Lancia Motor Club

Thought i would start this thread  :)

Barry Waterhouse and evo engineering

Barrys name gets mentioned a lot as well as his engineering firm but very little in depth about him,where he gained all his knowledge and what are his legacies,ie what other firms are using stuff which was originally developed by him.
I would be interested to learn of his history

A little story (amongst many I suspect!): my brother worked for Barry for a few years and every year without fail there would be special activity around holiday time. For those who visited his unit, you will remember it was a yard with loads of cars in surrounded by a corrugated (if memory serves) fence. This fence at one place backed onto another, much larger patch of land.

Every year, when the owners of the adjacent (much bigger) yard shut down for the two weeks summer holiday, Barry would rally the troops, move the cars parked around the perimeter, hoike up the fence and move it another couple of yards further back into their land, put the cars back and carry on as if nothing had happened. Every year, regular as clockwork!

Still makes me chuckle :)

Barry's old 16v Integrale track car "Stealth" is now in Reading pretty much just a shell now but I have fond memories of numerous track days at Castle Coombe and Goodwood listening to Barry tell anyone and everyone about his latest "developments" on his car, which he used to drive in a "sprited fashion" pretty much everywhere, not just on the track!  

I had my own modified Bob Brain / BBR powered HF4WD (called "Mongrel" because it was made up of numerous other cars) but Barry had more power at his disposal and I frequently tried to keep up with him out on track and sometimes on the road. Once when travelling down the M4 to Castle Coombe for either a Lancia track-day or CCC trackday we left Reading Services after meeting up and we all agreed to take a steady drive down in convoy to Coombe, Barry drove out of the services first and immediately booted it, closely followed by myself and several other Integrales and one Thema 8:32.  We all arrived at Coombe after a short period of time to find Barry sat on his bonnet, grinning at us with cup of tea in hand and enquiring "What kept you"?

The banter was brilliant, Barry always took our merciless mockery on the chin and always gave as good as he got, he rarely took the hump!  We gave him loads of stick over the paint being put on Stealth upside-down (it was matte black), calling Evo Engineering " from "Ego Engineering"  as Barry did love to self promote himself/his company then he was nicknamed Worzel Gummidge because of his chaotic hairstyle and his fondness for a cider at a lunchtime.  Theres even a photo-shopped picture of Worzel Gummidge slumped over "stealth" somewhere.

Barry definately lived a bohemian life-style and after a few pints he was always a good craic for regailing a few stories from his past exploits, most of which are unrepeatable on this forum.   As to where he learnt his knowledge I have no idea, but he was a great character thats for certain. 

When I first met Barry in the early 1960s, he was an estate agent working in Addlestone. He drove me down to Harry Manning's one day in his Zagato Fulvia and frightened the life out of me. In those days, many of my friends drove quite fast, but Barry was noticeably faster and wilder than any of the others. I wonder how he kept his license so long.
 Many years later, after a meeting in a Pub on the Western Avenue to discuss tactics for the forthcoming 6 hour relay race, he drove me over to Southall (for an Indian meal) in a customer's Ferrari and his driving was really smooth, but still quick. It was the Indian meal which got me up at 4 AM, not Barry's driving!
  Regards, John