Practically Classics Forum

Mmmm.. Nice. Gotta love a Daihatsu!

(With apologies to my former employers at IM, but hey, *** the lot of 'em! )

It's one of these of course!

Pffft!

So moving away from Daihatsu and other Japanese badges (with the exception of the one I see in front of me when I'm in the driver's seat of the AE92), and I just found myself being overtaken on the Galashiels road by one of these, which is very, very Swedish and sounded lovely as it squealed by through a hillside hairpin on its non-period Virgo alloys - at least they're "in the family" - and their sticky, modern rubber. Who doesn't like a 120, in the case of this morning's sighting, probably nobody. It was a 122S, registered between 01/01/67 and 31/07/67. I can't prevent my car from falling off the road and take photos so here's a web-sourced piccie. Someone clearly took a scunner to this poor specimen. Maybe they were driving a Buick and spotted a fly on the Volvo's boot lid (hah! missed!) or maybe they mistook it for a large, expanded polystyrene replica:



The one I saw was red, registered in York (*VY**E) and had no apparent cosmetic defects, so not exactly like the one in the illustration apart from the fact that both have their steering wheels on the wrong side. When did the People's Republic of Yorkshire take to driving on the right? Why was I not informed? Ooh er.

JPB wrote:The one I saw was red, registered in York (*VY**E) and had no apparent cosmetic defects, so not exactly like the one in the illustration apart from the fact that both have their steering wheels on the wrong side.

Dagen H (H day), today mostly called "Högertrafikomläggningen" ("The right-hand traffic diversion"), was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right.
This is off the top of my head so it's all probably b*ll*x, but I think that the 122S was Volvo's first production car to be fitted with the three point seat belt as standard. Saab and some American car manufacturers had fitted seat belts but they were all lap straps. It took a Volvo engineer, Nils Bohlin, to come up with the retractable three point seat belt that we all know today. Both he, and Volvo patented the invention and then gave it to the world for free, meaning other car manufacturers can use the design. Bohlin never received, nor expected, a penny in royalties. His generosity was inspired by Alexander Fleming who did the same with penicillin. Recently, Tim Berners-Lee would also give the world internet access with his generous donation of the mathematics that he came up with when he cracked the www. formula. Makes you realise how generous those men were when you see the vast wealth of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and all those who reap the benefit of royalties.

Spotted a very clean Scimitar heading towards Handy Cross (J4 on the M40) yesterday ... brave man, using a classic in the cr*ppy weather we've been having although a fibre-glass body helps .. but not from flying branches that were being deposited on the roads the last few days around this way!

Must be an Austin day today ...

Spotted an Austin 10? parked up and a Ruby on the move in the Amersham/High Wycombe area ...

Never could understand the hype surrounding the TR6, having said that I must be a minority of one. The price that they can fetch is eye watering. I know the owner of this model, he's going to put it up for sale when the restoration is complete. He has a 1948 Riley in his garage that the TR6 is going to finance the restoration of. He's hoping to have the time and finances to do a ground up, nut & bolt job.

spotted a tidy mk 3/4 orion today!... have taken a pic..

can someone explain the point of the box on the bonnet?

and a pink transit....

rich. wrote:spotted a tidy mk 3/4 orion today!... have taken a pic..

can someone explain the point of the box on the bonnet?

It's one of those pointless topics that gets people talking, I've seen worse:

rich. wrote:
and a pink transit....

Agh! My eyes!

Jim Bowen, erstwhile host of TV's popular general knowledge and darts-based game show 'Bullseye', wrote:can someone explain the point of the box on the bonnet?

I was about to say no, of course nobody can explain it, it's French so is, by default, beyond explanation.
But I like GHT's response so much better. GHT, is she the deluxe model, with the realistic merkin, the long life Lithium batteries and the fully interactive argument mode, or the entry level one?