I am the Art Editor for Classic & Sports Car magazine. I came across the AC through a colleague – Editor-in-chief, Mick Walsh. PAR 419 used to belong to his father, but during his ownership the car was garaged with a clutch problem. I took the car in on 2007 and since then it has been undergoing a rather slow restoration with a non-existent budget!
Not long after moving the AC to my Berkshire home, I started tracing the history of the vehicle. This was made much easier with the discovery of the original logbook which listed all of the owners. I managed to make contact with several of those names, but it was the first owner, Harold Day, who became perhaps the most significant.
I knew very little about Day until one of his daughters came across an early incarnation of this website and got in touch. Elizabeth Day competed with her father in the AC Buckland at circuits such as Brands Hatch and was eager to share her memories. It transpired that Elizabeth had two sisters, Pat and Jean who also were very involved in their father’s passion for the AC. Tales of participating in the first RAC 24hr rally, navigating for their father as well as popping on the helmet and taking their turns at the wheel were told, and slowly the history began to build.
The Day sisters reunited with their father's car after several decades
As the personal memories flooded in, I was also contacted by the Librarian of the AC Owners’ Club (ACOC). Some research of their extensive records had indicated that PAR 419, with Harold behind the wheel, had once competed at the famous Goodwood motor circuit near Chichester. Not only that, but it was the first AC-badged vehicle to drive at the circuit.
In 2010, the three Day sisters travelled to Berkshire where I was showing the Buckland in its current state. With them they brought an album of photographs – many of which can be seen on this website. One of them showed their father piloting PAR 419 past Woodcote grandstand and into the chicane at Goodwood.
Harold Day was one of the first members of the ACOC, and as the history revealed, he also sometimes shared the driving with George Griggs – ACOC member number one. Recently it has also come to light that Day traded out of Covent Garden in the 1950s and had premises near that of Bill Bailey – the father of Ernie Bailey who was in charge of the Buckland Body Works, responsible for the AC Buckland’s external appearance and manufacture.
You can read about the progress in Classic & Sports Car magazine from time-to-time as well as on this blog and on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/acrestoration).
If you would like to offer any advice or help with the rebuild then please get in touch by emailing me.
