I would like to thank David Lacey for inviting us down to his open day on Sunday 23rd March 2025 as I’d not been before and had seen photos of past events so knew it would be worth the trip, and it was! A total of 95 engines on display, 50 of these were from David’s very impressive collection and added to by some more likeminded people made a great day. David and Hayley did us proud with plenty of tea, coffee and a huge array of food to help keep us going.
From David’s very impressive VST24 twin cylinder Petter right down to the Lister D there was something for all to see, some nice French engines, although not everyone’s “cup of tea” they are a very lovely thing to look at, an original “working clothes” Japy was opposite me and was a lovely thing to watch, it nearly ended up in the van! I took the opportunity to give my Petter Handyman a long run after it’s latest rebuild/repaint and I was pleased at the amount of interest that got, plus it didn’t let me down and ran all day without any issues. Also a lovely small Detroit 2 stroke running very well and was a real delight as they are not something often seen.
Above/Below – David’s Petter VST24
Above – John Thorne’s inverted Webster.
Some of the more common engines were the array of Petter 2 stroke engines, but even this was sprinkled with some really unusual variants, a 8hp M driving a genny sounding superb, the “normal” sprinkling of the smaller 1.5 to 5hp sizes plus a very impressive line up of Atomics and S types.
Above – Selection of Petter Atomic 2 strokes.
Below – Some of the many Petters on show.
Above – David’s horizontal S type portable
Below – Selection of Blackstone engines
Below – David’s Gardner two stroke
Below – Visiting engine – An early Allen oil engine
For an engine day it had everything needed, good friends, a good selection to look at and a decent site, what’s not to like!!!
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Country: GB
