Articles - Oliver Heath

The Changing Rooms designer talks to Graham Keal about eco-conscious motoring

Changing Rooms designer Oliver Heath believes in recycling materials wherever possible for his creative concoctions on the BBC make-over show, and he applies the same eco-conscious philosophy to his motoring: "I've only ever owned old cars," he says. Running old cars causes less environmental damage than building new ones, and he sees no reason to alter the practice now, although it's no longer driven by financial necessity.

 

He adores his current car, a V-reg (1980) Reliant Scimitar that looks potent, practical and classy in its distinctive period scheme of dark chocolate with a broad stripe of beige (or "Champagne", as Reliant called it). It cost a mere £800. "I spent another 250 quid renewing the vinyl roof and it had a new clutch, radiator and cooling system. The work cost me about another £800 altogether. But it just got through its MoT for about 90 quid, which is the cheapest MoT pass of any of my cars."

 

Scimitars look like bargain classics today with their robust 2·8 or 3·0-litre German Ford engines, glass-fibre bodies and macho Wolfrace wheels. Prices can reach about £10,000 for 1990s models made by Middlebridge, which bought the designs and carried on small-scale manufacture after Reliant dropped the range in 1986, but Heath wanted something more dog-eared: "I didn't want to spend a lot buying one in perfect condition because, living in the East End of London, your car is trashed by kids on a regular basis. They'll scratch it, rip off the wing mirror or break the aerial."

 

He has been driving elderly and, so his friends think, eccentric cars since he was 14 ("on private roads," he hastens to add). At home in Brighton, his mother used to let him take the wheel of her Citroën 2CV. "I passed my test a month after my 17th birthday. I was just desperate to learn to drive because I did a lot of windsurfing. My first car was an L-reg (1973) VW Beetle 1300, so I could put my board on top of it and go to the beach whenever I wanted."

 

Nine months later he fell for a D-reg (1966) Triumph Vitesse convertible, "which was great but very unreliable. Everything went wrong. It wasn't a really well-built car but it was a lovely, classic kind of English design. I spent a lot of time marooned on motorways with the Vitesse, and the doors used to fly open as you went around roundabouts - first one, then the other, so you'd be trying to drive while holding them shut."

 

Six years as an architecture student kept him in penury, so when the Vitesse "died" he bought a 1972 Saab 96 and ran it from 1989 to 2000. Its life was extended by a fortuitous breakdown in remotest Cornwall. Heath managed to limp into a country garage: "The chap said, `We've got half of one of those cars up in the roof. Come and have a look.'" So while he waited for the AA truck to take him home, he encountered an Aladdin's cave of Saab 96 body panels.

 

"I bought most of them to replace the rusty ones on my car, piled them in the Saab and then the AA came and took me and the car back to Brighton. The journey home was quicker than the journey down."

 

A luxurious 1988 Citroën CX came next and gave good service and a velvet ride until October 2003, when he acquired the Scimitar. But despite his love affair with the Reliant, he covers only about 3,000 miles a year.

 

"Driving in London is terrible, so I cycle. Yes, it's scary, but you get where you want to go, you know how long it's going to take and you don't cause any pollution. It's a better way of getting around town, and when I go back to Brighton I take the mountain bike on the train."

 

But when he does drive the Scimitar, he loves it: "Every time I start it up, I think, 'The car's started up! We're going on an adventure! And it's brilliant.'"

 

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