1930 Teignmouth Fabric Saloon
By Steve O'Hara
We never had a car when I grew up in Birmingham - my Dad had a succession of old bikes. So, it was buses or nothing. I rode the bus every day to school and the sound of a bus engine and gearbox became a sort of music to me.
I bought an old Rover 10 when I was 17 and owned quite a number of cars over the years before buying a Standard Ten in 1992, my first classic car.
I joined the club and soon discovered what a wide range of vehicles bore the name ‘Standard’.
I wanted an older car and in 1999 bought a 1935 Nine from Phil and Lynda Homer. That was a lovely old car, but I had a hankering for a Standard with a rigidly-mounted engine and crash gearbox, just like my favourite buses.
In 2003 at a car show at Gaydon a 1930 Teignmouth turned up, having been driven from furthest Essex.
.jpg)
I wanted to photograph it for the Standard Car Review and asked the owner to drive it across the site. He offered me a ride and I was hooked. Fast forward four years and the Review had an advert for a vintage Nine. It was the same one!
I motored across to see it down in Essex. The owner drove it around the local lanes and I had a drive. His wife was in the back seat. Listening to those straight cut gears and rigidly-mounted engine she remarked apologetically ‘It sounds like an old bus!’.
I agreed a deal and went to collect it the next week!
I became editor of the Standard Car Review a few months later and of course, my new Teignmouth had to be on the front cover of my first edition in October 2007, using the photo seen above.
