The Roaring Season

Roger Dowding wrote:Ray ; Re :" Caffeine & Classics was another huge turnout yesterday thanks to the good weather and an ever growing number of followers. Plenty of post 1990 cars still there though and as always, a few cars we hadn't seen before. "
Looks like I can bring the 1991 MX5 - almost 30 years old and with the driver at 71 the total is 98 !!

John Vevers took a heap of photos and posted the BMC / BL ones on the BLENZ facebook page ;

might bring the twin's down, marked HIS & her's, or maybe a convoy Roger.

A dose of the hiccups Kevin? #2441 & #2445!

The last F1 Brabham, as driven by Damon Hill.


Quite why this and an old MG were in amongst the single seaters I can't quite work out. Maybe it is time for the Donington Museum to reinvent itself - but from my perspective, preferably without Kevin's WW2 military stuff.






Ah, a real racing car!


And this little Austin was consigned to the paddock café. The main museum café was closed.

There were one or two notable BRMs absent since my last visit too, including the P25 and the pale green V16, the P160 and the 4WD. I hope they haven't also gone and are merely in the workshops or with Hall & Hall but it was a large chunk from what was the only complete collection of BRM's anywhere.











A Lotus Elan BRM wasn't exactly a fair substitute - note also the AC in the background, so a total of 4 sports cars.

Just found out that (ex Marcos racer!) Dr Jonathon Palmer's company is taking over the running of the Donington Museum at the end of the year. Let's just hope he can restore it to something like its former glory.

Maybe he can persuade Bernie Ecclestone to loan some of his collection - that really would be well worth a visit.

Next car related stop after Donington, was the British Heritage Museum at Gaydon, formerly the British Leyland museum, many years ago, when at Syon Park and home back then, as now, for many BL prototypes.

Since the shift to Gaydon, it has been renamed and expanded to cover other British makes, but as yet, I still haven't finished filing all the pics, but I did publish many from the museum a couple of years ago, so these will just be extras and will include several cars I photographed before.

Atco - better known in the UK as manufacturers of lawn mowers...


Wolseley engine - yes, a straight 8.


Not sure, but could be a Morris engine.


Rover-BRM cockpit. Note - no cage but a modern fire extinguisher.




Jaguar models

Just for a break, (I'm hungry...) a quick post on some food related images from the trip.

[CENTER]
Grimsthorpe Castle - the local meat products are amongst the best in the country and a bacon buttie first thing was a good start.


Motorway stops in the UK have improved considerably since the appalling stuff offered from 1959. Harry Ramsden's is best known as a fish and chip franchise, but I thought it somewhat ironic that they had a good continuous queue for their traditional British Breakfast - but the so called healthy option next door, didn't. HR's was quite a good breakfast too.


Goodwood 'across the road' has a huge range of food outlets and this is one I didn't sample.


But this is one I started at, on two of the three days. Excellent cheese on toast and a cup of coffee was just what I needed - and the next person on the queue was Kiwi... (Note the standard of dress.)

Simple tasty food - and an opportunity in NZ I am sure. Just the one option offered. Two slices of cooked to order toast per portion, topped with Cheddar and Parmesan - and the coffee was OK too - with two delightful young ladies doing the serving.


The other good stop, just behind Woodcote corner was the very tasty steak and ale pie, with mash and mushy peas - washed down with a local cider.

[/CENTER]
My favourite fish and chip outlet wasn't there this year and one that was, apparently caught fire on the Thursday...

Other good food was the Station café behind the start and finish stand with a superb toasted meatball sub and a stall selling fairly good Thai curry. Needless to say, prices are a bit on the high side, as is the case with any event of this nature.

Back to Gaydon...
The 4WD Austin Ant


Austin Moke+


...another engine.


Alvis




Marauder

Doretti


Austin Zanda


Another one new to me - Stellite


Albion - better known for trucks and buses


Another for Roger to steal...


I moved one or two of the sign boards with the approval of the staff, before taking photographs.

Tomorrow, Pukekohe to keep the ERC guys in check - which shouldn't be too demanding given the low entry. That also means a limited number of potential photographs - especially as Pukekohe is not really very camera friendly these days, but a fair stack now in reserve, ready to post - and the pile is growing as I continue to wade through the UK stuff. Also away again later on next week and will miss the HD meeting.

Heard once that at least one twin engined Moke ended up on Stewart Island. Can anyone verify this?

rf84 wrote:Heard once that at least one twin engined Moke ended up on Stewart Island. Can anyone verify this?

Can remember that someone wrote on a thread here about a twin engined Moke that PH Vickery Ltd had in Invercargill and ended up on SI. Vickery's were a sporty mob as they had an Austin Healy 100S that was raced by B. Giller back when it was new.

A quick skip forward to Pukekohe today.

Gemini's - not identical twins.


Good to see Kelly Archer back on track.


Beautiful - and sounded great too.




One of the best battles of the day. (The ex Halliday Escort is now owned by Dennis McConnell.)


Tony's Alfasud suffered some sort of drive failure making it difficult to push up the ramps into the trailer, even with several fit, strong young men assisting...

Back to Gaydon.

Issigonis Lightweight Special










Austin

Aston Martin Shooting Brake ?

Allard John.

ERC wrote:Allard John.

A nice piece of Kit too !!
- and speaking of Allards - a recent " Octane " magazine [ Sept 2018 ] has an article on a "continuation Allardette " [ Ford Anglia ] with a Shorrock Supercharger and other mods 80bhp - created by Sidney's son Allan Allard as a Monte Carlo Rally Car - complete with Rally Plates and extra lights.

I'm 40 issues behind on my car magazine reading... The pile started in 2011 with the first 3 months cruising and despite knocking two magazines on the head (NZCC and Classic & Thoroughbred), I haven't managed to keep up with it.



The upstairs exhibition area is currently devoted to cars restored by one of the TV programmes.






Meanwhile, over in the 'warehouse' area, away from the main hall, there are many cars of interest plus the Jaguar collection. I posted photographs of my 2016 visit, so apologies for repeats.

A row of Bentley engines


Those 'Safety Research Vehicles' sure were ugly...


Triumph prototypes




The original 'Land Crab' Austin 1800. (Named from a helicopter shot when on the rally and the commentator said that from above - due to its proportions - 'it looks like a land crab scuttling across the landscape'.)


Rover Meteor

Not the last of the Gaydon pics, but last group for now.
[CENTER]The first MG




Chaindrive would be impressed with some of the models on display, but always of interest were the models of prototypes.


Another Rover


This FWD Alvis was down in the workshop


as was this MG Metro

[/CENTER]

Next stop after Gaydon was Malvern, the Morgan factory tour. Highly recommended as it is the polar opposite of visiting the Mini factory which I did in 2016. Mini is all about robots and technicians, whilst Morgan is all about real craftsmen plying their trade with hand tools. Mini, you can't take photographs. Morgan, no restrictions. I enjoyed both visits - but there again, I'm very much a shop floor person.

A two hour tour, with almost one hour of it devoted to an intro and a visit to the Morgan museum - all on site of course. There is also a decent café and a very good shop, selling all sorts of Morgan gear, from clothing to branded clotted cream shortbread.

Judging by the number of people doing the tours, Morgan are probably doing quite well out of it - and rightly so.

The current Morgan 3 wheeler is a runaway best seller. Original was shown as a bit of a laugh at a motorshow, they thought that maybe tops, they'd sell 200 of them. They took 200 orders at that show and have now manufactured over 2,500 of them!

Very popular amongst ex-motorcyclists and fascinating to hear that if you wear a crash helmet, it is classed as a motorbike, and don't need a seat belt. If you do wear the seat belt and don't wear a crash helmet, it is classed as a car... Even more strange is that the US spec three wheelers (and they are very popular over there), the headlamps are mounted inboard (local regulation) and the UK spec is outboard. Once purchased, most US customers simply relocate the lamps outboard as the factory very thoughtfully still fit the UK spec lamp brackets.


From the most popular to the rarest of all Morgans.


There is also a story about the last of the four seater Morgans, regarding seat belt regulations


Obviously, Jeremy Clarkson's quip about the Morgan looking like Clarence, the cross eyed lion hit home


...because they relocated the headlamps.


The tour leader tried to catch us out by testing us on our model spotting, noting that the V8 has a wider front panel but I was ready for this one, as I knew that the very early V8's, including Chris Fraser's Morgan in NZ, weren't wide bodied at all, ditto this famous competition car.