ANTIQUE metalwork restorer Alan Bourne has a painstaking labour of love on his hands.

Alan, of Drayton, near Abingdon, is in the process of restoring a 1927 Morris Oxford car which he found in 1974.

The car was in a completely derelict state in a lean-to shed on a farm near Benson, having been last used as a farm truck in 1946.

Alan said: "When William Morris set up the Pressed Steel Company he intended the 1927 season would introduce his first all-steel bodied cars.

"But the launch was delayed by production problems and in the event that year's bodies were a mixture of traditional ash framed coachwork and the first steel pressings.

"The car I have originally had a saloon laundalet style of body and was bought by a rather wealthy lady who lived in Warborough.

"Even at that late date, she kept a horse-drawn carriage and employed a coachman. The poor man must have found his new job as chauffeur rather a surprise and apparently crashed the new vehicle into a ditch within a short time of learning to drive it - it's clear that my car had its radiator and one headlamp replaced early in its life, presumably the marks of this event!" he said. The original owner was a Mrs Green and her chauffeur was Mr Bill Pead. "Do any of his descendants or relatives still live locally? I would love to hear from them," he said.

Alan worked at Pressed Steel Fisher, as the company became, from 1970 until 1977 when a great deal of money was being spent on new high speed power presses.

These were installed at the Swindon factory in the main with a few at Cowley, and were then producing Marina and Metro parts.

"I suppose they are now con- sidered out of date but we thought they were very hi-tech (the machines I mean, not the cars!)."

Alan told Wednesday Wheels: "This, of course, is only very recent history but who of us there then would have imagined that the whole assembly plant would be razed to the ground within 20 years?

"Who would have thought that the Cowley site could go from being empty fields to car factory and back to empty fields again in the space of a lifetime?"

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