Who killed Ford Timelord?

It all started with a simple question: what happened to Ford Timelord? I knew nothing at all about that car or its owner but I do love a good mystery and was soon captivated by its incredible story. For those who don't know, Ford Timelord was the name of the 1968 Ford Galaxie police car (WGU 18G) owned by Jimmy Cauty, one half of the anarchic musical or artistic duo variously known as the KLF, the JAMs and the Timelords alongside Bill Drummond. The car rose to fame through their hit single 'Doctorin' the Tardis' and featured heavily in the pair's work for three eventful years but then disappeared without trace.

An icon and a very cool car but what became of it?

Rumours abound as to its fate: some say it was banger raced, some that it was destroyed by the KLF in the name of art, and others that it still exists in a storage compound somewhere waiting for the day that Drummond and Cauty resurrect it, but nobody knew for sure. As with everything KLF-related, the car's history is enigmatic and misinformation is plentiful, but after a year of many members hunting high and low and reaching out to people involved with the band, the Autoshite forum community have finally reached a definitive answer so read on to find out more about the exciting life and death of this iconic car.

Taking on the Mantle

The sleeve notes to 'Doctorin' the Tardis' suggest Ford Timelord was imported from Detroit to Dagenham by a transferring Ford employee in 1970, but this is a fictional backstory as DVLA records indicate WGU 18G had been registered in the UK from new, and nothing is known of its history prior to 1986. These notes also say it was a former movie star that had a cameo in a Superman film. That seems unlikely but is actually true as the car, then just a plain black Ford Galaxie, had its first brush with fame when it appeared as a background vehicle in a fight scene in Superman 4 that saw the hero battling with Nuclear Man, improbably played by Clive Mantle of Holby City fame!

Holby's Mr Barratt in a very different role, but what's that car behind him?

Fortunately for Mr Mantle's career, this version of the character was left on the cutting room floor and replaced by Mark Pillow in a new incarnation of Nuclear Man fighting Superman on the Moon (or what passed for the Moon on a meagre special effects budget), but that meant the car never made it to the big screen. The footage can only be seen as a bonus feature on a special edition DVD that few people have watched as Superman 4 is regarded as one of the worst films in the series, but nonetheless evidence is available of Ford Timelord's first appearance on camera over a year before its association with the KLF began.

Bluesmobile or JAMsmobile?

Superman 4 was filmed at Pinewood Studios in early 1986 and shortly afterwards the car was disposed of in an auction of surplus props. The buyer was one Flinton Chalk (real name Gary Mitchell), keyboard player with an obscure space-rock group called T.C. Lethbridge. Despite it being completely the wrong type of car, he turned the Galaxie into a tribute to the Bluesmobile, the Blues Brothers' iconic 1974 Dodge Monaco, in black and white police livery complete with gold stars on the doors and 'To serve and protect' written on the front wings, and a few photos exist of it in this condition.

Flinton Chalk and his mates had fun with their Bluesmobile replica

Besides both being musicians, it seems Flinton Chalk and Jimmy Cauty shared similar interests in 'Earth mysteries' and numerology so it was inevitable that their paths would cross, and by 1987 Cauty was the owner of WGU 18G. The band, then in its infancy, was known as the JAMs or Justified Ancients of Mu Mu so the car quickly became the JAMsmobile, no doubt a reference to the Bluesmobile, and the gold stars on the doors were replaced by Drummond and Cauty's Pyramid Blaster logo. It made its début as the JAMsmobile in the May 1987 issue of Melody Maker and put in numerous further appearances during the year.

The JAMsmobile makes its public début. That 'Deep Shit' lettering was just a paper sticker.

Swede dreams

Drummond and Cauty are notorious for their flagrant disregard of copyright and unauthorised use of samples from other artists' work. That attitude quickly got them into trouble with none other than Abba over a 'Dancing Queen' sample in their début single, resulting in a demand to destroy every copy. In typically eccentric fashion they decided the best way to resolve the dispute was driving all the way to Sweden, in the Galaxie of course, and attempting to meet the band face to face without an appointment.

The cover of Who Killed the JAMs? Galaxie and burning records in a Swedish field just before the dramatic getaway.

The JAMs made it to Stockholm but inevitably failed in that endeavour, and on their way home decided to stop in a field and burn the records. While making a high-speed getaway from an irate Swedish farmer (and allegedly hitting a moose in the process) the poor neglected Galaxie's engine seized solid, according to Cauty as a result of being shot. Luckily he had taken out AA membership just before the trip, so the car returned to his London home Trancentral on a recovery truck and was soon back on the road with a new engine. Its adventures had just begun though...

Merry Xmas from the JAMs. Back on the roads of London after its Swedish adventure.

Doctorin' the Galaxie

As 1988 dawned the JAMs decided to head in a different musical direction and target the charts with a novelty pop song, the unashamedly awful Doctor Who-themed 'Doctorin' the Tardis', renaming themselves the Timelords in the process. Having supposedly told them to make that record, the car was christened 'Ford Timelord' and promoted from a mere form of transport to become a fully-fledged member of the band alongside Time Boy (Bill Drummond) and Lord Rock (Jimmy Cauty). It even gave interviews to bemused members of the music press, voiced by their publicist hiding under a blanket on the back seat!

The JAMsmobile regenerates into Ford Timelord

As the official 'lead singer' of the Timelords credited with writing the song, Ford Timelord naturally starred in the music video, pursuing and crashing into some hilariously crude home-made Daleks, one of which left a scar on the front wing that would become a key identification point later on. With 'Doctorin' the Tardis' hitting number one in the UK charts, if only for a week, this is the car's most famous role that really brought it into mainstream public consciousness. Interestingly, its appearance was constantly evolving as several cosmetic differences are apparent even between scenes in this video, such as the colour of the A-pillars (sometimes black and sometimes white) and the beacon (blue or red), giving rise to ultimately unfounded suggestions that more than one car was used.

The beacon was red in this scene but blue on the record sleeve

The White Room and the white car

The Timelords would be a one-hit wonder as Drummond and Cauty quickly changed direction again to the house music they are best known for and became the KLF, but although no longer an official band member Ford Timelord continued to play an important role in their work. Profits from 'Doctorin' the Tardis' and its follow-up book The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) had earned them a lot of money, so they decided to spend it on making a road movie in which the Galaxie would naturally be their transport.

Daubed in white paint and falling apart

This was by all accounts a disaster as the KLF headed for Spain in search of sunshine and adventure, but according to them it just rained all the time and nothing exciting happened. The money soon ran out and the resulting movie, The White Room, was never finished or released so it can only be seen as a bootleg. By now the car was really starting to suffer and extensive rust had broken out, especially on the rear wheelarches that had almost disintegrated. Still it survived Drummond and Cauty's abuse and managed to remain in the land of the living for a little longer. The most famous scene saw it covered in white paint, but this was cleaned off and it returned to Trancentral once more, considerably worse for wear but seemingly still roadworthy.

Regeneration and degeneration

Like the makers of Doctor Who, it seems Drummond and Cauty gave Ford Timelord the ability to regenerate into an entirely different car. A photo of Trancentral in January 1989 shows not one but two American Ford police cars parked outside, the original WGU 18G and a 1971 LTD registered JLE 67K. Two years of hard use had taken their toll on the Galaxie and Cauty apparently bought the LTD as a replacement but its stay was brief and it never featured in any KLF output. Its only public appearance was when Cauty loaned both it and the Galaxie to the Beatmasters and Merlin for the video to their 1989 single 'Who's in the House?'

Two Timelords at Trancentral

So why didn't the LTD become the second Timelord? Cauty was reportedly never able to get it running properly and quickly gave up and advertised it for sale. It was bought by Simon 'Gen' Matthews of the band Jesus Jones, who brought a tame mechanic with him. After the deal was done, the mechanic simply swapped over a couple of plug leads and the car fired up and ran perfectly, so Cauty tried to cancel the sale but no avail. Matthews hooned around London in it for a while, and in the meantime the Galaxie's last tax ran out in April 1989. Later that year and clearly regretting selling it, Cauty tried unsuccessfully to borrow the LTD back from Matthews as the Galaxie was no longer a runner, and would never turn a wheel on the road again.

Justified and not quite so Ancient

The ultimate fate of JLE 67K sadly remains unknown. Matthews left it on a friend's drive when Jesus Jones went abroad on tour, but eventually the friend got fed up of it being in the way and Matthews agreed to let him sell it while he was away. It lasted another few years and seemingly outlived the original Timelord but hasn't been taxed since 1993. Even though it was only owned by the KLF for a few months and didn't appear in public with them, the band do seem to consider this an official Timelord as when recently asked about the car Bill Drummond said there were two of them, sparking a wild goose chase thinking there was a second Galaxie when it turned out he was referring to the LTD.

The elusive second Timelord

Time is eternal, but Timelords are not         

Ford Timelord may not have run again after the events of early 1989 but that wasn't the end of its life. Its last public appearance was in the video for '3 A.M. Eternal' filmed in December 1990, by which time it had been off the road for more than 18 months and according to the reporter who accompanied the band was in a wrecked state. This video featured new interior scenes filmed on a trailer combined with unused exterior footage from The White Room of it driving around London, shot over two years earlier but giving the false impression it was still roadworthy.

It's 3AM and the car's final appearance. Doesn't look too bad but this footage was two years old.

That was the last time the actual car was seen, but references to it continued to linger in the KLF's work even after they had reinvented themselves with the pink Bedford CF ice cream van as their transport in 'Justified and Ancient'. The 'Last Train to Trancentral' video released in early 1991 features a model Galaxie, albeit an older style and with no pretence that this is supposed to be a real car, and clips from 'Doctorin' the Tardis' can be seen in the video for the Tammy Wynette version of 'Justified and Ancient'. As recently as 2013, another model Timelord appeared in one of Cauty's art pieces, so it wasn't forgotten by the band. None of that explains what became of the original JAMsmobile aka Ford Timelord though.

This abandoned model Timelord in Cauty's Aftermath Dislocation Principle fuelled rumours of its survival 

Chevy Timelord?

One of the most persistent rumours of the car's demise is that it was banger raced. Jimmy Cauty made an appearance alongside many other famous faces at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Charity Stock Car Race at Wimbledon Stadium in March 1992 and was assumed to be driving Ford Timelord. However, photos of that race show Cauty behind the wheel of a totally different car, a late 1970s Chevrolet Nova done up as a replica, so Ford Timelord didn't die on the Wimbledon track as is often thought. He was apparently asked to race the Timelord though and this car was prepared by a chap called Paul Bickers (remember that name) as a substitute, so why wasn't the real thing used?

Jimmy Cauty in action at Wimbledon. It's a KLF police car but clearly not a Ford Galaxie.

Timelord's time is up

The surprising and confirmed explanation is that WGU 18G was already dead by that time. The name of Paul Bickers keeps cropping up in the Timelord story, and going to the banger community's records of interesting cars revealed the entry list for the 30th June 1991 meet at Swaffham, specifically number 284: Paul Bickers driving a 1968 Ford Galaxie. Given that he has a known connection with the KLF through his subsequent preparation of the Chevy, does that mean car 284 was Ford Timelord?

Paul Bickers at the wheel, with lots of fresh black paint covering the repairs needed just to make it race-worthy

The answer is a resounding yes according to photos and video from that meeting, and has been verified with Mr Bickers himself. Car 284 was a black and white police replica with 'To serve and protect' on the front wings, Pyramid Blasters on the doors and the remains of a WGU numberplate visible, so it was without a doubt the original Ford Timelord. It was in a terrible state by then, having not seen the road for more than two years, and needed a lot of work just to make it fit to race. Extensive repairs are evident in the pre-race photos and by the end of the first heat, the entire back end had completely collapsed leaving the bootlid hanging in mid air. Nevertheless, the car reappeared in the second heat but retired in a cloud of smoke mid-race and didn't make it back out for the final.

The car looked like this by the start of heat 2 so its demise was inevitable

 

 

To the bridge, to the bridge, to the bridge now

Ford Timelord was already well beyond restoration before the race and after that level of destruction there's no way it would ever have been capable of racing again, and Mr Bickers has confirmed he then scrapped it. So that was that, Ford Timelord was quietly destroyed in the summer of 1991, not by Drummond or Cauty but by Paul Bickers, and all those rumours of its continued survival and intended use in other KLF projects are just that and nothing more. Going back to the following year's charity race though, it appears Cauty retired quite early on and the Chevy returned to Bickers's yard to be raced again at a later date, so it is this car that fuelled the other persistent rumour that Ford Timelord survives under a tarpaulin in the corner of a yard somewhere.

The death of Ford Timelord, captured on VHS

Time travel to Trancentral

There's just one more piece of the puzzle that didn't fit until recently: some well-known photos of the Galaxie languishing at Trancentral, supposedly taken in November 1991 just before Jimmy Cauty moved out and several months after the Swaffham race. It's definitely the same car with the same rusty bits and bodged repairs visible in both sets of photos, but clearly hadn't been anywhere near a banger race, with the glass intact and no major crash damage.

Timelord's time was running out by 1991

Photographer Jon Mace says he took these shots for his final university project submitted in late 1991, but also that the band were working on The White Room album, which had been in the shops for eight months by then. Unless the car really did have a Timelord's ability to regenerate or travel through time, the only plausible explanation was that Mr Mace had got the date wrong, and this does seem to be the case as another source dates those photos as March 1991, halfway between its final appearance in the '3 A.M. Eternal' video and its demise on the track at Swaffham. So that settles it: Ford Timelord was last roadworthy in early 1989 and met a very definite and destructive end two years later.

The GB sticker was a reminder of its overseas adventures

So who killed Ford Timelord?

After a very eventful few years with Drummond and Cauty, during which the increasingly ropey car cheated death several times, we now know not only who did kill Ford Timelord but where and when, and the question in the title can at last be answered. It was Paul Bickers, at Swaffham Raceway on 30th June 1991, so it did die in a banger race as rumoured but not the one everybody thinks it was. Perhaps it's disappointing that it didn't meet its end in one of the KLF's infamous stunts but at least it went out in style on the banger track rather than suffering the indignity of languishing under a tarp for years as is sometimes thought.

Bye bye Timelord. It wouldn't survive that day.

In a final twist, it turns out Paul Bickers didn't get his hands on the car the way we initially assumed. He runs a company called Bickers Action that specialises in providing equipment to the film and television industry, so the logical deduction was that he had supplied the rig used for the '3 A.M. Eternal' video and this is what brought him into contact with the KLF. However, he says he had no involvement in that shoot and acquired the car at a later date through his contacts in the industry. Given the prestige attached in the banger community to racing rare and unusual cars, we don't know if he specifically set out to obtain Ford Timelord or was simply offered it because Jimmy Cauty wanted rid, but it seems odd that the demise of such a famous car appears to have escaped much attention.

All bound for Mu Mu Land

It's been a fascinating roller coaster of rumours, anomalies and wild goose chases trying to find out what happened to WGU 18G, but thanks to the collective efforts of Autoshite members and their contact with people involved with the car, it's now known for certain that Ford Timelord is dead and there is sadly no substance to the rumours of its survival. The original Ford Timelord may have gone to that mythical utopian Mu Mu Land decades ago, but the legend of the car and its many crazy adventures at the hands of the JAMs, Timelords, KLF or whatever else Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty decide to call themselves lives on, so Ford Timelord is truly eternal after all.

Gone but not forgotten. RIP Ford Timelord, 1968 to 1991.

Update April 2020: it seems this isn't the end of the story! Check out the follow-up Who really killed Ford Timelord? for some amazing revelations...