Kieran Turner's photos with the keyword: sunbeam

Sorry it was a very grey Sunday evening. The old Pritchard's Rootes Group garage was a lovely surprise as I drove home through Llandridnod Wells. It's being converted into separate shop and leisure (bar/café) units from the looks of it, but retains those wonderful signs, and a selection of increasingly antique petrol pumps which appear (from the price sign) to still be vaguely in use. (Note especially the one a car's length in front of that Fiesta. Yes, that pole with a dial on top is a petrol pump.) This is just along the road from another wonderful curved-fronted pre-Deco building, "Tom Norton's", the stonework of which announces his involvement in cycles, motors, and aircraft, and now houses the National Cycle Museum. A return visit on a non-Sunday is definitely called for.

Harley, my much beloved first car. A 1970 Sunbeam Alpine fastback, with a gorgeous polished wood dashboard (an upgraded one from a Humber Sceptre, I suspect) and the same unbreakable 1725 engine as my grandad's Hillman Hunters, for added nostalgia ;) I learned how to do little restorative jobs through the summer until I got my driving license, for example on those little bits of rust you can see around the door in this photo. By the time a license came around I'd sorted out every little ding in the bodywork, and my mum's friend Norman had helped me change a clutch cylinder. My dad stepped in to get the head skimmed, and by the end of the year this was an amazing Alpine. And if you look carefully, in the passenger seat is my much beloved Grandma Meg. Both are now absent. x