#OTD 1969: Blue Peter looked at two cars from opposite ends of the aesthetic spectrum. Which is better, new-vintage or old-futuristic? pic.twitter.com/MTyV3ik6pE
the Clockwork Probe, known as AB/4, had the license plate JFB 220H (and DAV 485Q in the film)
The Chequered Flag garage sold it to one Robin Gibbons, who was THE kind gentleman that lent the car for a few weeks to Kubrick’s Polaris Pictures company for the Clockwork Orange shoot
below is a photo of his Probe 16 in the parking lot of Gibbons’ place of work, the Ford Motor Company in Ilford, East London
shortly after the filming ended or the films’ release, Gibbons sold the car
not sure if there was an owner in between, but it passed onto to someone by the name of Mr Lyndon-Dyke (or perhaps Lybdon-Dyke), and then eventually made its way to America and was showcased by the Pollock Auto Showcase of Pottstown, Pennsylvania
and in the 1987, ended up back in the UK, in the possession of scientist and motorsportsman Dr. Colin Feyerabend, apparently yellow and in need of a lot of work (not sure how it became yellow or lost its bottom)
which led him to plead the British show Top Gear to help restore it, and they even featured it on the show for a contest segment hosted by James May called ‘Restoration Ripoff‘ that aired in 2004…
who then gave it as a b-day gift to Mountain drummer, and co-bandmate in West, Bruce & Laing, Corky Laing, seen here in the car
Laing had trouble maintaining this low to the ground car, residing in the overly snowy Montreal, and later cobblestoned, salt watered streets of Nantucket, and so he sold it to a Canadian university mechanical-engineering professor named Clyde Kwok, seen here, in 1979, with his son Hugh, in the car
then, perhaps, it came under the ownership of a one Guylain De France De Tersant of Montreal, who was looking to sell it in 1980
the Jimmy Webb and Jack Bruce Probes eventually came into the possession of Canadian collector Phillip Karam, who restored them both. he sold the Webb Probe, AB/2, to a one Dr. Mark Geach of England in 2016
the Jack Bruce one, AB/3, appeared alongside Malcolm McDowell at the 4th annual Ottawa Comiccon in May of 2015. Karam got McDowell to lend his autograph under the hood! (even though it wasn’t THE Probe used in filming)
and this Jack Bruce Probe JUST sold for $184,800!!!