It’s official, old beavers never die – nor seem to fade away!
“That’s an overstatement, of course; all good things must come to an end. Still, the following figures supplied by C&T Harris (Calne) Ltd….of bacon fame….do make you wonder!” says this 1950s Motor Transport advert.
The figures it is referring to are 342,146 miles from one bacon-carrying Beaver. What’s more, the engine required absolutely no attention – except for the replacement pistons, sleeves and big-end bearing shells. Apparently it was a similar story with the company’s Octopus eight-wheeler – which had 279,102 miles to its credit. It too had proved perfectly reliable – ignoring the new rings, big-end bearing shells and number 2 and number 3 main bearings, all of which needed replacing.

And on a completely different subject – check out this advert for Kismet garage equipment. No prizes for guessing in which decade this was published.