Classic cars and unicycles?

By Matt Ware
Features
 | 2 Dec 2025
Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

Four wheels are good, but one wheel is better says this unicycle connoisseur and classic car owner…

Yes, Bruce Jennings is always ready for a new challenge.

When he spent a few months working in the south of France, he tried his hand at – and then even ended up teaching – windsurfing.

So when he saw an advert for a circus skills workshop in a Scout hut, while staying with his brother in Essex, he said: “Why not?”

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

The Fiat 500L has been in the family for more than 40 years, but these days Bruce Jennings favours one-wheeled transport

“I’d often thought about unicycles,” he says, “so I had a go on one and managed to get from one side of the hall to the other.

“A while later my partner bought me a small, 18in-wheeled example. I didn’t really get on with it until we took it to Harwich, where we have a beach hut.”

The long promenade, with an adjacent railing, was the perfect setting to learn to unicycle.

“You need something to hang on to,” explains Bruce, who was in his mid-50s when he took up the hobby.

“It was great fun, but I needed a bigger wheel. The small-diameter cycles are great for doing tricks on, but I really wanted something I could use to go from A to B.”

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

Bigger is better if you want to go any distance on your unicycle

He graduated through 20in and also 26in wheels, before spending £550 on a 36in Kris Holm unicycle, which travels about 9ft on a single wheel revolution.

“At the time, my partner was into jogging, and I could keep up with her on it,” he tells us.

“There were often quite a lot of dog walkers and runners, who might say ‘ooh, look at that’ – the trickiest thing is trying to avoid dogs running under the wheel.

“You need to be prepared to jump off pretty quickly.

“We’d also do the local roads on a Sunday morning, and there’s an aerodrome where I’ve ridden it, too, hanging on to my van to get going.”

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

This Fiat 500L has visited the south of France and the Scottish Highlands, among other adventures

Jumping off, or falling off, is an occupational hazard, but Bruce, now 71, only recalls one especially hairy moment.

“It was getting dark when I hit a pothole I hadn’t seen,” he says. “I came off forwards on that occasion, but survived intact.

“Generally, if anything goes wrong, you come off forwards or backwards, then land on your feet. Not that time, though.”

In the end, Bruce set himself a challenge: to ride the 21 miles from Colchester to Harwich.

“My partner was on her bicycle, and I was on the unicycle,” he says. “It took us most of the day – after only 12 miles I got a puncture.

“It’s still the furthest I’ve been, but that’s nothing when you consider there’s a guy called Ed Pratt who has been round the world on a unicycle.”

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

A Fiat 126 engine has given this cinquecento a useful boost

Bruce keeps two unicycles at the beach hut in Harwich, with another two stored in the garage at home, alongside his 1972 Fiat 500L.

He has owned his cinquecento for more than 40 years, and restored it in 2019.

The Fiat originally belonged to his sister, Carol.

Bruce travelled in it with her to the south of France in the late 1970s, and subsequently took it on a snowy adventure to Fort William and Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

Even in the decades that the Fiat was off the road, moving from one workshop to another, Bruce – a mechanic by trade – kept hold of it until semi-retirement gave him the time to get the restoration under way.

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: unicycles

The Fiat 500L’s small ‘frunk’ is no good for a unicycle

“I couldn’t bear the idea of throwing it away,” he says. “It’s got a lot of memories, not least the trials and tribulations of restoring it!”

As well as it needing plenty of welding and a whole new front end, Bruce swapped the original 499cc motor for a 594cc unit from a later Fiat 126.

“It’s brilliant, because the bigger engine has totally transformed the car,” he explains.

“It’s now not completely gutless, it keeps up with modern traffic and it’s got that long-legged, torquey feel, so it will pull up a hill quite nicely.”

Images: Simon Finlay

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Matt Ware