I bought a derelict garage in Wales. Thinking time...

Apologies I don't have a great deal of time to go into long posts / details currently due to family commitments (which is also why my threads are not getting updated) - hopefully the pics will say it all and how its done - but covered car transport is easy - hire a Luton tail lift van - some scaffolding planks and away you go (if you don't have any scaffolding planks pm me and you can loan my set)

I remember selling a Seicento Sporting on here, the guy turned up with a drop side truck.
With the aid of some thick planks and a trolley jack in supporting mode I drove it straight onto the back!

A luton van and several scaffold boards would be even better, really enjoying this thread by the way, keep it up:-)

heavyspanners, if you get stuck i'm in Horsham and could meet you at the train station and run you to the secret location in the luxury* of my Mk2 Transit....its only about 15 minutes from the station by the looks of things.

Was just thinking the same as dodgerover as I'm just outside of Horsham too. Two possibilities then.

Ya see, this is what happens when you live in London. It’s a sh1t hole, everyone knows it’s a sh1t hole (even the people that pay ridiculous prices to live in said sh1t hole. London is basically like The Emperors new clothes. If enough people keep telling you how great it is, then it must be so) why?
Go & live in your garage in Wales, you know it makes sense.
Great thread btw

You and me both mate. I'd go mad if I had to live in a big city.

I think the reason beavertails are difficult to find is simply because there's not much demand for them. It's got to be a very, very small part of the vehicle rental market, so most companies don't do them at all....and those that do offer them don't have a very big fleet.

A few years back I remember someone from the Series 2 Land Rover Club tried to set up in business as a vehicle-mover (using a trailer towed by his LWB Defender - he didn't try to use a Series as a tow vehicle. I think it would've been possible, but it would have been very slow). He had to give up after a while because there just wasn't that much business around.

As I mentioned somewhere above, the other day I tried to rent a truck from Easirent - who do offer beavertails at some of their locations according to their website - and I was basically told no, because "it's in Manchester at the moment". I thought, what? It's in Manchester? You mean you've only got one?

I eventually rented a truck from Abacus in Andover (thanks to moglite for the tip) which isn't too far away from me and is actually quite handy for the return trip from Wales. I can do the drop-off on my way home without really going out of my way. They seem to be a reasonably big company (I looked at their depot in Google Streetview) and I could book and pay entirely online - none of this meet me at a secret location with cash in hand stuff. So the Mini move will happen this week. Stay tuned for an update!

I'm perfectly happy living in my scruffy and un-gentrified corner of London - after all, I chose to come and live here. I grew up in a small village on the outskirts of Cheltenham, so I know what its like to live in the country and in a smallish town. Frankly it sends me stir-crazy after a while.

London is full of stuff that just doesn't happen elsewhere. I spent seven years as a live music promoter (at the Camden Underworld and the Borderline in Soho) and had a fine rock 'n' roll time which wouldn't have happened anywhere else. I was slightly famous at one time as the promoter with the Mini van....



That's me at the back. How about that for a tour van!

Sorry that's such a low-rez photo - if I can find the original I'll do a better version. I sold that van to a member of the London & Surrey Mini Club who was going to restore it...but I never heard anything else and the (real) registration is not on the DVLA database any more.

I also used my Mini Clubman Estate (the one that I still have) as a rock 'n' roll van. They're surprisingly practical vehicles for carting band hardware around. It's possible to get two Marshall 4x12 speaker cabinets, two Marshall JCM900 amps, two guitars in cases, and one band manager into a Mini Estate. Who needs a Transit?

But even though I like London, I also like the fact that my garage is in an obscure location, tucked away between a couple of Welsh mountains. Sometimes it's nice to shut the doors, lock the gate, and go right away from the place. But it's also nice to make the trip up there - it's like going on holiday. And I do think it helps me make more progress with the project. After all, I'm making a specific journey to a specific location to do a specific job, and that helps me get the job done. I'm not really a working from home kind of person. If the garage was closer to home I'd be popping back every five minutes to have cups of tea and waste time on the internet.

And much like @grumpynorthener 's situation I do have London to thank for the fact that I was able to buy the garage in the first place. Back in 1989 I bought my house at the very bottom of the property market, which had spectacularly crashed. Interest rates were stupidly high (about 15% at one point) but house prices had nosedived (about £50,000 - £80,000 for a 3-bed house in parts of London at the time) and mortgages were incredibly easy to get. Lenders were so nervous that the property crash would wipe out their business that they were offering all sorts of incentives - stamp duty paid, first year's repayments waived - and dishing out mortgages to any chancer who asked. So I took a chance and asked...and they said yes.

I bought the cheapest house I could find in the cheapest location I could find, and then had to spend the next few years living on economy baked beans because the mortgage repayments were so high. But 25 years later I found myself with a freehold house in London which - incredibly, because the area is still fairly scruffy - is now worth the best part of £500,000. And that gave me a useful bit of financial leverage to buy a semi-derelict garage in Wales. So London made it all possible.

Anyway. I digress. Car transporter adventures will follow soon...

With reference to -
Post by grumpynorthener on 16 hours ago
Without deviating or going off the topic too far - what location you reside in is very much down to your own preference / choice / family location / work location / lifestyle etc but do we really have to reduce the level of posting on RR to accuse other members of residing in a 'whatever' hole location whilst others go on to agree by 'liking' - Sure 'London' Its not everybody's choice / taste in location but for some it is - you can compare owning property / its location to classic / retro vehicle ownership - what I like will rarely be what others desire / aspire to own - yet others may well appreciate what it is and how it's styled whilst others will disagree

In reply to GN, having been brought up in rural Worcestershire and left at 16 years of age to start employment, I lived in accommodation provided by my employer. What a shock that was, but the next few years went OK. I eventually escaped back into Worcestershire some 5 years later and must say was glad to see the back of City-life. I have also only visited London about five times in my whole lifetime, and again it's not a place that I would relish living in.

However I do understand that for many they have either no choice, or want to live in a City; that's there choice, whether forced to do so, or otherwise.

We are all free to live where we choose/are forced to and it's a good job that we live in a democracy allowing us to do so.

With regards to the 'Welsh Garage Project' I have absolutely no doubt that this presents a magical opportunity to re-charge 'heavyspanners' batteries, which enabling him to live his life with some degree of harmony; city life not being able to provide such.

Keep up the good work, with all its diversions; you are clearly providing excellent entertainment for the Forum, plus stimulating thought along the way.

I might not agree with some of the various solutions to some aspects; also including ideas proffered by some of the other contributors.

However I for one admire you tenacity to develop this property, and your thread is one of the first that I look for every time that I visit RR, it is both entertaining and makes me think of similar situations that I have dealt with and the resulting solutions/disasters along the way.

Thank you.

Couple of things here.....

I was on the A41 heading down to the M25 Yesterday and there had been an accident closing a lane each side. Turns out a Land Rover Discovery had been towing a Mercedes Vito van on a triple axle car transporter trailer and coming down hill the two had separated and the trailer had gone ended up halfway through the central res. Was remarkable in that neither had ended up upside down or on their sides. Showed how even a properly thought out towing rig can go wrong. Also showed how well he had strapped the Vito down.

Mini Vans are very good roadies cars. My dad would often tell me how he used to get his mates drum kit in the back of his Mini Van, and also about the bucket seats and other mods!

London is what it is. I get it, for those who haven't lived here or been brought up here it's easy to view it as an anti car mega city with very little to offer. But for those of us bought up here it or able to get on the property ladder 5 years + ago then life is a good balance knowing that the equity in our properties is substantial enough to one day do what GrumpNortherner did. Equally it also enables us to appreciate things that aren't London more. Like no traffic, friendly people and a pace of life that isn't a million miles an hour. Flip side to that is not being able to find anywhere open after 4pm on a Sunday......I could find 6 such places within a mile of here but when i was in Cornwall it was 1 place in a 20 mile radius. How does everyone else survive.....anyway I digress.