Practically Classics Forum

Much as I'd love to take credit for the extra detail, the DVLA's website provided the exact year and month of first registration. All I knew was the make and model and frankly, anyone who doesn't feel at least some love for these lovely old things should be fed to some ravenous lions.

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to drive a friend's beautifully preserved example back in the nineties and that car impressed me on so many levels that I can still close my eyes and drift back in time to that day, even now, many drives in many great classics later.

JPB wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2017 6:20 pm

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to drive a friend's beautifully preserved example back in the nineties and that car impressed me on so many levels that I can still close my eyes and drift back in time to that day, even now, many drives in many great classics later.

I couldn't agree more. A mate of mine bought one from an auction and I drove it back for him, and although I was a bit unnerved that it was going to be a pig to drive, in fact it was exactly the opposite. Lovely old thing.

This hideous monstrosity has the temerity to sport a Jaguar badge. Heresy! And just when I thought that the Jaguar name, besmirched by Ford for producing a Jaguar Mondeo, was being restored by Tata. In the same supermarket car park, a young compo pulled up in this banger, they went so well together, a right pair of scruffs. I will not tolerate a banger of a car being described as having patina. It's a banger, a great banger and I love it, especially with Compo, but it's still a banger. I couldn't think what to call the file, then remembering Compo's wooley hat..............

Saw this Yank at a vintage affair, any ideas John?

I didn't know the model without checking but did think Studebaker, DVLA confirmed this and their record shows that it's a Studebaker President, registered on the 31st of December 1925. It looks beautiful.

Spot on as ever, what I should have done was give you a close up of the wheels. They are made of wood, (not the tyres) each wheel has been skillfully crafted by a wheelwright, the way they made carriage wheels in the horse and cart days. It was truly a work of art.

Since owning the MG, I get asked at festivals many a question about the car, so what I've done is to write a journal with lots of pictorial pages. And to prevent it being all car, car, car, I've added a few anecdotes. One being about buying fuel when I first started driving in 1964. Self service was unheard of, you got served at the pump. To clarify this I searched for some old photos, in doing so I came across this amazing, art deco garage, that a couple had saved from demolition, and now it's their home.

That's an amazing success story, the petrol station being converted into residential property. How many of us would love to have a row of petrol pumps in our front garden too? Yep, and I'd want a wee old guy in a brown storecoat, obligatory pencil behind ear, to sit out on the lawn in a small hut, taking money for washing the windows of passing cars.

Today, I was almost forced off the road by some twunt in a 1967 MGBGT. Island blue it was, but its driver was an appalling example of the type that puts "civilians" off the idea of joining the ranks of the old car people, the type whose arse had become so pinched in his B's aftermarket bucket furniture that he'd have to call the RAF to get him out of there!
It was a spectacularly fine looking (and sounding) car, its engine clearly tight and torquey, just like they were when they were new. The body was - as far as I could tell - about as perfect as it's possible to keep an older car that's used on weekdays, but damn! that driver was a right proper twunt and no mistake.

JPB wrote: Wed Aug 23, 2017 9:48 pm That's an amazing success story, the petrol station being converted into residential property. How many of us would love to have a row of petrol pumps in our front garden too? Yep, and I'd want a wee old guy in a brown storecoat, obligatory pencil behind ear, to sit out on the lawn in a small hut, taking money for washing the windows of passing cars.

Quite by chance, whilst searching for something completely different, I came across a couple of photos of that art deco garage pre-restoration. Looking at them you have to admire the foresight of someone who sees through the dereliction:

Going through cheadle Hulme

Far too many to list ... I just happened to be in Monterey/Carmel a few days before the Car Week started in earnest ... they had a large number parked up along several block of Pacific Grove the day we arrived .. I'll try and get some pics added over the coming days (in between trying to catch up with "real" work).

This one wasn't there but parked up in Santa Barbara .. surprised SWMBO who saw it first!