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GRE 33N (or Gwen as she became known) was my first Reliant 3-wheeler. I bought her as I was about to start university and my Yamaha XS250
motorcycle has just been stolen. My mum suggested that if I bought a Reliant Robin, I could drive it on a bike license and that whilst at university I could get all my bags into it.
o trawling through the Tamworth Herald I spotted a Reliant Robin advertised for £350 so I went over with my dad and I purchased it. The only problem was that I had never driven a car before and so it took about 10 minutes before I worked out the controls and managed to drive it home.
Originally the car was Carnival pink (as shown by the engine of the engine bay) though I was far too butch for a pink car and within a few weeks
sprayed it electric blue.
Within the first week there was strange noises from the engine and a short while later the crank shaft snapped in half and I had to do my first
Reliant engine rebuild. I later traced the original owners and discovered that a few weeks before I bought it they had sold it with a great engine. It seemed, the people I bought it off, just bought it
for the good engine and replaced it with a duff one.
Once the engine was rebuilt the Robin lasted many miles and faithfully saw countless journeys to and from university and indeed all over the country
attending Reliant Owners Club rallies. Gwen also had a few extras like a walnut dash (aka walnut effect fablon) and Westminister carpet.
She also had a laughing passenger chair (courtesy of an old electronic unit from a toy mirror and a micro switch) and a water pistol on the front. (A screen wash jet fitted behind the grille an pointing outwards). It also had several air horns fitted as well and extra wide alloy wheels at the back - in fact they were so wide they failed the MOT so I had to buy some plastic Mini arches and modify them and attach them to the sides so that the wheel was covered. The MOT man was then happy. In addition being a 750cc model it had starting issues when hot so I tried to keep it cool by adding an asbestos sheet below the carburetor and and an air duct on the bonnet. Originally this was an old car speaker with a hole in it (as in the second photo) though this was soon changed for a Skoda airduct ) First and Fourth picture) that looked much better.
My mum was right though, whilst at university the car was a god send and proved extremely useful for not only getting to and from university but for
also carting friends about and shopping sprees.
The name Gwen was somehow derived from the registration GRE 33N after drinking far too much cider one night, even though the word GREEN was actually
a better representation. Interesting enough, the number plate actually reappeared ten years after the car was scrapped for sale at £9,995.
The car met its end when in 1993, a lady in a blue Vauxhall Astra drove straight into the back whilst I was waiting at some traffic lights. The car was written off by the insurance though they said I could keep the car. I traded it in as part exchange for a Reliant Rialto at Websters in Stoke-on-Trent. They said they would take all the parts off the car that they needed and that I could then collect the V5 so that I could keep the number plates. I took the number plates off straight away and still own them now though when I went back two weeks later to pick up the V5 they apologised and said they car had been scrapped. I thought no more of it until 10 years later when the DVLA write to me and inform me that someone is trying to register the car in their name and amazingly it is still registered to me. I told them that the car no longer exist though I’m not sure they believed me as they said it does and soon after the plate GRE 33N appeared on the market - so I am assuming someone found the paperwork rather than the actual car?
When the car eventually went, it was a very sad day indeed as it really seemed to have a character all of its own. I guess that added with the
thousands of miles I had traveled in her and that it was my first car made it seem as though I really was loosing a friend.
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