I found this interesting article from 1987 while sorting out my old magazine archive, about the late Mike Randall who started work at TDC & VW Derrington's tuning shop in Kingston-upon-Thames back in 1954.
In the early 1970's I worked at a garage directly opposite his 'Mike the Pipe' workshop in Wallington, Surrey and it was always interesting to see the wide variety of vehicles which would turn up each week for manufacture and fitting of Mike's custom made exhaust systems and manifolds.
When I was an apprentice at Vauxhall Motors Luton at the in house service department I took a green chevette (on a trailer) that was loosely fitted with a 2300 engine with a Jensen Healy head for Mike the pipe to make a tubular exhaust manifold this would be a mocked up version of the production HS 2300 can’t remember much about his workshop as I just unloaded the car and left this was in about 1976 i would have been 18 or 19, please can I turn the clock back. Peter