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Press, 29 October 1981, Page 32

NO, NO - “BRADFORD” WITH AN “R”

The motors lasted for ever. The bodies, long-nosed, ash-wood framed, aluminium-panelled, were elegant. The Bradford light commercial, made by Jowett from the 1930 s until 1951, was a vehicle of reliability and beauty. Two cylinders. Do not laugh. The Bradford flat twin, and the flat four that Jowett put into their Jupiter and Javelin saloons, are copied still today.

These motors, from time to time, as part of running forever, have been known to crack a manifold, thus allowing fuel into the water and — worse! — water into, the fuel. The owner knew that the Jowett Car Club could help. But all was well. He had a spare. Cast in aluminium (at that time, a pioneering metal gaining cautious acceptance by the trade), it bolted on, held by six nuts. A leak. Tighten them up. Still leaking. Tighten, only more so. CRUNCH. Crumble. Gush drip splosh.

Oi, said Friend A. Your manifold is cracked. Ring the Jowett Club. It’s all right, said the owner. I have got another one — a spare spare.

So you have, said Friend B. With a sawn-off stud corroded into the bolt hole. Surely the Jowett Club could . . .? Its all right, said the owner. I’ll drill it out.

Still at it? asked Friend C sympathetically some time later. Can’t the Jowett Club find you a replacement? Its all right, said the owner. Let’s recycle. It’s cheaper. And if this one also crumbled in his hands (he thought), he could always cast his own molten aluminium. Because as part of the price for running forever, it followed as a fact of life that there, could not exist anywhere a genuine Bradford manifold which was less than thirty years — that is, nearly one-third of a century — old.