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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