Goodwood Thoroughbred Sunday PICS!

[Lucky]

Given that I already have three weekends' worth of photos to dump and more to come over the next few weekends, I thought I'd better crack on even though everyone else is still probably working through their Gathering hangover. Soooooo...


Goodwood Thoroughbred Sunday. Nope, not a diatribe on the relative merit of Arabian racehorses, but the Breakfast Club for cars in production before 1966. No idea why that date particularly, seems slightly arbitrary but there you go. I guess it's slightly redolent of the Golden Age of Goodwood circuit racing. Anyway, as always, the boundaries of what gets in and what doesn't are slightly blurred... as much as anything, if the marshals think your car's cool and there's some space left then they let you in. Top Bombing!

If you've never been to a Breakfast Club, then you really should, assuming you have any interest in cool cars. And if not, why not? Go and have a long stern word with yourself and come back when you've seen the error of your ways. Go on, everyone's waiting for you. Better? Good. Right, as I was saying, the Breakfast Club is a great concept where you turn up, park for free, get in for free, pay hugely exorbitant prices for a bacon sarnie and mooch about some extremely rare, fascinating and amazoid cars for free. Then by midday everything's vamoosed and you're free to enter the hell of domestic Sunday servitude to the wife by spending the rest of your day following her round B&Q pretending to give a **** which lampshade she buys. So what's not to like? Let's have a look, shall we? In totally random order...

It seems that every Breakfast Club has a marque that ends up defining the day, and on this occasion it was Healeys. And Alvises ahhh... Alvisses. Ahem. Anyway, there were seemingly hundreds of Healeys and they all look a bit the same so lets concentrate on the other numerous marque... Alviss...errrm Alvii... ahhh. Dunno. Them ones with the red triangle on them. Another sadly departed British marque, if anything speaks over the years of a time when the coachbuilt Brit thoroughbred was the envy of the Western world, the Alvis is surely it. For the gentleman who found a Roller too common and a Bentley too vulgar...



This, by way of opener, is I believe a short-chassis 4.3 with a slightly camp mascot. Great curves. The car, not the gaylord mascot. I do love Alvis because they give me a chance to indulge my perverted fascination with the heraldry and emblemry of mascots and badges. Mind, Yyu have to respect any car whose toolkit includes a mallet. For the wheel hubs, not for belabouring the chattering classes out of the way as you sweep majestically up to the Club for luncheon with the Duke





Alvisses... um Alvii often feature funky bonnet ornaments, such as on this 1933 Special. In the day, the gentleman motorist would often commission their own to express their style and taste; Rolls only brought out the Spirit of Ecstasy to prevent people from desecrating their company image with tawdry or inappropriate additions. Alvis were more laid back about such things, clearly although I'm not actually 100% certain what this one is, some kind of Arthur Rackham-style frog/fairy/dragonfly hybrid. Maybe





This sportster features plumbing that is little short of a work of art







This absolutely beautiful TA14 features a more traditional Alvis mascot, the upright hare. The car itself has such wonderful curves it's hard to imagine why anyone would rather have impact zones and airbags over sweeping fenders and running boards





This TE represents the end of an age; the final hurrah for the grand old marque before being subsumed under the crushing behemoth of Leyland like a rhino in a tarpit and becoming little more than a military vehicle company. Sad times



Oh well. Lets have some Fezzas to cheer ourselves up then, shall we? There are usually a fair smattering of classic Ferraris at these dos, which is just as well cos they're the only ones I like. Modern ones are nasty. On the day, there were only a couple but they made up with quality for the lack of quantity. Have a 250 Lusso by way of proof



and a 275 GTB



and a 458 Italia... wait, how did that sneak in?



To be fair, I'm extremely democratic about what I like in a car. I tend to like more or less anything irrespective of make, model, country of origin, time period, whatever... so long as I like it, it's fine sorta thing. So I don't mind seeing moderns at a supposedly classic event and I don't mind seeing Jap cars at a supposed great marques bash and so on. That's why I found the sight of a convoy of modern Astons just as entertaining as anything else on the day



One of the problems with the Breakfast Club is that by its very nature its often hard to get any worthwhile photos of stuff. The cars are parked along both sides of the track - which is very narrow anyway - and this means that with the popularity there tend to be hundreds of people in the way of any pic you might try to take. Staying till the bitter end means things have thinned out a bit but the downside of this is that a lot of the cars have cleared off by ten so you're feeding on scraps. However, on some occasions this pays off, such as stumbling across this excellent Tojeiro. A chassis engineer who was responsible for much of the winningness in the Ecurie Ecosse team D-Types and such, John Tojeiro went on to build his own cars using proprietary engines from Jaguar, Buick, Bristol and Coventry Climax. His greatest contribution to the mythos of motoring was penning the chassis that went into the AC Ace.. which went on to be the car that a certain Texan chicken farmer saw the potential in and convinced Ford to wedge a flabby great V8 into. The Cobra has entered legend and poor ol' Toj is almost forgotten except by the cognoscenti. So here, lest we forget...



and since we're on the subject(ish) of racing Jags, no thread would be complete without a nice C-Type. Like the aforementioned Cobra, this is the one place where you don't automatically assume that a C-Type is a replica. If you're going to see a real one anywhere, it's likely to be in Lord March's back yard. It also illustrates how you need the patience and lightning reflexes of a mongoose to get even a half-way clear pic of anything parked on the main straight where the [s]drones[/s]... errrm, I mean general public are at their most [s]bucolic[/s]...errrm.. thickest







In fact, as well as Healeys and Alviii, "proper" Jags were very much in profusion. Much to my boy's pleasure, as he'd brought along some of the old I-Spy books I eBayed in for him. I was disgusted that the book had XK120 with a photo of an XK150 next to it (he didn't care, of course) but fortunately there were examples of every flavour of XK so we could tick it off with clear conscience. 120s;





(beautiful colour on this gunmetal 120, really showed off the voluptuous curves)



140... with Jaguar starting to gloat about their Le Mans glories in colourful cloisonné... oh, the hubris!





...and 150, with its slightly more awkward but much more accommodating beltline and so much gloating that it barely even fits in the badge anymore





And here's The Boy, catching up on filling in his I-Spy books. Get 'em while they're young, I say. I love the informal, relaxed vibe of the Breakfast Clubs; here you can sit on the lawn beside one of the most evocative circuits in British racing and eat Beechdean ice cream (as pictured down the side of GT racing Astons, no less) while watching the iconic cars potter past on their way home. And fill in your I-Spy book. And even the li'l un isn't bored and fractious. Winning



E-Types are something I've whinged about before... I've blethered about awful pram wheels and tragic offset fails plenty of times, and while I'm growing to like them better as I get older, nothing will ever convince me that the appalling roofline of the 2+2 is ever acceptable... BUT the Eagle does unarguably make them something completely altogether utterly totally different. In a good way. Deep-dish wheels, Superlight-style smoothing, rivetted hardcore race-look panels... Mmmm, hard







And to be fair, even though that might be some kind of ultimate, there were plenty of other, "lesser" versions to pick from



Oh go on then, might as well get it over with. Here, have a Healey. Just the one, though




off for a fag, more to come in a bit

[Lucky]

Lots of Porsches about, most notably plenty of 356-type things. I especially liked the one with the dodgy old bedstead-based luggage rack. Not sure what effect bungying a suitable scene and patinated old suitcase to this would have on the ancient air-cooled engine but at least it's different to the more normal roofrack. And no chance of sticking a random old pushbike on it either







Although I'm guessing this bright citrus-hued old 911 Carrera might blow a few more skirts up out there







However, perhaps rather surprisingly, the most unusual and rare rear-engined aircooled car of the day didn't hail from Stuttgart but from rather further south... a humble cinquecento given the scorpion treatment to bore out to the steroidal and mahoosive heights of a whole 695 cubic centimetres... such a vast engine displacement that the car can no longer contain the engorged motor and needs a special frame to allow the power-room lid to stay half-open. Abarth, bonkersifying Fiats since 1952









I dunno if this thing is real... but I've no reason to assume otherwise... but if it is, this AC 428 coupe is a very unusual thing. Not just given that the Frua-bodied Cobra-based coupe was only made in numbers of around 30 but also because it's unusual to see such a rare classic that's been quite so comprehensively modified. It's a local car; I see it at shows quite frequently and one day I'll actually get to meet the owner and get some proper details about it. For now, we'll have to just enjoy the details of a well-finished and modified track beast











Of course, AC wasn't just about the legendary base of the Cobra and such rare exotics as the Frua Coupe, it also made one of the most influential vehicles in British manufacturing history. That's right, the little blue invalid carriage. But before that they made all kinds of cycle-winged and running-boarded sportsters with numbers instead of names. And many of them had weird details like the flappy-footed greyhound on this 16/80



Goodwood dos always attract a fair share of hotrodded jalopies; Lord March himself has a few of his own including a Hemi-engined beast and this was no exception



This '32 Ford-base had real quality finish. I especially love the spring-loaded leather bonnet straps





Cheeky grin on this '40 Ford



This Beetle provided a bit of variety from the more usual Fords and such. Normally the use of chequer ally floorplate in modding sets my teeth on edge and makes me sad, but on this occasion it's hard to imagine anything else suiting as well



This was my fave rod of the day, a '35 pickup finished to a great standard but still grungy enough to look like you could use it every day... and like someone had done for about the last seventy years







In fact, pickups were definitely the flavour of the day! Here's a '41





and an even older Model A-based thing with wiiiiiiiide stance and great patina





and just for variety, a tall-roofed Chugaboom gangsta car in a fantastic deep green. This proved popular with the punters to the point that I actually gave up trying to get any other clear shots of it



Going even further back, way back into the mists of time when men were men and gears were operated with pedals, a T-Bucket that's another perennial fave at Goodwood. I love the level of finish on this; it's nothing short of immaculate... and how many people are dedicated enough to leather-wrap their suspension, after all? I also respect the vertical angle of the steering column that makes it look like it'd be a right git to drive!





perhaps the most interesting of all the hotrods though was this... err, I'm not exactly sure what it is. It seems to mostly be a 1941-ish Buick Century but there are chunks of Chevy in there as well and it inexplicably appears to have a Pontiac hood ornament grafted on too. Well, isn't the whole point of modding your car to combine disparate elements from varied sources and try to make a harmonious whole out of them?










....moar....

[Lucky]

Volvo! Startlingly cool. And one of two immaculate Amazons on the day, but the only one I got a passable photo of.



I didn't even get one decent pic of this Lancia Aurelia but I'm gonna post it anyway because it's too good a car to pass up altogether.



This Bentley six-and-narf caused some confusion. I snapped it in a hurry while the kids and Mrs Lucky were getting bacon sarnies, then later took The Boy back to cross it off in his I-Spy book. Which was a waste of time anyway as all that was in their was the Blower Bentley. Which would make W.O. turn in his grave, not even a normal four-and-narf but a vulgar blower. Compared to the 6½ it's like comparing the Pet Shop Boy's You Were Always on My Mind to Elvis Parsely (ask yer dad).



anyway, as I was trying to explain this to The Boy in terms of reference he could grasp (it's like comparing the Lego Yoda to the actual one... no, not saying that Yoda was actually a person... no, I know he's funny in the Lego Yoda Chronicles and a bit depressing in the film but then he was 800 years old... oh forget it) some very polite and interesting old geezer started chatting to us about the car. It wasn't his, but he was waiting to ask the owner about it. It had clearly been very well restored, and I'd clocked obvious things like the very shiny but severely vented and most-un Bentley like backplates on the brake drums, but I'd completely missed the resolutely independent front suspension... something else W.O. would no doubt have regarded with as much suspicion as his deathly rival Ettore Bugatti did. It was wearing a Bentley Driver's Club badge and I guess they don't hand them out to any old Thos, Richard or Harold (although there's always eBay I suppose) so they must have been happy with the car. Mind you, the more you looked the more un-Bentley stuff there was in there. I'd have loved to know more but it was asking much of The Boy's patience, so we moved on



This Bentley was a lot more straightforward. It's an S3. Nice, innit



This Zodiac Wagon made me laugh; rarely do you see an Estate car that's so blatantly the standard saloon with an extra bit welded on the back. You can clearly see the curve of the original C-Pillar in the wagon backend. I'm sure these were a really rare thing that Ford actually farmed out for aftermarket conversion by coachbuilders, or a foreign-market thing rather than a UKDM product. Or did I make that up? Overdrive too, mind. None of your rubbish





Something that had every imaginable body style right from the factory was the humble Austin Seven... perhaps not surprisingly given the zillions of the damned things that were built over a model run of about two thousand years. They had great names, too, which again I might be misrepresenting, but wasn't the sportster open one the "Chummy"?



And while we're on the subject of coachbuilt and aftermarket weirdness, here's an unusual one. The Bond (yeah, like in the Bug) Equipe 2 litre. Based on the carcasse of a Triumph Vitesse, these fibreglass low-volume things were even rarer in 'vert than coupe form, making this rare indeed. And actually quite handsome in a funny way, although not so much as the coupe... and the wheels are almost comically under-sized. But there you are, you're unlikely to see another so enjoy it









Spotted across a bustling paddock, I first thought this was an early Interceptor but on close inspection it proved even more unusual. Turns out to be an Austin A40. Sports, no less. Not actually very sporty, they were lying to you, but in the ultra-conservative lexicon of Baron Austin of Longbridge (austerity measures would have seemed like a bit of a jape to him), this was all you got. Pretty though





Phew, I think we all need a bit of frivolity after that. Go on then, have a Cobra then. Just the one, mind, don't want you getting all giggly and unmanageable



Actually, have another if only to demonstrate that many might bemoan the lack of practicality offered by something as uncompromised as a Cobra (although they might have raced them in the rain at Le Mans, why the hell you'd want to take your life in your hands and drive one in the wet is something of a mystery when even Carrol Shelby cheerfully declared that "the 427 will kill you in a second") BUT when you see what they look like with a roof you understand why





Always got time for a Mini. There were several but the only one I got decent pics of was this Cooper. There was a brilliantly original-condition Morris one, but my photos sucked so badly I'm too ashamed to post them





...rather like this excellent Cresta; the only bit of it I can share without mortification is the superb ribbon speedo and weirdly padded steering wheel texture, lol. Did I mention there were a lot of people about?



This Ford Ranch Wagon based on the Customline platform definitley won the award for the shiniest car of the day. It was actually really hard to photograph for different reasons, mostly that I struggled to convince the camera to focus on the damned thing. It wore its layers of wax like a Klingon cloaking device







Now then, Astons. I'm sure I've wittered on before about how I can never tella DB MkIII from a DB 2/ from a DB4 Series V from a DB5 or whatever. But they are so much the Ford Escort of the Goodwood Scene (i.e. they're ubiquitous) that I can't help photographing them and then wondering why I've hundreds of pics of Astons, none of which I'm sure are which. But they are downright beautiful, so I reckon no-one will complain. Errrr... I'm going for DB4. Just don't ask me which series



This was a bit special though... yes, a replica... if it were a real DBR 1 or 2 there'd be an armed guard around it and it'd be sealed in an unbreakable diamond case. But then, when did you last see a car this wonderfully-formed, replica or otherwise. And if you look closely you'll see the tiny, disticntively tight script of Sir Stirling Moss' signature on the bonnet. If he likes it enough to sign it, you've got no grounds for complaint









It's a funny thing about Italians; they seem to paint their second-string weapons yellow. Never been sure why, but I remember back int he day when the Ducati 916 was the ultimate and everyone wanted one, the 748 was bright canary yellow in contrast to her bigger sisters' Fire Engine Rosso... almost as if it was to shame those who were too tight or unimaginative or un-confident to buy the "real" bike. But anyone who rode one and even the journalists in their ad-funded ivory tower admitted that in the real world the smaller 748 was a much better bike. So it was with Ferraris. They went to all the effort of the "lesser" V6 engine's development for a race formula that evaporated from under their nose before the car turned a wheel... named it after Enzo's beloved son who was shortly to pass from muscular dystrophy... clothed it in one of the most beautiful shapes ever to be draped over an automobile...AND THEN PAINTED IT ****ING YELLOW! Like, please don't buy one of these because then our V12s will start to look a bit overpriced...

Well, I'm not having it, and it's easily one of the top four best-looking Ferraris ever, whatever colour they chose to daub it. And fortunately, here's one of each so there





One of the (many) things I like about the Goodwood race circuit is the place is just steeped in mystique and everywhere you look you can find clues to its long and glorious heritage. Even the service vehicles are Revival-period precise





The place is beautifully maintained... you could hold bowling tournaments on the glass-smooth lawns, the borders are flowering firework bursts, the wicket fences as white as homeland America (fences, not racists). There are tributes to the airmen who flew from here in the War, Union Flags... and statues of the brave racers who fought and sometimes died for perhaps less noble causes than the Spitfire boys. Although perhaps there's no more noble cause to die for than being the best you can.



I dunno who these comrades are, though I always think the steely-eyed gaze is maybe a tribute to Bruce McLaren who died here so tragically young. One thing that really touched me was to find my lad sketching them in his notebook, totally unprompted. It's so rare for him to even touch a pen for homework or whatever without much cajoling that this was indeed a strange moment. Maybe some of the mystique of the place soaked into his funny little monkey brain





Goodwood Statues by Conrad aged eight and a bit. *sniff* soo proud, lol



Moar to come....

[Lucky]

Better finish this up then!

An oddity of past car design has intermittently been faux wood. I guess some manufacturers just can't let go of the glory days of coachbuilding. It's something that pops up every decade or so in some form or another, from the fablon veneer on Allegro picnic tables to... well, to several metres of this Ford Country Squire wagon. The best thing is, someone has actually gone to the effort of re-faux-veneering this in genuine imitiation stick-on fake wood. With air bubbles. Awesome!





The Renault Dauphine was a French take on the VW... a blatant attempt to snaffle sales with an air-cooled, rear-engined simplicity of a vehicle. When the Renault bigwigs convened a dealers' meeting in Florida in the late 50s to discuss sales, a coupe/cabriolet version was proposed to move in on a perceived sporty runabout market. The "new" car was named in honour of the meeting... the Floride. Except, perversely in the USA where such a partisan name was rejected for fear it would alienate the other 49 states. And in the UK, where we've after all practically been the 51st State for far too long. There and here it was called the Caravelle. So, topically enough, this Floride is an immigrant









And on the subject of rear-engined oddities, when was the last time you saw a Fiat 850? Originally a humble little evolution on the 600 Multipla platform, the 850 proved a popular little thing, especially in the Bertone-styled later versions. Never much of a performer, it's oddly anti-clockwise running engine good for around 80mph or so, it still managed a decade production run. Sadly, like most Fiats, chemistry - in particular, oxidisation - has claimed the vast majority





And since we mentioned the Multipla, here's one. Handily. Funny little thing, only a short way removed from downright awkward. But they sold a zillion of them... 250 000 in fact (that is an imperial zillion isn't it?). This one wears taxi paraphenalia, which is no surpirse since many of them were used thus in the day. These things may look comical now, but in their time they were (and still are) a miracle of packaging. They could seat six people in a wheelbase only 20 inches longer than an original Mini!







We have the Rover/Buick V8 as a British measure of ubiquity. The Americans have the small-block Chevy... it's their equivalent universal measure. Sometimes it finds its way into some very quirky and indefatigably British products, though. One of those just happens to be one of my favourite cars ever, albeit styled in an Italian carrozzeria, by Giugiaro of Bertone no less. But the product was started and finished in Slough; the steel-tube chassis being shipped to Turin for their distinctive slant-eyed bodywork to be draped over them before returning to that most English of industrial estates alongside the M4. The Gordon-Keeble is nothing short of a gentleman's club on wheels, with added aircraft styling cues for the dashing gent around town, and they're awesome. So I was well chuffed to see a couple loitering around the place waiting for it to be late enough for Pimms o'clock. No-one knows what they are; everyone walking by would look at it baffled, and say a variant of "why has it got a tortoise on the badge?" before wandering off. The legend has that there's a tortoise on the badge because a pet one wandered into the photoshoot of the prototype publicity shots, and the irony appealed to Messrs Gordon and Keeble. Whether that's true or not, I dunno. But I certainly hope so









If you think of car origins, many countries spring to mind with a hugely proud and lengthy heritage in the motor trade. From Germany's inception of the motor car in the late 1880s through to Frances' domination of early racing to England's creation of the first motor racing circuit to America's triumph of brute force over mineral reserves to Japan's subjugation of the laws of physics by computer control... even more obscure manufacturing nations might spring to mind...Korea, India, Brazil... One country that's unlikely to trouble any "name the top ten car-producing nations" pub quiz is Wales. But Pontypridd can hold its head up high on the international stage with its own funky contribution to world motoring. Gilbern is one of those many marques made from juggling the names of its eccentric instigators (it's an honourable tradition; Karl Benz' son took on the name of his American distributor's daughter Mercedes Jellinek; Mike COStin and Keith DuckWORTH merged into a gestalt single identity; Lionel MARTIN dumped the name of his co-conspirator Blandford in favour of trumpeting sporting glory at the ASTON Clinton hillclimb). Gilbern, of course, was formed from a merger between GILes Smith, a butcher, and BERNard Friese, a German with engineering and glass-fibre moulding experience. Another of those quintessentially British niche manufacturers, they supplied kit or turnkey cars maushed up from a selection of BMC, Coventry Climax, Ford Cortina and MG-B-or-C parts clothed, needless to say, in fibreglass shapes. And like most British niche marques, they were dead and buried by the mid-70s. Still, it was great to see two examples here, an earlier GT and later Invader









We touched very briefly on the Ford Cortina then, so now's as good time to have one. Rather like Shelby Mustangs or AC Cobras, there are more Lotus MkI Cortinas in the world now than ever left Dagenham via Cheshunt. Still, if you're likely to see a genuine one anywhere...



We also touched briefly on the subjects of both Aston Martin and the early death of British marques. Lagonda neatly ties the two concepts together... a manufacturer of superbly engineered and jaw-droppingly stunning, if often slightly stolid and sometimes out-moded cars, Lagonda reeled from financial crisis to fiscal disaster for decades before being swept up in David Brown's great world vision. Before their once-cherished name was appended to the fugliest monstrosity ever to escape Newport Pagnell, they built gorgeous things like this



You know how annoying it is when you wander round a zoo or whatever, and fail to see the leopard sneaking around in the bushes? Or the peacock obstinately refuses to display his magnificent plumage? That slight nagging feeling of being cheated is how you feel after seeing a Gullwing that won't perform its party piece. I suppose I shouldn't moan because Mercedes' little sporty coupe is still a stunning-looking car even without its wings spread. But I can't help wishing...











Regular readers... or sufferers... of these threads will know that I do love a nice goat. No, not in a curry, but in a Pontiac. The original muscle car, despite what Ford guys will try to tell you about Mustangs, it is some kind of ultimate; there can only ever be one first. Admittedly, this '65 is a year late to the party, but you know what I mean





And here's that aforementioned Mustang. In is-it-or-isn't-it Shelby flavour...



...and a couple of very different convertibles. The burgundy one is unusual because it has a stick-shift. As you know, most Yank cars are autos as a matter of course, but it's even rarer for someone to spec a drop-top with a manual transmission. After all, it's about cruising, looking good and being seen, not about driving like th'boy Steve in Bullitt. But then, how confident did you need to be with your sexuality in 1965 to walk into a Ford dealer and order a burgundy Mustang 'vert with a cream interior WITH PONY SEAT designs? Hangin' low!









This '73 kinda represents everything that went wrong with the 70s. But it is, at least, brown. And as you know, brown is awesome!



Actually, it would appear I did get a passable photograph of the Morris Mini. So here it is. Oooh, give the poor thing some panel work



Of course, Britain didn't have the exclusive preserve on miss-managing car makers into the ground. By the time domestic manufacturing re-started after WWII, Packard was already a shadow of it's former glory. Once right up there amongst the proudest of marques, mentioned in the same breath as Rolls or Duesenberg or Cadillac, it had at least survived the Depression that claimed so many of its luxury-model brethren such as Auburn. However, the envisaged streamlined and super-smooth futuristic look that had been forseen coming during the War never really caught on ... and besides, Nash and Hudson had already been there and done it. The Packard offerings were based on now-antiquitated platforms of pre-war design with a fancy frock and thick makeup slapped on to hide the wrinkles. They acquired unkind nicknames like "upturned bathtub" and "pregnant elephant". The writing was very much on the wall; the company went ever-further downmarket, leaving the high ground to Caddies and such. Mergers just delayed the inevitable in the cold wind of doom blowing from the gates of the Big Three. The day of the independent was over and just over decade later Studebaker pulled the plug on Packard's life support. Of course, now we look at outrageous shapes like this '49 Packard Eight with eyes of wonder and marvel. It's dated, yes, but in a kitsch and marvellous way; the kind of car the original Flash Gordon used to pop down the shops for a pint of milk. Wonderful mascot, too









I suppose if we're talking about ultimate luxury cars for a bit, it would be remiss not to have a couple of Rolls' finest. I'm afraid I can't actually remember what the engine bay belonged to; I seem to have failed to get any other pics of that particular car *coughs embarrassedly* The big grey thing, however, is a Silver Wraith that's included here not just because it's very grand but also because it has the rarer kneeling Spirit of Ecstasy as a bonnet ornament, which makes a change







Strangely, given how we were just chatting about independents getting subsumed into giant corporations as time goes by, I wonder what the current owners of the rights to the Riley marque would make of this little beast. So typical of the British Special, this thing looks like it was built by gentlemen in overalls somewhere in the Midlands during the Industrial Revolution, then improved by several more gentlemen in a succession of garden sheds and shady lock-ups and finally has spent the last hundred years or so larruping up the various hillclimbs of our noble isle with scant attention or consideration being paid to its advancing years. And the current owners? Well, Riley passed into the vast empire of Morris' Nuffield Organisation and thence to British Leyland... like almost everything else left at the time. Which means its current owners would be BMW. I don't think neat tidy and OCD-clean German labcoated techs and engineering doctorates would approve. Which means we must love it all the more







Speaking of Morris... unlike his arch-rival Austin, he had no part in the early days of the Wolseley marque. He just waited until it collapsed into insolvency and then bought it outright. Austin had to travel to Australia and serve apprenticeship with the then-manufacturer of sheep shearing equipment, and then back in the UK, persuade Fred Wolseley that there was actually a future in these new-fangled motor cars. Poor old Herbert. You might well have noticed I've got a bit of a thing for car mascotry (mega-humonogous thread in development) and I have to say, the impossibly elegant lady taking flight on the bonnet of this Wolseley is one of my clear favourites. Not the kind of delicacy you expect from a company that started off in that harshest of lands making sheep shearers. Delightfully grungy patina on the bodywork, too





We all love a nice station wagon, don't we? We do? Good. How about a VW Variant then? Although technically not a station wagon... I believe it's a "Squareback" but I'm sure VW aficionados will put me right... it's an estate by any other name. Great looking thing, brave attempt by VW before they realy had a model range to broaden the appeal of their one-trick pony the Beetle.. but honestly, a rear-engined estate. What's all that about?





How many times can we contrast a successful and still thriving marque (VW aren't exactly struggling, are they?) with one of our own domestic dismal failures before it gets depressing? Standard is just one of so many... once boldly claiming (with some accuracy) that they sold the most advanced car in the world in the form of the Vanguard, this brave old firm managed to survive two world wars, the almost complete destruction of Coventry, the Depression and so much domestic change in her lifespan since 1903. And then... Leyland. The death knell. Let's try to remember happier times instead, shall we?





well, it's time for me to love you and leave you once again. This was a great day with a superb variety of cars; such a broad theme always seems to draw in something that'll surprise you. And as you know, we need to end on a high. So here's one I don't remember ever seeing before. Italy has so many amazing makes to chose from and one you almost never hear mentioned is Cisitalia. And that's a great shame, because it had some real luminaries pass through its doors, Carlo Abarth not the least. Always a tiny-volume manufacturer, their greatest claim to fame came when the incomparable Tazio Nuvolari drove a version of the 202 to second place in the 1947 Mille Miglia, that toughest of real road races, outpacing many more powerful cars in awful weather in the little excellently-handling Cisitalia. After that race, the open versions were dubbed the 202 SMM for Spider Mille Miglia, easily recognised by the bonker rear fins and vestigial split windscreens. A very rare wee beastie, it's a shame everyone else seemed to realise this too and I could never get a clear shot of it









that's me done then. Thanks for reading as always. Until next time... keep smiling, groovers