Classic!

This weekend just gone I visited the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show at The NEC in Birmingham.

What did I think?

Well, since you ask, I'll tell you.

The free show guide was most excellent - even came in its own carrier bag!

I got close to Mike Brewer and Tiff Needell which was nice.

And to Will & Gus from Flipping Bangers and to a couple of my favourite YouTubers.

And to Frank Stephenson - apparently pronounced Steffanson - not to be confused with Steph Fromidriveaclassic - one of the aforementioned YouTubers.  I didn't realise until he started talking that I actually knew who he was - in as much as he has a regular column in Top Gear Magazine critiquing modern car designs.  He revealed some secrets about his design work on the Mini One - check out how the exhaust pipe is the same as a Budweiser can.

There were loads of Triumph Dolomites there:

BUT THEY WERE ALL SPRINTS!

Some of us owned 1500HL Dolomites.  They did have a few Triumph 1300s and a 1500 too though.

They also had some famous cars like The Sweeney Granada:

The Saint's Volvo:

And Richard Hammond's Oliver:

They had an F40:

And also whatever this is:

The food was crap - and overpriced - but that's the fault of the NEC - should have used the various vans there.

Loved the day - would recommend it to any petrol-head - and even non-petrol-heads - the two I went with enjoyed it too.

It was classic.

Cool Grannies

 

Now that to me is the coolest type of Granny.

Not that exact model, but the Ford Granada in general.

But, according to Car+Driver, an old lady in Japan is the coolest Granny "on the planet".

She is admittedly cool, having just given up her licence due to age and selling her car to Mazda.

Her car being a third-generation Mazda RX-7.

But if we are talking about motoring grannies, how about this one on the BBC News site today?

Now, the article doesn't actually say if she is a granny, just that she has sons.  But she looks somewhere around my age and I'm well old enough to be a grandparent.

And just off the top of my head, what about Michele Mouton?  she is 73 and has at least one daughter so it's quite liable that she is enjoying granny status.

Meanwhile if you want uncool grannies, apparently crocheting covers for supercars is a thing...

Actually it isn't - it's people messing about with AI - but just in case any actual grannies are reading this...

...NOT A GOOD LOOK.

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.

Would you sell your Granny?

Somebody is.

And if I had £5K spare and some space and some time to travel down to East Anglia (as opposed to Ford Anglia - there's one of them for sale too) I would certainly be interested in making a purchase.

After all, she is beautiful:

It's the rarer 3-door coupe style as well.

 

So what alerted me to this sale?

 

This did.

 

It is a story from the BBC about a 1961 Triumph Herald up for sale with just 20 miles on the clock.  It is believed that the "one careful lady owner" never actually drove it. 

Sounds a bit like the story of the Merc I found in Swansea.

 

It goes under the hammer on Saturday together with the car you can just see behind it.

 

The car in the picture behind it interests me because my first car was identical to it.

 

OK, it had a different registration number and was three years younger but it was a Triumph Dolmite 1500HL in Vomit Yellow (aka Sandglow).

 

It must be in excellent condition because it is estimated to go for between £14K and £16K - although they've clearly got the colour wrong in the listing (brown) and the mileage too (69 - maybe they meant 69000)

 

I don't think they are too clever when it comes to the listings.  They have the mileage for the Herald that is making the headlines down as being 3750 (next to a photo of the speedo that shows 20).

 

3750 is still unbelievably low for a 50-year-old car and probably belongs to a second Herald the auctioneers are selling that they have listed as having 20 miles.

 

I would love to have a wander around this auctioneers site - the actual, physical site, not the website, although that is pretty interesting too.

 

For example, they have a 1988 Rover 213 - why on Earth would that be a classic?

 

Well, to answer my own question (and I bet you thought it was rhetorical) it only has 3101 miles on the clock and is expected to fetch £3K.

 

They also have Granny's successor for sale: 

Oh dear.  Maybe not.

The Sweeney - Really!!?

Shut it, you Slaaaaaag!!!!Today, The BBC are reporting on the casting of the new Sweeney movie. Apparently, they've cast some rapper called "Plan B" to play the Dennis Waterman role. What's wrong with using an actor? What's the fascination with rappers? (mind, I will admit Snoop Dog did a good job in Hitch-Hikers)

And, what's with remaking '70s TV shows anyway? Leave them alone, they were classic. The Dukes of Hazzard film wasn't brilliant; the Charlie's Angels movies were OK; and the Starsky & Hutch was OK too - but the best bit was at the end when Paul-Michael Glasier and David Soul appeared with a replacement Torino. Incidentally, They could have got a better Torino for the latest Moneysupermarket ad...That one looks just wrong.

But it's not the casting of the stars that concerns me, this is a car blog after all - it's the casting of the cars.

The story describes the new film as a "contemporary update". Does that mean contemporary to the original series or contemporary to now - I'll assume the latter.

That's a shame, because apart from various problems with modern-day policing rules and political correctness that Regan and Carter never had to bother about, I'd love to see the old cars back in action.

Truth is, that's already been done by "Life on Mars" which was fantastic - maybe they'll make a film of that in thirty years time.
So modern-day means modern equivalents of the brilliant Ford Granadas used by The Sweeney cops and modern equivalents of the Jag S-Types and Ford Transits used by The Sweeney baddies.

These days, we still have Ford Transits and Jag S-Types but the biggest Ford would be a Mondeo. This would possibly be comparable in size but there is no way Jack Regan would be, or indeed should be, a "Mondeo Man".








The metallic-brown Granada in the '70s was the sort of stylish, prestigious, fast saloon that would be driven by a middle-to-senior manager in a medium-sized engineering company.

Unfortunately, the equivalent car, today, and therefore the car for Jack Regan would be...


A SILVER AUDI A6.

Right, the article also says that they are also going to make a film version of "The Professionals". So any thoughts on a modern-day Ford Capri?