My old Lambo photos from the 90s

My old Lambo photos from the 90s

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Ian.C

39 posts

179 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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Thank you Bob for sharing your old photographs.

For me the photo of the 73 Earls Court Motor Show Countach in Cheam is the best old car photo bar none.

I have seen quoted that Lamborghini GB imported 76 cars in 1972, so you were kept busy.

I have corresponded with Roger Phillips - he had commenced writing his memoirs with a view to publishing a book, but this now appears to have stalled.

As a schoolboy I was allowed on the 1976 Earls Court Motor Show stand by Roger and taken round the cars by Martin Billing.

I also met Barry Martina a few times and he also drove cars back from the Lamborghini factory, usually over the Simplon Pass.

You mention delivering a Jarama in early 1973 from Italy.

I believe 7 Jarama S were imported to the UK in 1973 ( one in 1972).

My own Jarama S was invoiced to Lamborghini GB 21/2/73 Bleu Thaiti in colour - can you recall the colour of your delivery car?.

Bob the Cop

188 posts

84 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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Hi Ian, I also think that the Countach picture is one in a million. I remember the day it was taken as though it was last week.
Roger was determined to remove the car from Earls Court on the Sunday morning and wanted to drive it before it was returned. We got the car out by tearing down the Stand, much to the annoyance of the security staff.
I drove the yellow Espada TGC55M behind the Countach which had our trade plates on it. We got down to the A3 Kingston bypass, which was not as it is today. We stopped at a set of traffic lights, the Countach was in the outside lane of 3, I was in the centre lane and an MGC pulled up in the nearside lane. When the lights changed Roger decided to go for it. I was not prepared, Roger and the Countach were pulling away fast with the MGC having a go in the nearside lane. I decided to catch up, passed the MGC but Roger was disappearing fast, I saw the MGC falling behind in my rear view mirror and caught Roger up at the next traffic lights. We arrived at Cheam and stopped at a house owned by a friend Julian who was a Marcos fanatic, he took the photograph.
I have lost contact with Roger, I have three telephone numbers for him but all are no longer in use. If you have a way to contact him perhaps you will let him know that I am still on my old phone number.

Martin Billings and I were the drivers based at Alie street. When I moved over to Roger in 1973, Martin stayed with Nick but came back to Roger at a later date. We had some great drives including a five car Espada convoy from the factory to the UK in 1973. This included 'a trip over the top in the snow' instead of going through the Mont Blanc tunnel. Martin and I were cars 4 and 5 in the convoy. Other cars using the two lane motorway could see us coming, they let Espada 1 and 2 overtake, maybe Espada 3 as well but did not expect Espada 4 and 5 which made for an interesting drive. The cherry on the cake was the facial expression of the doorman at the hotel on Lake Geneva when 5 Espadas turned up to stay the night. You have to remember that apart from Modena to Milan and Milan north for 50 miles there was no motorway at that time. We drove across country via Nantua until arriving at Bourg en Bresse and joining the French autoroute to Paris. Even after Paris there was no motorway to Calais. However Martin and I had the last laugh, Roger and the two other cars entered Calais but Martin and I knew a better route to the ferry. We were boarded and sailing off just as the three other cars entered the Port.
Martin was back with Roger at Whyteleafe in 1979 when he had a request from an Arab Prince who wished to purchase a Countach and could it be delivered to his hotel in Knightsbridge. Roger was out of the country so Martin contacted me. He drove the Countach whilst I followed in another car. On arrival at the Hotel we were greeted by Security and then the Prince. A test drive took place and then we adjourned to the hotel suite where we were presented with a briefcase containing £24K in cash. Martin and I expected to get mugged as we left the hotel but we made it safely to the Midland Bank in Vauxhall Bridge Road where we deposited the cash with a very surprised bank cashier.
In 1980 Barry Martina, Roger and I flew to the USA to attend a Lamborghini owners meeting in San Diego California. The story of that trip would fill a volume in a book so I will not go into detail in case it causes distress to Barry! One thing I can mention is that at the owners meeting there was a Black Silhouette bearing the registration number A SPOOK. It was owned by a black guy with a fantastic sense of humour.
The garage at Whyteleafe was an interesting time, Del Hopkins had moved from Stephen Victor and was working with Roger. I recall that Del owned a BSA Gold Star and an Austin Healey 3000 which was mint. Del took great delight in stripping the car back to the chassis every year to make sure it was immaculate underneath as well as on top!

I do recall a Blue Jarama S but I cannot recall driving it back from the factory, as I have said before the Jarama was one of my favourates and I recall seeing Bob Wallace at the factory working on Jarama 'BOB'. I believe that Del got his hands on the same car when he was working at Portmans.

Most of the cars I drove were Espada, I also drove the Rod Stewart Miura LUC38K, Peter Hay had a well pampered Miura LYV168K which I also drove together with several 400GT, Jarama and Urraco.

One drive comes to mind in early 1973. Martin was away delivering a car and I was tasked with delivering an Espada to a Mr Iommi in Stafford. I had never been to this address before but I was told to drop the car off and someone would give me a lift to Stafford station to get the train home. I was also advised to take it easy for the first 50 miles because the car had new tyres fitted. I set off from Alie street and made my way onto the M1. North of Watford the car did not feel right, it was handling strangely. I pulled onto the hard shoulder and found that two wheel nuts were missing from the front offside wheel. I borrowed a nut from a rear wheel, checked the tightness of all the nuts and continued on my way, engaging in a game with an Aston Martin around Birmingham. (I later learnt that the car had been sent out to ATS for the tyres and they had neglected to torque down the wheel nuts). I continued to Stafford and arrived at the large house owned by Mr Iommi in the early evening. I was greeted and explained the problem with the wheel nuts but Mr Iommi was not concerned. I was ushered into a large room which contained several other people listening to some loud music. The others included Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler, then the penny dropped, I had been cast into the lap of Black Sabbath! The lift to the station was not offered, a beer was placed in my hand and we had a good time until the early hours when I got the 'milk' train from Stafford station. I arrived back in London at about 8am just in time to make my way back to Alie Street. Someone said that i was early, another stated that i was wearing the same clothes from the day before. I just said Tony Iommi and they understood straight away.
So the answer to a question posted on another forum, ' did Tony Iommi have more that one Lamborghini', the answer is yes, he had his Blue Miura and an Espada as well as his Rolls Royce.

I have got distracted in answering an earlier question regarding the Urraco, I will make sure I cover it in my next post.

yzr500

204 posts

103 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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mmmm back in 1974 I purchased a Kawasaki z1 demo bike which was supplied by Comerfords from a guy in East Molesley Surrey he lived in a trendy flat and owned a Countach with a "Eagle Racing Decal" at the time I remembered it looked flash , is this guy know to anyone ?

Ferruccio

1,835 posts

119 months

Tuesday 11th April 2017
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Lambo Club was fun when Peter Hay was chairman........

P5BNij

15,875 posts

106 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Really enjoyed that post Bob, great stuff.

Interesting that you remember Rod Stewart's Miura 'LUC 38K', I wonder if it's this one alongside his other Miura 'JLL 831K', or another car altogether...



'JLL 831K' was sold recently having passed through Amari's hands in Lancashire and having a repaint in dark metallic blue.[url]

It was featured in Car magazine around the time that Rod owned it...

|https://thumbsnap.com/DjUBZmVg[/url]

Edited by P5BNij on Wednesday 12th April 11:56

Bob the Cop

188 posts

84 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Yes I remember this car as well and I have driven it. He also owned LUC38K which I believe he kept for a long time.
He came to the Earls Court Show in 1973 to view the green Countach. I met him at the front door and told him to park his Miura outside the entrance. The doorman on security was not very happy but it was probably the safest place to leave it. Plus it was a good advert for Lamborghini.

Bob the Cop

188 posts

84 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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I found this on the web.................my old Espada demonstrator TGC55M. It is still shown as yellow on the DVLA website but appears to have been painted blue at some stage. In 2012 it made £28,000. at auction but the MOT history shows that it has had some corrossion problems. Road tax expired in 2015 and it is currently declared SORN. Does anyone know the fate of this car?

SAB888

3,243 posts

207 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Bob the Cop said:
So the answer to a question posted on another forum, 'did Tony Iommi have more that one Lamborghini', the answer is yes, he had his Blue Miura and an Espada as well as his Rolls Royce.
Great memory you have Bob and very interesting accounts from the past. I posed the question about Tony Iommi possibly owning an Espada on another forum (maybe not the exact words) because, apart from being a huge Black Sabbath fan, I thought I saw him driving an Espada out of the car park at Santa Pod decades ago. Do you remember what colour the Espada was?

Would be very interested in reading more stories from your past. Thanks.

P5BNij

15,875 posts

106 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Bob the Cop said:
Yes I remember this car as well and I have driven it. He also owned LUC38K which I believe he kept for a long time.
He came to the Earls Court Show in 1973 to view the green Countach. I met him at the front door and told him to park his Miura outside the entrance. The doorman on security was not very happy but it was probably the safest place to leave it. Plus it was a good advert for Lamborghini.
It's fabulous little snippets like this which add even more to the aura of these wonderful cars we love so much Bob, many thanks for sharing these memories on here. They really ought to be in a book...!

Bob the Cop

188 posts

84 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Unfortunately my memory is not as good as it was! There are certain events like the Black Sabbath meeting that I can remember because it was out of the ordinary. I drove dozens and dozens of Espada as they were very popular amongst the rich and famous at that time. I would lean towards the Iommi car being silver but I am not 100% certain.
I have been searching for my 1973 diary but have not found it yet. I have found my diary from 1974 and it shows my last few weeks with Lamborghini. It shows that on Friday 11th January until Sunday 13th January I was in Aberdeen. We had a customer there called Joe Little who had a Fish factory and owned an Espada, so he was a regular car collection for me. But this trip was not for Joe.

On this occassion Roger, our gorgeous secretary Steph and I took the night sleeper train on which we loaded three brand new MINIS!! These cars were at a premium during the fuel crisis and everyone was trying to get hold of one. We delivered the cars to a titled person on an estate outside Aberdeen, spent the weekend there and flew back on the Sunday.
On Tuesday 15th January I had to demo a car in Basildon Essex and order a window for a Urraco the same day. The following day I was engaged in getting two Espadas prepared to go to Australia. At this time all RHD cars came via the UK. On the 18th I had a photo shoot with 'Antiference' who needed an Espada. On the 22nd I had an Espada for Richard Birks, A Urraco to go to Monorep, who were our body shop, plus an Aston Martin DB6 for Portmans. The following day we must have registered a Urraco as I have written 'Urraco plates.' Friday 25th January was a good day, two cars both Espadas, one being RAD101, you can guess who owned that. The other was to one of the nicest people, Lord Litchfield, the famous photographer and a direct relative to the Queen.
I have tried to recall how many Urraco came to the UK in my time but it is impossible to say. We had the RHD cars for other countries pass through us and I can recall at least seven for the UK with this being one of my last.


The other problem is that cars were remembered by customer names and sometimes by registration number. I never remembered cars by the chassis number.
I have stated elsewhere that we had two personalised registration numbers, 1NKO and UHO1. If these were put on a demo car, when the car was sold it received another number. However the system was not as it is today. For example...............


This is a photo of me on my CB750 in Pau france in June 1973. The registration is SLF54L. In September 1973 we needed to store the number UHO1, there was no such thing as a retention certificate, the number had to go directly onto another vehicle. We had already registered TGC55M as our demo espada so it was decided to put UHO1 onto my CB750. I have an entry in my diary for Saturday 26th January 1974 that UHO1 was taken off my CB750 and it was given the registration number PMC230L. So the system then did not return the vehicle to the original registration number. This is why any photos of cars on private plates do not assist to identify the original car! I don't know what the demo 1NKO Urraco that appeared in magazines became and I am not sure that the Orange Urraco was originally 698R.
Some customers kept their cars for a long period of time and did not get involved with personilsed number plates. The Urraco above was registered as TGJ287M and I believe that it is still on the road today bearing the original registration.


HIS LM

1,287 posts

259 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
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Wow Bob this makes fascinating reading I am hooked can't wait for the next instalment

Many moons ago I used to pass RAD101 on my way to work in the Park Royal area presume it belonged to the BBC - was there a RAD102
or is my mind playing tricks ?

SAB888

3,243 posts

207 months

Wednesday 12th April 2017
quotequote all
Bob the Cop said:
Unfortunately my memory is not as good as it was! There are certain events like the Black Sabbath meeting that I can remember because it was out of the ordinary. I drove dozens and dozens of Espada as they were very popular amongst the rich and famous at that time. I would lean towards the Iommi car being silver but I am not 100% certain.
I thought the Espada may have been gold, but it was a very long time ago, and it could have been silver or a light grey. It wasn't a dark colour or anything like red, yellow or blue. I did meet Iommi several times but never thought to ask him about the cars.

Stephen Keen

9 posts

120 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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P5BNij said:
Really enjoyed that post Bob, great stuff.

Interesting that you remember Rod Stewart's Miura 'LUC 38K', I wonder if it's this one alongside his other Miura 'JLL 831K', or another car altogether...



'JLL 831K' was sold recently having passed through Amari's hands in Lancashire and having a repaint in dark metallic blue.[url]

It was featured in Car magazine around the time that Rod owned it...

|https://thumbsnap.com/DjUBZmVg[/url]

Edited by P5BNij on Wednesday 12th April 11:56
The mystery of this picture has recently be solved by Joe Sackey on the Lamborghini chat site,the picture is of a right hand drive P400 Miura belonging to me, I have owned it twenty years and never knew it was Rods first Miura [see attached pic] it was registered OVM 8H,LUC38K which is an SV Miura is in the UK and is owned by a very enthusiastic owner and is still registered LUC 38K

P300V8

263 posts

176 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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......Found this one of my sister standing next to the demo P250 in 1973. I cannot recall if this was the first or second RHD car.

The first RHD P250 was 15040 arancio/nero on plate 698 R and now in Singapore.
The demo car was 15112 oro/senape but it was not the second RHD car as two others 15114 and 15116 were consigned before this, both for Hong Kong.

......'1NKO' was on a white Espada road tested by Ray Hutton in Autocar mag 26/4/73.

According to Del this car was owned by a printer, hence the plate. The plate found its way onto an LP400 which can be seen in the Maltins publicity shot taken on the riverside at Henley and was subsequently seen on an LP400 in Japan.



P5BNij

15,875 posts

106 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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Stephen Keen said:
The mystery of this picture has recently be solved by Joe Sackey on the Lamborghini chat site,the picture is of a right hand drive P400 Miura belonging to me, I have owned it twenty years and never knew it was Rods first Miura [see attached pic] it was registered OVM 8H,LUC38K which is an SV Miura is in the UK and is owned by a very enthusiastic owner and is still registered LUC 38K
Thanks for that Stephen... I've just started reading through the thread on 'Lambo...chat', fascinating stuff, I might just (ahem) waste the whole afternoon going through it now!

P300V8

263 posts

176 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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Bob the Cop said:
.......In 1980 Barry Martina, Roger and I flew to the USA to attend a Lamborghini owners meeting in San Diego California..... One thing I can mention is that at the owners meeting there was a Black Silhouette bearing the registration number A SPOOK....
Hi Bob,

Many thanks for taking the time to posts such wonderful anecdotes and pics!

Regarding the Silhouette sighting in San Diego, this particular car is hitherto unknown to me. There is only one Silhouette I have been unable to locate, 40056 originally consigned to Dubai but supposedly in US according to Pasini's list published in the 80's. I wonder if you have any pics of that encounter?!

McAndy

12,444 posts

177 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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What a wonderful thread! It's funny how many of the cars/'plates I recognise from my youth. I used to see the black Countach "A6GRO" around Sussex and the F40 "E274 BGT" still graces the dust cover of one of the books on my bookshelves. I'm pretty sure I also remember the red Countach "F924 OYR".

I'll see if I can drag out and digitize some of my photos from visiting Carrera Sports and the like when I was a child. Happy memories. smile

P300V8

263 posts

176 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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Bob the Cop said:
....This was the brochure produced for the 1972 Motor Show.....

This is of course a reversed image of the silver pre-production car to make it appear RHD! These were hand built and were not the same as the production cars...

P5BNij

15,875 posts

106 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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^^^^^

I wondered why the steering wheel was on the wrong side but the headlamps were set higher up the 'bonnet' than the later production P250s...!


P300V8

263 posts

176 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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P5BNij said:
^^^^^

I wondered why the steering wheel was on the wrong side but the headlamps were set higher up the 'bonnet' than the later production P250s...!
Another curiosity is the yellow pre production car shown at Earls Court 1971 which was LHD with RHD wipers!