Each car on our rallies is allocated a number, according to age, with the oldest being designated car Number 1.
On our next rally this position belongs to Vicky, the Model A Ford owned by David and Adele Cohen. They have kindly shared the below so we can get to know a bit more about her before the trip.
“Her name is Vicky and she’s a tough old bird. Named after the patron saint of all pigeons .
Vicky in reality is an amalgam of two cars. The first was Henry, a “Fordoor “ model that we prepared for the 2007 Peking to Paris Endurance Rally. He had a lot of trick stuff under his skin like an OHV conversion made by Cragar in 1928. This made quite a difference to the cars performance. In addition it had hydraulic brakes, 16 inch wheel rims and had a set of useless Toyota gas filled, “indestructible” shocks at each corner. Their useful life in Mongolia was about two days.
After the rally, which was successfully completed on his own wheels I decided to upgrade the car to something I much preferred – a two door Victoria. Quite rare in Model A terms. So out went the mechanicals of the Victoria and in went Henry’s bits – well used, but great for the job
Well, Henry being a he and Vicky being a she, I now consider my car to be “thoroughly modern” and who knows what that is! The theory is that it has the fewest moving parts and is a reasonably lightweight car and has been very reliable to date.
Vicky has done a number of trips, the most notable being the Thunder Dragon Rally in 2015 starting in Siliguri, India and driving around and through Bhutan via Darjeeling to Guwahati The roads in Bhutan were quite challenging, some days it took about 6 hours to cover 150 Kms. It should be noted that a V12 E-Type covered the same roads although it did take a little longer. Vicky has covered many kilometres in British Columbia and in the Pacific North West of the USA.”
Thanks David and Adele, she really is rather special and a worthy occupant of “Car number one”
Thursday 28th December