NZV8: We were watching an episode of VINwiki on YouTube and saw you mention that you’d owned a few thousand cars, and you’re a Kiwi … or Kiwi-ish. What’s the story?
Ben Wilson: I’m a Kiwi now, I’ve been here for too long. Every time I go home to the UK, I feel like a stranger. I’m not up to date with any of the news, the cars look like spaceships, and there’s far too many people. I always loved cars. There wasn’t a time I can remember when I wasn’t obsessed by them. When a Mustang went past when I was in a pushchair, I was just like, yeah, that’s it, that’s what I want, that’s my thing from now on. I’m just gonna be obsessed by them. It’s funny because the owner of that car was Dave Morris, my car mentor later on.
All I wanted was toy cars, then it was car magazines. I used to read Custom Car back in the ’70s … which makes me feel old, and I totally fell in love with the whole custom and American car culture. Eventually, I met Dave, who basically guided me through car culture. He lent me books and movies all taped off TV, he even made mix tapes of albums for me — that, along with helping him to restore his ’71 Mustang ‘Smooth Torquer’ — remember when all custom cars had names? — shaped me for the future, I’m still the same today! That was all way before I could drive.
I learnt to drive at age 10. That’s not really unusual for Kiwis, because you all get paddock cars, but in the UK that’s not something that really happens. I ended up getting hold of a ’59 Ford Pop 100E side-valve with a 107E motor in it. I would drive around the garden and polish it and I totally loved it — I mean, I was obsessed with it. Once you learn to drive, you want to drive a bit further. You want to push that envelope to see how far you can go. So, I cleaned up the Ford Pop and somebody wanted to buy it. I was like, OK, as long as I can buy another car. So I sold it and made 50 quid [of] profit. That was a good start back then; shame I never kept making a profit. My next car was a Volkswagen Beetle. It was all right but wasn’t really my kind of jam, so I traded it for a MkI Escort Sport. This is where [it] all goes wrong, as I traded the Escort for my first custom car, which was a custom Morris Marina coupe.
A custom Marina?
Yeah. It was covered in a pink fur interior and was jacked up in the rear. And in the old days, we used to paint the back axle and then turn the fog lights in at the back, so you’d have this glowing back axle. The thing was ridiculously raked, man, that was so cool. I had it for a little bit, then I just started to go mental. I started buying Land Rovers and then more interesting cars. I’d go out and buy a car. I’d go back to my parents, as I was 12 or 13 by then, and tell them I’d bought a car. They were like, what do you mean you bought a car? Well, I’ve bought a car, and we’ve got to go pick it up. I would have knocked on an old lady’s door to ask if it was for sale — she would obviously be glad to get
