Guess the year that this Pembleton T24 was first registered, having been hand built in a small village in Worcestershire...
Nope, you're wrong. We're not about to get all beardy about pre-war motoring, because this curious creation was actually first put together in 2023. Yep, it's a brand new car.
"Vintage motoring reimagined for the present," is one of the tag lines that Pembleton uses to sell its wares. The company was formed by Phil Gregory, who in 1999 built the very first Pembleton using the aluminium body panels from an old caravan. That was a three-wheeled, bike-engined creation drawn up and built in just five weeks, as trikes wen free on the ferry to Ireland and a wedding anniversary roadtrip was planned for the very near future.
So, as you may be able to tell, Phil is a proper eccentric British engineer. In the Eighties he built his own methanol powered, slick tyre-shod motorbike - the Gregory 1100cc - from scratch and used it to win the national hillclimb championship and set multiple course records around the UK. His nickname in the motorcycle press at the time was 'The Worcestershire Wild Man'. Oh, and he towed said bike to races behind his Dino using a tow bar set-up that he put together himself. He once also had plans to build his own helicopter.
"He doesn't have a mobile phone, never had an email address and he could probably just about turn on the computer, but he wouldn't get much further than that. And yet he somehow managed to get bespoke belts made up in Japan for the bike engine," says his son Guy Gregory, who took over the running of the company back in 2015.
This story is from the September 2023 edition of BBC Top Gear UK.
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This story is from the September 2023 edition of BBC Top Gear UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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