single IIRC