Seems nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Somewhere in my wise, silver-haired mother's backlog of memorabilia is a photo album with round-cornered B&W prints showing me as a tubby child climbing on the stones with my sister while my brother did the decent thing expected of older siblings and sulked furiously in the background. Well, the idea of taking my own kids and repeating the experience soon evaporated when I discovered the NATO-spec exclusion zone that now surrounds the place. Besides the fact you can't get within half a mile of the stones by car... except on the main road, where it's now impossible to stop, the new visitor centre they've built to guard...ahhh....exploit... errrm... manage the Stones wasn't open at that time of the morning. And even if it had been, I wasn't going to be paying the fifteen quid they wanted to STILL not be able to actually get within touching distance of the stones themselves. You're not allowed off the official walkways. I had visions of guard towers with mirror-visored black-clad marksmen wielding tazers and screaming "Do not approach the assets! I WILL fire!"
So, with something of my earlier joie de vivre evaporating, I abandoned the car in the nearest layby, a mile away, and trudged up the side of the road in the mizzling rain. A couple of gates got me as close as I could, through a muddy field bestrewn with the end product of sheep's digestion. All the while I was berating my pig-headedness; after all it's not like I couldn't have Googled a thousand photos of Stonehenge in the time it took me to park the car and arm the alarm. And 99.9% of them would no doubt have been better than my feeble efforts through the wire and mist and murk. But then, if I wasn't bloodyminded I wouldn't be me and why make life easy when you can be a cantankerous arse instead?
So that was Stonehenge then. But that wasn't what we're really here for. We're here to see cars, innit. And why complain about the weather? It was the end of January, after all! So, bidding a slightly damp and dejected farewell to the Stones, I trudged back along the muddy verge to the car, hoping no-one had used it for target practice in the meanwhile. I've heard about these country type places. "Please do not shoot at the sign" and all that...
Anyway, 132 miles later and nearly in the environs of Yeovil, I finally plotted up at the Haynes museum. Funny how you always mean to visit these places and somehow never get round to it (the museum, not Yeovil. Not that I've anything against Yeovil particularly. I'm sure it's lovely. Just a long way to go to see people who talk funny. I can stay at home and get that). On the way I followed a cool little Fiesta on wide wheels when the road went through some villagey bits. Nice little car, I wondered if he was going the same place as me. Turns out although I didn't yet know it but I was only in the presence of an actual bona-fide internet like celebrity important persona innit. *ahem* Otherwise known as RMad.
Since I'd never been to the Museum before I didn't really know what to expect. I'd heard tell of how Old Man Haynes began with a relatively humble collection of his own cars housed in various barns and sheds, and I suppose that image had stuck in my mind... I was half-expecting some kind of dilapidated agricultural unit in a farmyard, complete with chickens running about the place and cow poop everywhere. Seems I really ought not be so casually prejudiced.
The swoopy, properly architect-penned new buildings are pretty impressive, ultra-modern yet not annoyingly so somehow. Good trick, that. They even seemed to match the curves of my Rex and it's not everyday you visit a building that matches your car! Their allure is enhanced by the glimpse of beautifully-sculpted Mercedes 540K fender through the plate glass part of the frontage, like a cheeky flash of suspender under a ruffled pelmet skirt. At this point I had the car park more or less to myself, given the early hour, but as I was having a quick smoke some decent company rolled up, made even more worthy of respect by the way Mum and Dad ...or should that be Mom... got out and then extricated the kids from the back before heading off to the museum. Who says interesting cars can't also be practical family transport?
So, in the door, ticket bought and a guide book, all for less than twenty quid. Plus the ticket lets you in as many times as you like. Christ, you can barely get out of the carpark at the NEC for that. The cafe beckons with its promise of coffee, but I get no further than the exhibits in the glass entry hall. The Merc is alluring in a predatory way that modern cars sooooo fail to capture. They shout too loud of power and speed whereas this whispers softly of grace and barely-contained prowess just waiting to be unleashed. Speak softly, and carry a Kompressor.
The Cobra ain't half bad, either. Most times you see that unmistakeable silhouette, crouched like a pouncing cat, and think "replica". Not here though. There are dead giveaways in the early, vestigial arches. Everyone wants the later steroidal bulbous ones that went with 427 grunt. A closer look at the interpretation notes (exhibit info) shows this to be an alloy-bodied car as well. I'm starting to think this collection might prove anything but cheap or ordinary
I'll get a coffee later. I want a quick look round first, before it gets busy. After all, how big can it be? In through the strange little entry vestibule that's a bit like entering an airlock, and you emerge into a funny corridor bit with a few old bangers wedged in alcoves. Hmmm, cool enuff old bangers admittedly but one can't help but hope it opens out and gets a bit less.. well, dingy. But hey, we're here so what have we got? How about the first ever mass-produced motorised vehicle and the one that started America on its never-look-back path to the Cult of the Car?
No, not the damned Model T. Yes, Henry really kicked the production line up a gear or two for his Tin Lizzy, but the first mass-produced car was the "Curved Dash" Runabout named after its inventor Ransom Eli Olds. Who might sound like someone with five minutes to live in a Sergio Leone western, but was in fact the man after whom Oldsmobile were named. You can really see where the phrase "horseless carriage" came from; the curved dash took it's name from the "dashboard" that was originally made to stop stones, mud and oomskah "dashed" up by the horses' flying hooves from showering the occupants. Over the years it's been amalgamated into the bit of interior soft-touch plastic that is nowadays just a nicely sculpted place to put your satnav and cupholders, but way back when it was just somewhere to rest your feet.
...actually, my waff still uses mine for that quite often now I think about it
Over the way was a fantastic early 20th Century Daimler that was too huge to get into a pic. It really showed how a heavy steel chassis and wooden coachwork made for a substantial vehicle that the single-figure horsepower engines must have struggled to move downhill, let alone up the carriage drive to the stables. Even the radiator must weigh the same as a small cow, given the work that's gone into it
And the it turned out I needn't have worried about the scale of the exhibits. Turn the corner and the corridor opens out into the first of many halls, stuffed... sorry, make that STUFFED with an automotive cornucopia. Oooooh, where to start? How about a...
...actually, I'm not sure what the correct collective noun is for pre-war Rolls Royces? Maybe a majesty of Rollers? A waft of Royces? Less grandiose than the superb coachbuilt grand tourers was the nothing short of ungainly armoured car, complete with ANZAC period accoutrements. Tough times. Funny to peer through the viewports and see the "typical" Rolls wooden steering wheel complete with advance/retard levers and mixture adjustors and everything. Must have been one hell of a challenging beast to drive
Most 1920s Rollers tend to be vast behemoth things that you could hold a polo match in, so it was a pleasant change to see a coupe like this 1928 model. Very sporty-looking, not at all Rolls-ish and more akin to an Invicta or Lagonda of the period. There's one of them next door, as it happens.
I turn left, towards a bloody carmine hue that shines up from the end of the hall like a sunset or a fresh head wound. I've heard about the red room... no, not redrum. That was the Shining... and have to admit a certain interest in how that's going to work. It's a room full of sporting cars linked by an obvious trait. I gather the idea is that it sort of forces you to see the cars based purely on their own unique merit rather than the colour they're painted. Because they're all painted the same, y'see? And I have a red sportscar myself. Well, pink then. But it used to be red. But before I get there the unmistakeable flash of a body finish only ever worn by one single make of vehicle catches my eye. Yeah, think about that, there's not many cars that can boast that accolade, are there?
No, you're right. I never get tired of photographing Deloreans. I love them, and I make no apologies. I don't care how compromised and inefficient they are. Or underpowered. Or unreliable. Or uncomfortable Or indeed any of the negatives the haters invariably fling at them. They're unique, instantly recognisable to even the most car-hating fool, and there are very few cars you say that of. Yes, you, that powerfully-built company director lurking in the shadows at the back of Pistonheads... you may think that your choice of BMW immediately announces your individuality and astonishing taste to the world in an eyeblink. Drive one of these and see how many more people suddenly find you fascinating.
OK, that wasn't quite fair. Or truthful, for that matter. It's not you. It's the car. And it's not strictly the only car ever to wear brushed stainless, the Maserati Bora had a funky roof made of it for no obvious reason. Let's call it poetic licence and move on, shall we?
Interestingly, what were the odds of finding another gull-winged anomaly parked next door to the DMC-1? Sorry; not an actual Gullwing with a capital "G" if you were thinking Mercedes SL300, but to be honest, how can you get rarer than a gullwing door-ed car built in Ireland? Yep, a gullwing door-ed car built in Canada
Yep, that'll be a Bricklin SV-1 and award yourself several dozen internetz cool points if you already knew that. For those who didn't... and let's face it there's no disgrace in never having heard of one before... it was a short-lived company created by American millionaire Malcolm Bricklin. The car's decline and fall rather mirrored that of Delorean; when the firm went bust due to not being able to manufacture enough cars, it owed the New Brunswick government several million dollars. Although unlike John Z, Mr Bricklin didn't turn to the life of an international coke dealer to settle his accounts. The SV-1 itself was an average car, brought down by its innovations rather than enhanced by them. SV stood for "Safety Vehicle" and back in the mid seventies, this was not sexy like now. No-one cared if your offspring were catapulted through the windscreen in a crash due to lack of seatbelts and crumple zones, as long as you looked cool crashing whilst smoking your Marlboro and flashing the shiny nylon of your branded sportsjacket. The Bricklin was undeniably ahead of the curve (only those funny Swedes at Saab and Volvo were muttering darkly in the corner about actually making car crashes survivable at the time, and everyone knew what those long dark nights and strong beer did to them) with impact-absorbing bumpers, built-in safety cage, side-impact bars and suchlike, but Bricklin himself was an ardent anti-smoker who also thought it was unsafe to become distracted from driving by such a pastime. There was no ashtray or cigarette lighter so you couldn't even look cool whilst surviving embarrassing low-speed accidents. In addition, the car was styled by Herb Grasse who had up till then been more famous for collaborating with George Barris on such legends as the Lincoln Futura-based Batmobile, so was perhaps always likely to concoct a shape that was ... um, challenging... rather than mainstream. And it had an AMC V8 motor, and those worthies spent every other week on their knees coughing up blood for most of the late 70s. All in all, doomed to fail. BUT the SV-1 did have one feature that made it cool and unique; one-button-press operated gullwing doors. Winning
And so we step through the portal from the entrance hall and into the bathing red glow that bounces from a hundred voluptuous curves, drawn by a hundred spotlights and reverberated by a hundred mirrors. Oooh, it's like some sort of sportscar burlesque in here. And yep, they're definitely all RED
And y'know what? It works as a concept. You really do start to see each car for its own sake rather than which colour it's painted. Apparently all the cars still wear their factory paint; none have been changed to fit the theme, which makes it more interesting seeing how close even within the tiny range of wavelength between 620 and 750 nanometres the manufacturers came. Aside from the deep burgundy of the GK-1 (which is re-painted), most of the reds on show are what we tend to think of "that" Italian Racing Rosso, Ferrari Red. There, I said it. Yeah, despite being Italy's chosen racing colour and Enzo's mob coming pretty late to car manufacture, that shade of red is irredeemably linked in most peoples' mind to Ferraris. Which makes it slightly odd that there aren't any here. None? No, wait, what have we here?
No, definitely not a Ferrari. But you can be forgiven if you were thinking "that's a 166M Allemano Barchetta" because that's exactly what you're supposed to think. Born from those horrendous post-war days of austerity motoring, the kitcar industry was a canny way of sidestepping the crushing purchase tax on new car sales... and bear in mind that old cars were really old; most manufacturers took at least five years after the end of WWII to bring new models to market, meaning their 1946 to '50ish-year models were actually warmed-over early 1930s design at least fifteen years out of date. Those new cars that were being made were sold abroad in part of the "Export or Die" ethos, and the few that were for sale domestically attracting a one-third purchase price. And that was on family plodders. Cars costing over £1000 attracted a two-thirds purchase tax!
In this climate, canny engineers like Welshman Jack Turner exploited the loophole that self-assembled cars; kit cars in fact, avoided the worst of the taxation and also gave the buying public a chance to own something a little more exciting than the dreary and outdated mainstream of the day. No wonder people whose only automotive colour for the past years had been painting their bumpers and running boards white in compliance with the blackout measures desired cars that looked like the flamboyant sportsters of a resurgent Italy. And finally, in 1950 the much-loathed petrol ration was abolished (albeit some time after Germany had axed theirs, much to the outrage of British motorists) and whilst Pool Petrol was still often poor quality, at least the concept of leisure motoring was accessible again. You couldn't have run a highly-strung Colombo V12 like in the proper 166 on it, but the Lea Francis-engined 1950 Turner Sport lapped it up and were campaigned by racers into the 1960s
OK, so we're over the lack of Ferraris now, yeah? Good. Shall we have a look at what else is on offer?
One feature of museums (and this one in particular) is that space is often a bit of a premium. That's not such a problem in the V&A where a nice frock is a nice frock from any angle, but in a car museum it can make taking meaningful photos of entire cars a bit tricksy. The problem seemed especially bad in the Red Room, where I often found myself reduced to taking pics of little details because the whole car just wouldn't fit in. But that's fine, regular readers will know I love my little details. So how about this?
Included not because it's a great photo - it clearly isn't - but it is undeniably a great car. By the birthdate of this car in 1973, the muscle cars had died out as abruptly as the dinosaurs they're so often compared to. The only choice left in this post-OPEC crisis world was the Pontiac Firebird. And if you were buying a Firebird, why not make it a TransAm? And if you were buying a TransAm, you really ought to make it one of these. Cos this ain't no ordinary flamin' chicken. Under the hood lurks the unfeasibly prodigious 455 cu in Super Duty engine, a motor so overladen with grunt that even the emissions nazis on Capitol Hill couldn't emasculate it. If you knock a Super Duty TransAm into drive and touch nothing else, it'll get to 60mph on tickover alone. Have a think about that, and then understand that should you be brave enough to actually use the gas pedal, you can pull down buildings and uproot treestumps without ever needing to get the tractor out of the barn. The last great muscle car of the great muscle car era, we should salute it. And so to something a bit more elegant, if still rather brutish;
Yes, the more Bavarian-minded will have already got that's a Neue Sechs CS coupe, but what about the subliminal cue that got you there? Named in honour of Wilhelm Hoffmeister, then BMW Director of Design, the "Hoffmeister Kink" has featured on every modern post-war BMW. It's that little forward-leaning line that surges off from the base of the C-pillar. It's meant to represent the fact that all Bimmers are righteously rear-wheel drive by almost imperceptibly drawing your eye to the structure above the rear wheels and introducing a sense of motion even when stood still. So now you know.
If I hadn't been enjoying taking pointless photos of bizarre little details I'd probably never even have noticed the odd magnifying lenses within the headlights on this 1929 Alfa 6C. Once I did notice them, I started seeing them on a few other cars of the same vintage. I'm not exactly sure what purpose they serve, since they seem fixed. Do they spread the beam of light, or focus it? Is it a way of getting high beam into the same light with a relatively small and thus cooler bulb? I dunno, but I'd like to. I guess that's the whole point of museums, to make you think and question
And still on the details, Alvis are always good for an extravagant bit of mascotry
In addition to the Turners we saw earlier, another of those rarest of cars - a Welsh one - deserved a decent pic. I just managed to squeeze it in! As if a "normal" Gilbern Invader isn't unusual enough, how about this stylish estate? A fibreglass small-volume car, yes, but no lash-up, Gilberns were quality products. Only just over 100 of the estates were made, but they still featured electric windows, wood veneer and high-class trimmings. The suspension might have been relatively humble MG-C derived, but it was much improved. And it was no slouch either, with a 3-litre Essex V6 from the Zodiac powering it along. Those who scoff at Britain's history of "shed-built" specials (Clarkson, e.g.) really ought to think again
Which brings us neatly to possibly the archetype of potent home-builds, the Marcos. Marsh and Costin were never going to build shoddy cars, given their backgrounds in aviation engineering and those who mocked the plywood frame and GRP bodywork were seriously missing the point. Besides the strength, flexibility, low cost and ease of tooling, all of which would have been ruinously expensive to achieve using "proper" metal, the construction techniques allowed extravagant curves and shapes such as this gorgeous 3 Litre. It was only when the American market was being explored that the switch to spaceframes became necessary, due to the stringent Federal crash requirements.
Probably my favourite of the Citroën-era Maseratis. I dunno why. I just love the preposterous flying buttresses and everyone knows that V6 engines make the best noize. It probably wouldn't even have come about if Citroën hadn't gone even more bonkers than usual and dreamed up the SM project after a late-night board meeting featuring some especially strong cheeses. Seemed a shame to waste the beautifully-designed Alfieri V6, so Maserati did the decent thing; hopped it up and wedged it into a gorgeous Giugiaro-penned mid-engined coupe. Boras, Ghiblis and such may perhaps be purer to the Maserati bloodline, but I just love the little underdog
If you thought that Maserati were the only people to produce lovely little Frua-bodied Sportsters then think again. How about a car that travelled further than many did in an entire lifetime... all before it was even sold? Yep, the AC 428 had a complicated inception; based on the Cobra 427 underpinnings (no disgrace), the drivetrains were brought in from Detroit, the chassis was then mated to them at the AC Thames Ditton factory, then the whole lot shipped to Italy to be bodied, then back again for finishing. The joke was that the car had travelled so many miles before ever hitting a showroom floor that it was already out of warranty.
Perhaps slightly less grandiose... or foolhardy, depending on the amount of poetry in your soul.... the humble workmanlike Triumph sportster of the day owed no less great a debt to the luminaries of the Italian coachbuilders art. When post-war Sir John Black decided to re-focus marque identity and thus Standard would be the producer of saloons and tourers and Triumph would concentrate on sporting cars, it took the firm down a road that led to Giovanni Michelotti. The TR4 might have been almost the same car as the previous TR3A underneath, but it swept away the old in-house styling in favour of bold Italianate lines... and let's be fair, the earlier TR series cars were not what anyone could accuse of being beautiful. Michelotti's treatments were so decisive and popular that he became Triumph's go-to guy in shapes and colours pretty much throughout the rest of the firm's life before Leyland subsumation brought in Harris Mann who cheerfully threw out the French curves and protractor from the Triumph pencil case and only kept the ruler and set-square.
Just as well there was a TR3 right next door for comparison then. Funny to think that in its time, it was derided for the switch to the full-width grille from the TR2. Or indeed, any grille at all rather than a hole. This little row was a great advertisement for when Great Britain really did lead the world in affordable little sportsters, featuring an MGC and A, TRs, a Tiger and even a Rochdale Olympic!
I wish I'd paid more attention to the information boards, too because when I looked through the photos afterwards I realised that the MGA has an unusual recessed grille that I don't remember having seen before. I have to admit to preferring it to the normal smooth-to-the body type but I've no idea why it's different like this.
We'd better take a look at that Tiger, too, or GeorgeB will never forgive me!
Funny really; everyone knows the story of how Henry Ford, piqued by Enzo Ferrari's last minute change of heart as to selling Ferrari to Ford, resolved to hurt il Commandatore where it counted most - on the track. Thus Lola's endurance racer was morphed into the Ford GT40 and the rest is history. Which as we all know (cos Henry told us) is bunk. Fewer people realise that the Rootes Groups' little car that could was the result of similar, if slightly more humble collapse of entente cordial. Realising the little Sunbeam Alpine was in need of more grunt to become competitive, Rootes approached Ferrari in the hope a warmed-over version of the Alpine's four-pot bearing the label "Tuned by Ferrari" would be sufficient both in ability and kudos. When talks broke down, however, the path towards American muscle in lieu of Italian artistry was once again trodden.
Rootes competition manager Norman Garrad had his son Ian measure the engine bay of an Alpine using a "precision instrument of questionable antecedents", i.e. a wooden yardstick. Ian sent his service manager round all the local car dealerships trying to find a motor that would fit with this extremely scientific measurement. Eventually it was declared that the Ford 260 cu in motor ought to do it, and so Carroll Shelby, the world's fastest chicken farmer, was employed to make it happen. And so it did, though Shelby commented that the "figure of speech about the shoe-horn never applied to anything as well as it did to that tight squeak." It wasn't all bad, though; the tightest of fits meant the car had to switch from the Alpine's recirculating ball steering box to proper rack and pinion. It could have not worked. Just because Shelby had previous for wedging prodigious American mills into diminutive British sportscars didn't guarantee success; just look at the ugly mess that Daimler ended up with in the SP250, despite Edward Turner's wonderful Hemi-headed V8 powering it. Fortunately, it did work. The Tiger was brilliant and Lord Rootes, though initially "quite grumpy" about the idea, when he test drove it immediately placed an order with Ford for 3000 260cu in engines, the greatest single order Ford had ever received.
The Tiger was a roaring success (see what I did there?). The Hillman Imp was not, nearly bankrupted the Group, and Rootes were forced into majority ownership by Chrysler. The smallest Chrysler engine, the 275 did not fit in the Alpine bodyshell, and they were never going to allow a rival manufacturer to power one of their products. The Tiger, cruelly young at only three years old, was extinct
There is, of course, one legendary British sportster missing from this line-up so far. Sadly, despite being the tiniest car in the place, it was also one of the most wedged-in so I couldn't get a worthwhile pic. But since no chat about such things is complete without a Frogeye, here's what I did manage;
In fact, we may be reduced to little detail pics again for a bit. Space was very tight. Shame really, as our next car didn't exactly invent an entire genre (the idea of the Shooting Brake was well-established) but it certainly grabbed the ball and ran with it. The Scimitar GTE was the first real, proper, honest sports estate. Thrust along by the old faithful Ford three litre Essex, the fibreglass load-lugger was like nothing else on the road for a good few years (Audi were making re-badged DKWs for VW and BMW had only just finished messing around with bubblecars). The GTE was what happened when a small-volume manufacturer like Reliant with little to lose either way employed a bonkers design house like Ogle, and a visionary like Tom Karen to design a car. Other triumphs from the same company include the Raleigh Chopper, the Bond Bug, the maddest Aston Martin ever and Luke Skywalker's landspeeder.
Wheeltrims. Really oughtn't to be allowed, not when an options list as comprehensive and affordable as the Mustang's was on the salesman's desk in front of you
In 1963 in Britain you could have a brand new Austin 1100 (eventually a 1300, last seen assaulted by Basil Fawlty with a tree). The Moggy Minor had only been on the road four years. You could, if you were a bit more daring and your wage packet included a few more shillings, stretch to a Sunbeam Alpine... and probably be happy not knowing that it was about to morph into the Tiger in a years' time and render your pride and joy utterly obsolete. You could have a Super Minx from fellow Rootes stable Hillman. It really wasn't all that Super, though. Or, if you lived in Italy, you could have one of these.
And we were supposed to have won the War? And speaking of those who lost the War but won the peace, how about a Datsun? Or a bit of one. At first glance you might be forgiven for assuming it's a misspelling by an enthusiastic home decal fetishist, but of course the Samuri 240Zs were modified by Spike Anderson ...most famous of his ouvre being Win Percy's Big Sam. Not all Samuri-tuned road cars were air-dammed beasts on wide sports wheels and rocking the iconic brown-over orange livery. As this one, with positively leftfield wire wheels, shows succinctly!
And so we're just about finished with our circumnavigation of the Redrum. Just as well, really cos it's starting to feel like being inside a bruise and red is the colour Photobucket traditionally struggles with the most, so no doubt most of these pictures are horribly pixelated and grainy. And not all down to my rubbish camera skills. Anyway, before we leave, there's one car we must pay homage to. Hard to think nowadays that the French pretty much invented motorsport. Yeah, the Gordon Bennett Cup was organised by... well, Gordon Bennett... and yeah, Ze Germans did invent the actual car, but the French made this new-fangled concept their own in the early days. You can write off Bugatti as being a re-located Italian if it helps, but that doesn't account for the Gallic titans of the early racing days; Darraq, DeDion (after whom the axle was named and the Germans stole), Panhard (after whom le système Panhard by which all successful sportcars were built for decades was named), Talbot, Delage... one could rant on for ages. Then, post-War a strange malaise overtook this once proudest of racing nations. Cars abilities dwindled away and atrophied even before the country slid into the obscenity of the horsepower cap. But before this travesty, some memorable last hurrahs squeezed out of the country before the lock. Madness from Citroën aside, perhaps the best of them was the Facel Vega. The marriage of an ex-Citroën designer, a firm of metal pressers who had recently made aeroplane parts for the Americans and bodies for Bentleys, and the frankly ludicrous hemi engine from the DeSoto Firedome (and in later models, the full-fat Chrysler Hemi)... how could it fail to be excellent? The Facel Vega HK500 (it's even initialled as a Hunter-Killer!) was, and is, nothing short of superb. Lazy, endless V8 torque wrapped in a gentlemens' club on wheels and impossibly understatedly stylish, it's just an absolute automotive acme. France might no longer have dominated the racetracks, but very few could compete with one of these parked outside the Casino Royale
