The Hillman story with a happy ending

A CLASSIC car owner has been reunited with his rare fuel filler cap after a Champion reader brought it to him after reading our piece in last week's edition.

Geoff Murray, from Lathom, said that a reader based in nearby Burscough had called at his home to give the fuel filler cap for his 1936 Hillman Hawk - one of just seven known to exist worldwide - after reading last week about the rare car component going missing at a nearby petrol station.

“I'm absolutely delighted that I've got the fuel filler cap, which is incredibly rare, back onto the car, so obviously the original article has paid off. I'd only had last week's Champion through my letterbox about five minutes earlier when a man called at the house with the fuel cap,” he said.

“He told me that he'd gone to the same petrol station that day, and as he was paying for his petrol his grandchildren found it, started playing with it and took it home, not realising what it was or how rare it is. He'd completely forgotten about it until he read the piece in last week's edition. If it hadn't been for The Champion, I probably wouldn't have seen it again.”

Last week Mr Murray appealed to Champion readers for their help in finding the filler cap for the 75-year-old car, which he had left at the petrol pumps and driven away by mistake on April 1.

He had resorted to using an emergency filler cap made from plastic but said that due to the rarity of the car, it was unlikely he would ever come across another example of the original chrome filler cap again.

Mr Murray bought the car, believed to be the only open tourer variant of the car in the world, in a partially-restored state in August last year, and showed it to members of the public in Banks earlier this month at the Riverside Steam and Vintage Rally.