Invalid Carriage

[nz2]

I have recently picked up another project for restoration. This one I can use when I get old and infirm!:idea:

Manufactured by Harding probably late 1940's. Battery electric drive.

I recall see only a few of these as a lad, being operated by Ex servicemen.

Doug

[Johnny]

I like that a lot.

I'm intrigued by the knobbly front tyre and chalked on number though.

Surely it hasn't been raced?

[Degsy]

That brings back memories,hundreds of them or at least something very similar to them were around when I was young. Always painted black and fitted with black canvas covers, I think they were standard issue from what was called in those days Ministry of Pensions.

[Richard Farrant]

That brings back memories,hundreds of them or at least something very similar to them were around when I was young. Always painted black and fitted with black canvas covers, I think they were standard issue from what was called in those days Ministry of Pensions.

 

Degsy,

 

One of these types was the Invacar, powered by a Villiers 147cc engine, built by Greeves, the motor cycle maker. The first one was built by Bert Greeves around about 1949 for an invalid friend. There were several makes avialble through the Ministry scheme, including the Harding, like nz2 has found.

[Degsy]

Degsy,

 

One of these types was the Invacar, powered by a Villiers 147cc engine, built by Greeves, the motor cycle maker. The first one was built by Bert Greeves around about 1949 for an invalid friend. There were several makes avialble through the Ministry scheme, including the Harding, like nz2 has found.

 

 

Thanks for that Richard,:thumbsup: I thought I remembered a two stroke engine but didn't trust my dodgy memory:-D

[ferretfixer]

I have recently picked up another project for restoration. This one I can use when I get old and infirm!:idea:

Manufactured by Harding probably late 1940's. Battery electric drive.

I recall see only a few of these as a lad, being operated by Ex servicemen.

Doug

 

Interesting 'Over Engineered' front Girder forks.

 

Perhaps when it's done, you could locate a Restored Ex-Serviceman to go in it!!!!..........:rofl:

[nz2]

Or lets arm it and refer to it as a Home Guard mobile defence carriage.:nut:

Doug

[Ewok]

Back In the day AC made a 350cc powered invalid carriage and a mate of mine used to work in the garage where they serviced them. Being toung and stupid, he and his mate 'tuned' the loan vehicle. The next customer in left his car for service and took the loaner. He got to the main road, gave it a fist full of throttle and wheelied it into a lampost on the opposite side of the road ....... :rofl: :rofl::stop:

[alan turner (RIP)]

here's an AC in Woolwich and outside Showrooms. there is another shot of one somewhere in the collection in the vehicle strip down shop with the odd tank,I shall try and find it

[Stone]

I bet that'd go like the clappers with a modern electric scooter motor and some chunky batteries in! We've come a long way.

[Whittingham warrior]

Back In the day AC made a 350cc powered invalid carriage and a mate of mine used to work in the garage where they serviced them. Being toung and stupid, he and his mate 'tuned' the loan vehicle. The next customer in left his car for service and took the loaner. He got to the main road, gave it a fist full of throttle and wheelied it into a lampost on the opposite side of the road ....... :rofl: :rofl::stop:

 

Where have they all gone?

[Toner]

I remember the blue ones when I was a kid.

 

I seem to recall being told they could not go out in windy conditions due to them being unstable. Never found out if it was true.

[ford 369]

there was a government initiative to remove them all from the road many years ago and most seem to have long since dissappeared although I do know of one just down the road from me that was restored and used for a while several years ago after which the owner tried to sell it with no luck so it is now sat in his front garden deteriorating

Nigel

ps as kids we used to call them pencil sharpners

[Gordon_M]

I'm sure the government had some input into the design / specification of the blue plastic AC ones, so contingent liability.

 

Owners were all moved to Motability scheme I'm sure, and most of the vehicles became blue plastic landfill. I'm all for historic vehicle preservation, but I think in this case just one, in a museum somewhere, would be about right :cool2:

 

Of course in a hundred years they'll probably be valuable.

 

( Later - WIKI says produced '60s and '70s, last removed from road in 2003 which tallies with roughly what I remember )

Edited July 24, 2011 by Gordon_M

[Ivor Ramsden]

I remember the blue ones when I was a kid.

 

I seem to recall being told they could not go out in windy conditions due to them being unstable. Never found out if it was true.

 

I think it might have been true because I remember watching one sliding down the road on its side. I seem to recall it went an awfully long way before it stopped. Being horrible scoolkids at the time me and my mates thought it was hysterically funny.

 

At the risk of being hammered by the PC brigade I shall now confess that we used to call them Spaz Chariots ... As I say, we were horrible schoolkids then. Now we are pillars of society. Maybe.

[Whittingham warrior]

I remember being told of one that was totally destroyed by a snow ball so that may be well one of the reasons they were withdrawn.

[xmod90]

Back In the day AC made a 350cc powered invalid carriage and a mate of mine used to work in the garage where they serviced them. Being toung and stupid, he and his mate 'tuned' the loan vehicle. The next customer in left his car for service and took the loaner. He got to the main road, gave it a fist full of throttle and wheelied it into a lampost on the opposite side of the road ....... :rofl: :rofl::stop:

 

Hi There, just for your info the engines were made by Styer Puch and were infact a 500cc air cooled flat twin, these engines were a smaller version of the 650cc unit fitted to the Haflinger.

[protruck]

I can remember loads of these blue invalid carriages being in a breakers yard in Bushey in the late 90's. Also

a very bad accident involving one on the A41 traffic lights just down from the old Odhams print site.

 

 

Clive