Married to a Manta Maniac, by Thelma Blankley

more by William Blankley

Just so there is no doubt about who I mean, my name is Thelma Blankley, married to the well known Manta A nut William R Blankley. For some time I have been threatening to tell all those in the club who haven’t been down to St Leonards on sea, what it is really like. At last I have found a spare moment to bash the word processor.

A few days ago we were talking to a couple we know when the wife remarked that she was pleased she wasn’t married to my husband and I was reminded of just how tolerant I am. Really the only reason I retain any semblance of sanity is that I too am a complete Manta nut.

To give you an example; until very recently if I was asked to write out our son’s year of birth it was calculated as follows. We got him the same year as we bought our first Manta. The Manta was first registered in 1972 and was three years old when we got it. Therefore we bought the car in 1975 so our son was born in 1975. See what I mean?

Strangely enough I have only a vague idea of when we bought our Daimler, all I know is that it was two days after William wrote off that first Manta, not a happy occasion as you will appreciate, so I don’t remember the year. Shortly after that we picked up our second Manta, or at least the shell, with seats and log book. A rally driving friend of ours had tried to persuade us to sell him our 1900 engine to put into his Chevette. When he realised that we were not going to part with it, he bought a whole damaged Manta and sold us the shell. We were hoping to make one whole car out of the two; this did not come about for various reasons, but it was during this period that we learnt one hell of a lot about the way Mantas are put together. The best lesson we learnt was that when you take something apart even if you are sure that you will have it back together in a day or two, label and bag everything!

For a while we were Daimler drivers but I was still pining, so when our daughter remarked that she had seen a Manta A for sale at a local garage I looked at the car, saw the bank manager, (a real one who understood about cars,) and at last I had my own Manta with my name on the log book. By the way I loathe green cars, but contrary to popular belief women do not choose cars because they like the colour. Please don’t tell my Green Dragon that I don’t like green. (Mind you our first one was a very pretty Monza blue and that might have been part of its attraction.)

As you probably know from William’s articles our Manta collection has grown over the years and without exception every purchase has been a joint decision.

However it is not just whole cars we have to accommodate. That first 1900 engine stood on the landing for more years than I care to remember. Every day when I came out of the bedroom and stubbed my toe, I never lost faith that one day it would be rebuilt and back in a car. (Preferably my personal transport as we had cared for it from 17800 miles and it had only done 58000 in all.) Eventually my wish was granted. My Green Dragon, which started life as a humble 1780, came to us with a sad and oily engine, which, although it was game, was never quite the same as our original. It is now a 1900, an odd one with hub caps.

Since the days of engine blocks on the landing, we have acquired the first floor in this house plus the basement and two more garages. All of it is full of cars, parts of cars, plus lots of oily bits that might come in useful some day. Then there are the bits which came from Mark because he had no-where to keep them, these we store in one of our front rooms.

That is not a poker sitting next to the gas fire, it’s a steering column.

The little plastic objects next to the phone are steering column bearings.

Should you be sufficiently privileged to be invited to Blankley Mansions, please do not judge me on the tidiness of the house. I would prefer to be judged on my love of Mantas, even when they are in bits and filling every nook and crannie. Plus of course my empathy with other Manta nuts.

William R Blankley

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