Like Kim, I made Sodbury yesterday but have been required for 'other duties' today, so have only just got round to posting.
Rather an unusual and special day for me - I actually bought something I needed! That being the little 2 into 1 exhaust collector for Norman T300, it came in a lot with a Mar-Vil silencer (brooklands can style) and a handy few feet of flexy tubing all for little more than loose change. I guess I could have gone home happy after that, but it wouldn't be the same without buying a few odds and sods which I didn't even know I wanted. So the exhaust bits were joined by a stirrup pump and a small semi open frame mains electric motor which, being of the 'universal' sort with a commutator, looks like a good candidate for a small power dynamo. It appears to have been made by EMI, though it's archaic appearance is rather at odds with that company's formation date of around 1930 IIRC. I also bought a very nice if slightly incomplete Thompson-Bennett Magneto of the same type as fitted to my WWI Douglas (even the drive pinion look right, so it probably is ex Douglas, though more likely MC than SE).
Then I saw it - the Chinese diesel featured in last month's Identity and Assistance. I don't know what the fascination is that these oriental beauties hold for me but I was smitten and, for £140, sorely tempted. However I decided to have another walk round to think about it and while doing so the vendor's assertion that it was "very rare in this country" proved to be wrong. This new object of my desires lacked the factory ID plate with its rather charming 'wind cooled' epithet, but was instead proudly badged "Marshall Tractor Model D30, Made in Great Britain" with the intriguing serial number "WEATHERILL 501" and painted a traditional shade of green. The vendor had apparently bought it new a mere ten years or so ago for a gen set project which never materialised and it was thus virtually unused and still bolted to the base of its shipping crate. Call me fickle but, for substantially less than the Chinese badged job, this time I could not resist and it accompanied me home to keep the pink Kubota company.
Question:- I know nothing of the later history of the Marshall company (assuming of course it is the same Gainsborough concern) what were they doing in the mid 90's were they making Chinese engined garden tractors - Or did they, like Perkins, think to break into the small diesel market with these imported engines?
Anyway, I good day with a boot full of kit and wallet barely £100 lighter.