Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[P3steve]

Iv'e got a Rover P3 that was first registered in Feb. 1949 in Southport (and still carries its orig FY prefix plate thankfully) On the dash is a small plate that says "Bambers near Birkdale station, Southport" and the plate also says that they had garages in Leeds and Shefield, dose any one have any information on the Bambers Southport branch - do they still exist in any form, any help would be great. Thanks Steve in Norfolk

[P3steve]

Update on the last mail just had a look on the web and found a Southport community forum and someone on there says that Bambers of Birkdale is now a Spar supermarket, so that tells me they no longer trade on that site, but I would still like any info or memories if you have them

[P3steve]

As I said earlier I found a Southport community forum and the responce has been beyound belief, lots of people can remember the Garage right up to the late 1970s when it closed finaly being a Renault service centre, one man knew the owner Cyril Bamber and his two sons Dickie and Tommy in the 1960s and one man came up with an old photo taken in 1948 the year before my Rover was made which shows Lord Street Southport when it was flooded and the building in the photo as you can see is Bambers show room, also is a modern Google photo taken from the same spot




This link takes you to the google street view today (not sure how to get street views up as photos on this site)

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Lord+Street,+Southport&aq=0&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=11.540145,28.081055&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Lord+St,+Southport,+Merseyside+PR8,+United+Kingdom&ll=53.64622,-3.009304&spn=0,0.001714&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=53.646141,-3.009441&panoid=HXtpYiy93a3gUUHHzbv5_g&cbp=13,336.64,,0,-6.04

[Richard H]

That's great that the building is still standing. You should take a trip up there, get some pictures of the Rover outside the old showroom

[Roger-hatchy]

[P3steve]

Thanks Roger your a star (by the way - just how do you do that )

Am now building a fuller picture of Bambers of Southport, it seems they had two sites in the Southport area. The main show room was on Lord Street in the centre of Southport as seen in these photo's and a second site where the main workshop and a second show room were in a place called Birkdale (still referred to as Birkdale village by the locals it seems) which was an outlaying area close to Southport its self. One person on the Southport community forum recalls that Bamber mechanics always had white overalls which made them stand out from other garage mechanics in the area.

[P3steve]

The Southport forum continues to turn up gems, someone posted this orig advert from just before the war the addresses and phone number match the ones on the little metal plaque that started this quest

[Rick]

This is where the internet really comes into its own doesn't it, fascinating stuff - the before and after photos are very interesting.

R
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[RobertF]

I was interested to see your notes on Bambers of Southport as I have a 1963 Alvis TD21 with their badge on the glovebox. It sounds identical to the one on the Rover. As I have just joined this forum I will not try and attach a photo but I'm sure there must be a way!

[Rick]