11/8/22
Hi everyone, I don't own a Scamp but I am a family friend of Robert Mandry, I joined your
group a while back after Bob was telling me all about his Scamp & RTV days and the
treasure hunts etc, last night I showed him the group and all your pictures and videos (he
is not tech savvy) and he really enjoyed seeing them all and started to reminisce, He
fondly remembers many of the stories from back in the day, many of which John
Medhurst has already told you. I am going to start to write them down as he has lots of
them, but here are a few nuggets from last night. Apparently the Doodle on the drawings
isn't his writing �� he remembered having to go to Wales 2 days running to film the RTV
video with Top Gear because the BBC "Union" sound recordist wouldn't stay on for 10
mins longer to finish off on the first day, which annoyed him somewhat. He did appear
in the footage originally but he thinks they cut it out. He remembers being invited to the
Barcelona motor show in the 70’s by a big wig of Monteverdi cars (remember them) who
liked the scamp and gave him a spot on their stand and Bob showed a Scamp Cooper S,
the manager was a bit of a task master and wanted him to meet everyone and work till
11pm every night. By chance Bob ended up owning a Monterdi a few years later and was
very pleased with himself when he sold it for 4K, although he wished he kept it as they
are now so rare they now go for £150k+

Bob was told King Juan Carlos would be coming by the Monteverdi stand after people
had left for the day, and if he wanted to meet him he would need to get his haircut - Bob
declined and kept out of the way. Apparently Lynn Anderson was singing “ (I Never
Promised You A) Rose Garden” at the show which he remembers lightening the mood.
He managed to sell a 6 wheel scamp to a customer from an old Spanish village at the
show, and drove it down to them a few months later, but the customer was not happy a
few weeks later when he realised the long wheel base was terrible for the tight streets he
lived in and wanted Bob to take it back and refund his money. Bob said one of the
modifications from the Mk1 to the Mk2 was to make the front lights higher from the
ground by request from the DVLA standards against his wish, however after making the
modification he later found out the VW Beetle had much lower lights, so wasn't
impressed.

I will try and get some more memories and dig out the photos from the Treasure hunts
and photos we have. His last nugget, was when he was interviewed by the Kit car
magazine the journalist referred to him as “The Gin Swilling Robert Mandry” which he
thought was rather amusing.