Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2010/January 2011 | Page 112
motoring
Island Life - December 2010
Photo: Alan
pictured with
his 1934 Bentley
Vaden Plas
Alan keeps on driving
with yet another set
of wheels!
Photo: Alan working on his vintage Rolls
Royce
Like so many of us, there is nothing
Beaulieu Motor Museum fuelled his
most unusual was probably a GWK,
more Alan Milbank and his wife Lesley
enthusiasm and at the age of 17 he
which stood for Grice, Wood, Kieller
like to do on a Sunday than jump in
bought his first car, a 1930 Austin 7.
after the three men who founded it.
one of their cars and cruise around the
Island roads.
After a brief spell in local government,
Mr. Kieller was a jam manufacturer
he became a junior car salesman,
in Scotland, and the cars were built
moving on to commercial vehicles,
in Maidenhead. The one I restored
Lesley are very easily recognisable,
and running his own motor accessory
was built in 1922, and the cars had
simply because of the vehicle they are
shop before setting up on his own in
an unusual friction driving system
driving. It’s usually a 1934 Austin 10
1962. He ran a garage in Worcester
which meant they could go just as fast
Cabriolet or a 1934 Bentley Vanden
Park for more than 25 years, combining
backward and forward.”
Plas.
selling petrol with restoring cars. He
But unlike so many of us, Alan and
The Bentley is a bit ‘thirsty’ at 18mpg,
Alan and Lesley moved to the Island
said: “Because I had an interest in old
in1996, and over the years he has
but he gets close to 40mpg out of the
cars, I always seemed to attract other
painstakingly restored scores of
Austin – and if they happen to let him
people’s, so restoring and repairing
classic cars. And he has so many fond
down he can always call on his 1964
vehicles became an active part of the
memories of his involvement with
Land Rover.
business.”
classic cars, and the motor trade in
Alan has had a fascination for classic
He reckons: “Perhaps the most
general that he has written a book on
cars virtually all his life, ever since
challenging was a 1930 Austin 20
his experiences, and further details
a smart Jaguar caught his eye when
Landaulet limousine. It had stood idle
can be found on his website www.
he was a seven-year-old living in
since before the Second World War, so
anothersetofwheels.co.uk
Hanworth, Middlesex. A trip to the
there was a lot of work involved. The
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