Re: What classic vehicles have you seen?
Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 9:47 pm
The sackless old lush 
amiable eccentric who taught chemistry during my grammar school days, or did before we reached the third year and were able to drop his lessons from our choices for the O grades, had a lovely BGT which was pretty new at the time, a Blaze example on a 1974 N suffix and a chrome bumper model. A few years later, he traded that at the dealership for a Tahiti Blue, rubber bumper specimen but that proved such a massive disappointment to the chap that he only had the car for a few weeks before it vanished from his usual parking spot to be replaced by a metallic gold Capri Ghia, the 2 litre Pinto "powered"( 
) version.
By this time, since I wasn't taking chemistry for O grade, I was getting on much better with the teacher in question, not that there was much choice since he also took physics for both Os and Highers, and we used to talk cars occasionally. He reckoned that his Capri was vastly superior to the B in every way. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but to the younger me, he must surely have been missing the point given that the two cars were so different from each other?
Today's spots, no images as I was driving and had a polis right up my tailpipe (pauses to let that tumbleweed come by..), a red, 1981/82 X suffix Benz 200T with a dreadfully broken set of rear arm bushes or maybe equally broken springs, maybe the massive negative camber was intentional? If so, why? However, the car also had a mural along the driver's side that depicted a naked orang-utan operating a set of bicycle-style pedals inside the car, so for that I'd almost forgive the crime against tyres.
Then, on the way home, a 1971/72 K suffix Triumph Spitfire overtook me on the A1 and had I not actually braked hard enough to provoke a sweary outburst by my passenger, the fella driving this yellow Spitfire could have ended his day hitting the approaching bus head on. To this bloke I say only this: learn to drive, mate, or next time you make an error of judgement of this magnitude, the driver of the car you passed may not be so inclined to let you live!
amiable eccentric who taught chemistry during my grammar school days, or did before we reached the third year and were able to drop his lessons from our choices for the O grades, had a lovely BGT which was pretty new at the time, a Blaze example on a 1974 N suffix and a chrome bumper model. A few years later, he traded that at the dealership for a Tahiti Blue, rubber bumper specimen but that proved such a massive disappointment to the chap that he only had the car for a few weeks before it vanished from his usual parking spot to be replaced by a metallic gold Capri Ghia, the 2 litre Pinto "powered"( ) version.By this time, since I wasn't taking chemistry for O grade, I was getting on much better with the teacher in question, not that there was much choice since he also took physics for both Os and Highers, and we used to talk cars occasionally. He reckoned that his Capri was vastly superior to the B in every way. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but to the younger me, he must surely have been missing the point given that the two cars were so different from each other?
Today's spots, no images as I was driving and had a polis right up my tailpipe (pauses to let that tumbleweed come by..), a red, 1981/82 X suffix Benz 200T with a dreadfully broken set of rear arm bushes or maybe equally broken springs, maybe the massive negative camber was intentional? If so, why? However, the car also had a mural along the driver's side that depicted a naked orang-utan operating a set of bicycle-style pedals inside the car, so for that I'd almost forgive the crime against tyres.
Then, on the way home, a 1971/72 K suffix Triumph Spitfire overtook me on the A1 and had I not actually braked hard enough to provoke a sweary outburst by my passenger, the fella driving this yellow Spitfire could have ended his day hitting the approaching bus head on. To this bloke I say only this: learn to drive, mate, or next time you make an error of judgement of this magnitude, the driver of the car you passed may not be so inclined to let you live!
When I had my A40's original registration number (XJR40) transferred onto the Jag that I owned (for three months 
), plod gave me a row for using a black screw cap between the J and the R to create the impression that the car was the then-new XJ-R version with its 4 litre engine. Possibly he was more offended by the borst of it than the actual way in which I'd displayed the plate, I would have been mortified these days at the very thought, but was younger and less bothered. 
