THE owner of a classic car, who fears her unique vehicle could be evicted from its Tisbury garage, has appealed for help in finding a new home for it.

Since Monday Ros Wilson, who lives in Fonthill Gifford, has been in breach of new Salisbury District Council garage tenancy conditions by housing her 55-year-old Riley estate car in the council garage in St John's Close, Tisbury, which the car has not left for 12 years.

The new conditions state that tenants should live within a mile of the garage, which should be used to house a roadworthy vehicle.

Riley enthusiast Mrs Wilson fails on both counts but she is desperate that her car remain in dry storage, because it has an 80 per cent wood body that would simply rot out in the open.

"Just after the war, metal was in very short supply," Mrs Wilson explained. To get round this coachbuilders, like Hayden's of Netherhampton, built a wooden body on a metal chassis, using any pre-war bits available.

Many of them were Utility vehicles, built to fit the government definition of a commercial vehicle, which was exempt from purchase tax and entitled to a larger petrol ration than private cars.

"Mine is a prototype, the earliest of these to survive, and was built with the assistance of Sir Alec Issigonis, who later designed the Morris Minor and the Mini," said Mrs Wilson.

She tracked down EVE 570, her car, in Devon more than 20 years ago and used it as her daily transport until her eldest son Edmund, now 13, came along and left her with less time to spend maintaining the car.