As you may have known, there was a little group of devoted Unipower owners in the south of the UK back in the 1980s, who regularly met up. Tim Carpenter was among them: "The first Sunday of the month we used to have a pub meeting in Brockham, Surrey but most of the guys came over in their daily drivers as their Unipowers inevitably were in some state of disrepair. But the pictures of the cars together were taken at a meeting at Syon Park in July 1984, which was organized by Gerry Hulford. The Heritage Motor Museum used to be part of the park at the time. These days it probably is a hotel."
"The green car belonged to Peter Beale, who lived in West London. You can see his car is on the original Mk1 Cosmics, which my car originally had, too. You can also see that all the cars, except for mine have an air dam at the front. They are from a Golf Mk1, but I didn't think it needed one. People said it does get very light at the front at speed but I remember it felt all right to me when I drove it once at Goodwood when it was just finished, although it was hardly run in at the time."
"I believe Peter's car was sold to Japan (yes, it's been seen there, now painted silver grey-JB) but I don't know what happened to the other two: YLN 4G and NPN 16F. As you can see they both have the black windscreen surround and this was original to the cars, I believe they were both Mk2s. On the other pictures taken inside the park you can see a yellow racer. I don't think this is the Le Mans car, but another. It was Gerry's, as was the two-tone car, which was in fact the 75th and last car built. That went to Japan, too."
"Next, there was a kit car show at Hindhead which ran every year in the middle of the summer and I think some of the pictures were taken there in 1991. One of the cars was the two-tone Mk1 which was owned by Simon Lee. He worked for Janspeed at the time and the car was beautiful. It was an early car, too, with a chassis number under the 10-mark and I remember it really was pretty."
Thanks Tim for all the memories and pictures. I need to make a big update for my Unipower register as more information has come up since the last time I updated it. Who knows what else this may lead to.
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"The green car belonged to Peter Beale, who lived in West London. You can see his car is on the original Mk1 Cosmics, which my car originally had, too. You can also see that all the cars, except for mine have an air dam at the front. They are from a Golf Mk1, but I didn't think it needed one. People said it does get very light at the front at speed but I remember it felt all right to me when I drove it once at Goodwood when it was just finished, although it was hardly run in at the time."
"I believe Peter's car was sold to Japan (yes, it's been seen there, now painted silver grey-JB) but I don't know what happened to the other two: YLN 4G and NPN 16F. As you can see they both have the black windscreen surround and this was original to the cars, I believe they were both Mk2s. On the other pictures taken inside the park you can see a yellow racer. I don't think this is the Le Mans car, but another. It was Gerry's, as was the two-tone car, which was in fact the 75th and last car built. That went to Japan, too."
"Next, there was a kit car show at Hindhead which ran every year in the middle of the summer and I think some of the pictures were taken there in 1991. One of the cars was the two-tone Mk1 which was owned by Simon Lee. He worked for Janspeed at the time and the car was beautiful. It was an early car, too, with a chassis number under the 10-mark and I remember it really was pretty."
Thanks Tim for all the memories and pictures. I need to make a big update for my Unipower register as more information has come up since the last time I updated it. Who knows what else this may lead to.
Four Unipower GTs. Closest car to the camera, YLN 4G, is a Mk2. Note (Golf sourced) air dams
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
The orange one, another Mk2 and registered NPN 16F, was also a regular during 1980s meets
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
The green car belonged to Peter Beale. It's silver-grey now and resides in japan
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
More cars, including Tim's (centre) the last one built (far right) and a wide bodied racer
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
Not the Le mans racer, is it? I believe this car to be in Japan now, too, but I'm not sure
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
Hindhead '91: This early car belonged to Simon Lee, who worked for Janspeed. It's in japan now, too.
Behind the Mini Marcos another Unipower, registered HNK 8G
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter
That's it. It was painted black later and offered for sale for 1,600 GBP (see here). The man carrying the books is Peter Beale, the man in the green sweater is Simon Lee
Picture courtesy Tim Carpenter