Her Name is Rio...

...and she's based on a Triumph Dolomite Sprint.

It's a Panther Rio.  I've never seen one in the flesh before - but it was one of the first cars I saw at The Manchester Classic Car Show.

 

Although I didn't see any actual Dolomites.  There were plenty of other Triumphs there though including TR6s, TR7s, my favourite Stags and even an Acclaim.

There were also plenty of excited dads like me wandering about telling their bored children why various cars were very interesting or had been owned by their ancestors.

As well as a car based on one of my former cars, there was also a green Jag estate a bit like I drive now - only much classier:

Having said that, I did spot this:

Now that may be in much better nick than my own car, and a few years younger, but it would imply that my car is a classic.

It isn't.

I suppose that this Porsche 914 is a classic - but it is clearly the Boxster's grandfather and I dislike it for the same reason that I dislike the Boxster - you can't tell if it's going forwards or backwards.

 There were a few cars I'd never heard of before  - like the Rochdale Olympic:

The Rochdale owners club had two and a half of them on display:

 Then there was this Berkeley:

I had to look them up on Wikipedia.  If what it says is correct, they seemed to have a large model-range considering they only lasted from 1956 to 1960 when they went bankrupt.  This model, which looked a bit lonely and ignored, looks like a Berkeley Foursome - 20 were produced and it had a tiny 492cc engine.

They did have some modern cars too.  It was difficult getting near the Tesla:

It was near the Tesla that I was handed my "goodie bag" which turned out to contain an issue (No 348) of Classic Car Buyer - and nothing else.  I shouldn't complain because it retails for £2.50 and the carrier bag will be worth 10p too.

Not too sure about this Mini Hatchback.

It's very clever and all that but the proportions looked all wrong.

Never mind, this makes everything good again:

Check out more pictures here.