Cambridge University's 1958 car on roof prank secrets revealed.
It is a mystery that has long baffled undergraduates and university historians alike - how did students get an Austin Seven car onto the roof of Cambridge University's Senate House in June 1958?
Fifty years on an explanation for one of the most ingenious student prank of all time has finally been provided.
The group of engineering students who carried out the stunt have reunited to reveal their identities and explain how they winched the Austin Seven to the top of the university's 70ft-high Senate House.
At an anniversary dinner this month, ringleader Peter Davey revealed he had dreamt up the plan while staying in rooms at Gonville and Caius College overlooking the Senate House roof.
He felt the roof 'cried out' to be made more interesting and recruited 11 others to help him adorn it with a car. The group chose the May Bumps week, when any passers-by were likely to be drunken rowers celebrating after their races.
The group towed a broken down Austin Seven through Cambridge to a parking space near Senate House, explaining its presence by sticking signs on it advertising a May ball.
Mr Davey, now 72, said a ground party moved the car into position while a lifting party on the Senate House roof hoisted it up using an A-shaped crane made from scaffolding poles and steel rope.
A third group passed a plank across the 8ft gap between the roof and a turret window at Caius - known as the Senate House Leap - and helped the lifting party ferry across three types of rope, hooks and pulleys.
Policemen who heard noises as the equipment passed above them questioned some of the ground party but were distracted by careless drivers nearby and soon left.
Three drunken rowers who spotted the car swinging about 40ft up were fobbed off with the explanation that it was a tethered balloon.
But it was the efforts of two student girls who showed the greatest ingenuity in trying to saved the pranksters from discovery. They had been deployed to hitch up their skirts a few inches to distract passers by.
However, the stunt almost went disastrously wrong when the team tried to swing the car through the apex of the A-frame, over the Senate House balustrade and on to the roof.
They had neglected to erect a rope check line running from the Caius side which would have steadied the vehicle. It crashed on to the roof from 5ft above it and, fearing they would be discovered, the lifting team hastily pushed it to the apex before dismantling their equipment and fleeing over the plank bridge.
The following day crowds of onlookers gathered in wonder to look at the car and watch as the authorities tried and failed to construct a crane to hoist it down. Police, firefighters and civil defence units fought for nearly a week to hoist the vehicle back down before giving up and taking it to pieces with blowtorches.
The then Dean of Caius, the late Rev Hugh Montefiore, had an idea of who was responsible and sent a congratulatory case of champagne to their staircase, while never revealing his suspicions in public.
Many of the group responsible went on to enjoy distinguished careers. Mr Davey, from Mousehole, Cornwall, was awarded a CBE and an honorary doctorate after setting up automation and robotics companies while another, Cyril Pritchett, was a lieutenant colonel in the Army.
Two of the team of 12 live abroad and could not make the reunion dinner at Caius. One, David Fowler, had died and was represented by his widow Denise.
The group said their only regret was that the car was not left in place for ever.
Caius officials said the 'renegades' had since become generous benefactors of the college.
Cambridge car on roof prank: 'the secret was in the swing,' says ringleader 55 years on.
When Peter Davey heard the prank that earned him and his university friends such renown more than 50 years ago was going to be re-enacted, the group decided to give one safety tip.
For hoisting an Austin Seven car up to a height of 70ft and placing it on top of a University building in the dead of night was no mean feat, especially more than 50 years ago.
The stunt, which appeared in newspapers across the UK and Europe, took months of planning, pages of calculations, scores of midnight visits to the site and saw the students putting up scaffolding at different building sites around Cambridge in earnest preparation.
The prank was recreated in Cambridge this week, so the secrets of how a car mysteriously appeared on top of Senate House at Cambridge University in June 1958 could finally be understood.
“We decided as a group not to get involved in the re-enactment,” said Peter Davey, the then ringleader of the group, who still has the line drawings and calculations. He said the group agreed together seeing their stunt re-created wasn't something they wanted.
“We gave them one little bit of safety advice. When you had the van at the top and were swinging it in towards the middle of the roof, not to let the weight drop. As in our case it did, which potentially was very dangerous.”
After the prank Mr Davey, now 76, and his accomplices watched as the police, fire service and university officials worked for a week to try and remove the car from the top of Senate House.
In the end they had to give up and take it apart with blow torches.
“I did all the calculations for the A-frame myself,” he added.
“But that’s only one thing. We spent months making preparatory visits in the dark to the top of that roof, crossing over the road via a drawbridge which was the only way of accessing it.
“Then there were the amounts of bits and pieces we needed – hundreds of feet of rope, steel wire rope and scaffolding.”
The group ‘borrowed’ building sites and materials to set up the scaffolding in preparation for the stunt, but Mr Davey insists almost all of this was returned. They towed a broken down Austin Seven through Cambridge for the stunt, hoisting it up using the A-frame made from scaffolding poles and steel rope in the middle of the night, so it was there for all to see the next morning.
Mr Davey and his accomplices, most of whom he is still in touch with, had to lay low after the prank. But they marvelled as the spectacle caught the attention of the university and the British and European public, appearing in numerous foreign newspapers including one in Romania.
He added: “We could not afford to be upfront that it was us. We thought there was a possibility of being expelled. If we had done any damage or hurt anybody that could have happened. As it was we just enjoyed the spectacle seeing over the successive days civil defence and the fire service and finally the officer training corps trying to get it down.”
Mr Davey said word gradually spread about who was involved and a bottle of champagne arrived at the bottom of his staircase which he believes was sent by the Dean of Gonville and Caius college. But he said it was not until about a year later that the story started to come out.
He added: “I had the idea and discussed the idea about a year before. We just looked up at Senate House and thought how wonderful it would look with a van apparently driving on top of it.”
The 13 strong group – which was split into a ground and lifting team, even did a precursory prank, when they fixed a traffic diversion sign to the building – a sign of what was to come a year later.
Mr Davey, who was in the final year of an engineering course at the time, said he didn’t take part in any similar pranks but did sometimes climb the buildings at Cambridge at night. He has four children, three who went to University and one who went to the Academy of Music, but he insists he didn’t encourage them to attempt a similar stunt.
He added: “It was a very ambitious project back then. By today’s standards it was very unsafe. That is why this re-enactment occurred at ground level.
“We never expected it would attract this much attention.”
His wife, who he met at Cambridge but was not involved, also agreed that she didn't understand all the attention more than 50 years later.
The recreation took place at Jesus Green Park on Saturday, where the University’s Officer Training Corps lifted the car 20ft off the ground in around ten minutes using a gyn – a three legged frame with a rope and four pulley.
In 2008 the original members of the group reunited for the 50th anniversary of the prank, with most making the meeting.
Many went on to lead high profile careers – Mr Davey, from Mousehole, Cornwall, was awarded a CBE and an honorary doctorate after setting up automation and robotics companies. He went on to lead a career in electronic design, and has lived in California, Heidelberg and Oxford. One of his accomplices, Cyril Pritchett, was a lieutenant colonel in the Army.