Richie Gooch is a rescuer – of overlooked cars and obsolete vacuum cleaners.
Here’s a dark-blue Electrolux Chic. “A 1990s machine: basic but very powerful and reliable,” he says. “I had to save it, I couldn’t let it go to landfill.”
Here, too, an orange Morris Ital. A look of sadness flits across his face: “Trouble is, there are more Itals and Marinas than people who want them.
“But you do your best to save them because you don’t want them melted down and turned into a Hyundai i10.”
When you open the doors to Gooch’s garage, the plastic and brushed-aluminium nose of a 1979 Datsun Cherry F11 coupé greets you.
Its exceptional rarity, originality and cleanliness mean it has beaten 15 other contenders to this prized spot.
An FSO Polonez, Matra Rancho and Vauxhall Victor FE cast mournful, rheumy headlights towards their Japanese overlord.
Not that you can actually see much Cherry. Around, behind and on top of it are old vacuum cleaners and their packaging, hoses, nozzles, brushes and handles.
Cleaning machines from dozens of understairs cupboards await the day when they will fascinate visitors to Gooch’s long-planned museum.
And who couldn’t love the ’60s Hoover Constellation, a space race-inspired globe with hovercraft technology that means it floats above your carpet pile as you work.
Richie Gooch with his prized Goblin Swebline and Electrolux Lite (right)
