Martin Buckley | Fiat 130s in Pub Car Parks, Bristol 406s & a Ferrari in Bredbury

The Old Car Lady sits down with motoring writer Martin Buckley to go through a box of photographs taken on the streets of Manchester and Stockport in the late 70s and 80s. Martin was a teenager with a camera and an eye for anything interesting, and he found plenty.

A Fiat 130 abandoned in a pub car park in Audenshaw. A Bristol 406 with no plates and no engine photographed on a night out in Stockport. A Lamborghini Urraco outside a mate’s garage in Ashton. A Ferrari 275 GTS spotted outside an auto electrician in Bredbury. A 300 SL Roadster in a mill car park. This is what was out there if you knew where to look.

The Fiat 130 at The Blue Pig: S reg, right-hand drive, badge nicked off the back, sitting in the car park of a pub in Audenshaw for months. Martin went in and asked about it. The landlord said no. He went back twice. It was always there.

Espadas on Slip Roads and a Vinyl Roof: A dodgy classic car dealer in the early 80s who promised Martin an E type for Christmas and never delivered. He had two Lamborghini Espadas, took Martin out in one flat out on a motorway slip road doing well over 100. The other one had a vinyl roof. Covering the rust.

The Bristol 406 on a Night Out: No plates, possibly no engine, photographed twice: once in colour and once in Martin’s black and white artistic period. He insisted on dragging his mates past it on the way to a club in Stockport. They thought he was weird. He does not disagree.

Parking the Bristol in Pall Mall: Martin bought a Bristol 407 cheap, drove it from Stroud to London late at night at 100 miles an hour and parked it in Pall Mall. Found a space immediately. He says there was no Bristol moment that was ever going to top that.

The Ferrari 275 GTS in Bredbury: Spotted outside an auto electrician in Bredbury. Worth millions now. Martin followed it in off the street. He has since owned a Ferrari 400 automatic and a 412 manual. His dad had a genuinely lovely 400i that Ferrari UK found nothing wrong with when they got their hands on it.

Why pub car parks were long-term storage for interesting cars all over Greater Manchester. Why the Bristol 406 six-cylinder is now both Martin’s and Sam’s favourite. Why the Espada is a grenade waiting to go off and why Martin is still not cured of them. Why auto electricians who don’t make things worse are harder to find now than a Ferrari 275 GTS in Bredbury. And why the A6 through Stockport was the place to go car shopping before the internet.

• Is the Lamborghini Espada worth owning today? Martin’s view: only if you have the equivalent of the car’s new price sitting in the bank as a just-in-case fund. You also need a specialist who will actually work on one. He has owned one and is not cured.
• Bristol 406 or 407: which is the one to have? Both Martin and Sam come down on the 406 with the six-cylinder engine as peak Bristol. Better proportioned, better balanced, nicer to drive. The V8s are faster but the engine is heavier and the handling suffers.
• Did growing up surrounded by interesting cars make you a better judge of them? Martin’s dad had P5Bs, a Lotus Elite, Lancias and Ferraris. Martin had access to an Opel Senator 3 litre as a teenager and thought nothing of it. He now thinks that background makes you harder to impress and slower to buy badly.

Martin Buckley, motoring writer and author, whose archive of 35mm photos from the streets of Greater Manchester is exactly the kind of thing nobody else kept. Part 2 is coming. Barry Moran’s garage in Ashton, where the Lamborghini Urraco was a regular visitor. And the auto electricians of Leyland, Preston, who are still doing it properly.

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