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Great Train Robber Healeys

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HealeyRick

HealeyRick

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Today brings the news that Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has died. Biggs, along with a gang of other crooks hijacked a Royal Mail train on August 6, 1963 and looted it for £2,631,784 and fled to a farmhouse in the British countryside to hide out for a few days. And the getaway cars from the farmhouse? Two new Austin-Healeys that were bought for the purpose. Biggs rode away from the farm in one of the Healeys driven by robber Bruce Reynolds. https://www.ronniebiggs.com/?page_id=81 Reynolds was a true Healey guy whose Ruddspeed modified Mk II 3000 was auctioned off in 2004:
rji13p.jpg


Read about Tony Dron's test drive of that car here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2730444/Crime-doesnt-pay.html And when robber James White's loot was auctioned off in 1966, this British Pathe film shows what looks to be a BJ7 amongst the offerings: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/loot-for-auction
 
An interview with Reynolds's wife in 1969:

“Bruce felt so safe that he had left the farm the day after the raid to buy an Austin-Healey car in London and have some shirts made.”

After police had discovered the farm hideout:

“When Bruce got home, we took baby Nick down to Bruce’s parents and then just drove around in Bruce’s new Austin-Healey…”

“Nine days after the robbery, when they were staying with friends, the next blow fell. The Reynolds, who
hungrily watched each TV news session saw on the screen a car identical to the one Bruce had bought with 835 Pounds of stolen fivers. On it were their own registration marks. They now knew for certain the police were hunting Bruce for his part in the Great Train Robbery.

"I’ll never forget the moment when we saw the car flashed on the screen. Bruce jumped up, told me to scrub the flat down, and said he’d be back in about an hour. He took the car - the Austin-Healey the police were looking for, that millions of people had just seen - and drove off. Bruce dumped the car at a garage near London Airport, saying casually to the attendant, I’m going abroad.”

https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/4906070
 
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My Grandparents lived in Leighton Buzzard, just a couple of miles north of the robbery location. I was only 2 when it happened, but as a young kid was fascinated by it and went to the location many times. Never knew their was an AH connection, so have really enjoyed this thread.
 
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