Malcolm Buckler, who located our web site from the distant Isle of Man (part of the British Islands situated midway between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales) has been communicating with Judy about his Buckler roots. His great grandfather was born in the Isle of Wight but moved to London where Malcolm’s grandfather was born. His father was also born in London but later moved to Berkshire England and founded the Buckler Cars company. Malcolm started the Buckler sports/racing car Register in the 1970’s. His Dad produced about 400 of the Buckler cars in the 40’s up to the 60’s.

Malcolm’s Buckler line has been worked out back to the 1400’s. He writes that the Buckler’s arrived in England with the Norman invasion, the Buckler’s coming from Rouen in France. Much later they got involved with Oliver Cromwell. One of Malcolm’s direct line was a Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and in that capacity was sent to be a Rector in the Isle of Wight. Eventually, politics led to the “ejection” of old Rector Buckler from the Island but not before leaving many descendants. Later many of them drifted back to England.

AMY

The Buckler car is called Amy because the original registration number in England was AMY and she had gained the nickname before Malcolm bought her. In the Isle of Man they have to have a local number with the letters based on MAN or MN. Malcolm managed to acquire MAN 1171 because the car used to be raced under the “1171 Formula” in the 1950’s and that is the capacity of her engine.

She is a Buckler Mark 5 made in 1954. The chassis is a tubular steel space-frame and the body is aluminum. She has a Ford side-valve engine with an overhead inlet vlave cross-flow conversion and a 3-speed Buckler close-ratio gearbox. Top speed is 80-90 m.p.h. (English miles).

The brakes are operated by mechanical rods and suspension is a single transverse leaf spring Buckler independant front and single transverse leaf spring at the back. Drive is rear wheel via a torque tube. It has no wipers, no washers and no heater but is loads of fun, when it is not in pieces, as is often the case. If you keep going fast enough, the rain is deflected over your head but you can get very wet at traffic lights! There is no speed limit outside the town on the Isle of Man.