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Anything Nostalgia Related.

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 #27254  by Filby
 
and the Daily Express 6th November 1976.

I seem to remember that as well as mortgaging his house to finance the project, Barry also sold his family car. It was an orange Wartburg Knight estate which must have created as much smoke as BB - the Wartburg's engine was a two stroke!!
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 #27264  by Filby
 
The newsletters that Robin has posted, provides new avenues to investigate and discover further info.

Barry G. Bowles was listed as a director of a company called "CoteGrade".
Does anyone know what Barry's middle name was??

Cotegrade was a limited company set up on 18th October 1977 and dissolved on 12th September 1985.

The BB running test conducted at Leavesden - although a somewhat closed event - was witnessed by a young lad, which he described thus:
"I grew up yards from the end of the runway! Fabulous place to grow up. We spent hours as kids with our noses pressed against the fence, watching the comings and goings of the learner pilots, executive jets, helicopters and airships!! Barry Bowles once used it to test his fast car - and we were there watching! We lived a few doors away from Rolls Royce's Press Officer and he let us in."
Source: http://www.ourairports.com/airports/EGTI/
Topic: Leavesden Aerodrome.

BB crew member Mike Huggins lived in the Leavesden area - don't know if he worked for Rolls Royce - but his work in engineering steered his career to greater things.

His name cropped up in 2006 with a response to the JCB Diesel LSR gained by Andy Green and reflected on Richard Hammond's recovery from the Vampire jet dragster accident. Huggins wrote:
"I wish Richard a full recovery, to a certain extent I know how it feels. I was part of the team that set the British LSR way back in 1977, at Elvington, using a peroxide powered rocket car named The Blonde Bombshell. The first BBS also came to grief on a infamous "strip of land", Pendine Sands in Wales. Alas, the second car we built came to a similar end, due to money issues compromising safety, but it was a good feeling when the project did have a limited success".
Mike Huggins, Maranello, Italia.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5370394.stm
 #27267  by ukdrn
 
flying toilet wrote:Seems Mike ended up in the F1 industry and is now working for Ferrari, hence the Italy link.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-huggins/15/747/152

Dan
Dan that's jogged my memory and Mike's the guy I used to have contact with on page 2 of this thread.
 #27269  by Old Boy Racer
 
Hang on a minute - Mike Huggins says in his post on the Beeb JCB article that the second BBS came to the same sort of end as BBS1. Does that mean it crashed? Don't remember ever reading about that anywhere. By another weird coincidence I sometimes work in one of the new buildings on the Leavedsen development. JCB article also gives me an excuse to post this of Dieselmax being fired up for first test runs.
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Cheers Robin
 #27271  by Filby
 
Reading between the lines of Mike's reply, and referring back to Tog's comment on P1 of this topic:
"Barry had another rocket car built, by Dennis Priddle IIRC. I remember it having an enclosed cockpit. One of the rear wheel support struts collapsed on a test run on an airfield runway. That's where the story ends for me, I don't know what happened next."
it sounds like a compromise had to be made over the MkII car's construction due to lack of funds.
Perhaps the self admission that the writing was finally on the wall was accepted when this happened?
Barry then chose self preservation over the financial struggle of further attempts.

Hopefully, one day Barry's son will discover this site and enlighten us.
 #27318  by jaytee
 
maybe Brian Sparrow might have more photo's,as this came from Fast Facts.
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 #27319  by ukdrn
 
I've never seen the car with that full canopy on before, looks wicked.
I was speaking to Brian a few weeks ago and he's a massive Jet and Rocket fan, maybe Nick has those pictures?
 #27320  by shabby1
 
The airfield looks like Leavesden in the bottom photos,first one on the hangar side and the second one looking towards the Rolls Royce factory in the background-might be wrong but it looks familiar I went there a few times in the '80's to pick up avionics bits for our aircraft.
Chris
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