DB4 One corner of my blog that I have started and then neglected Is the Brum Brum section Well not any more The Online British Classic Museum is well under way Whether I actually do get the money from Lord Stockdale has become irrelevant It seems I am doing it anyway In fact I have lost myself in it When I had finished the first round There was a shortlist of nearly five hundred models Meaning the museum will have a minimum of two and a half thousand entries As most car designs have derivatives and developments When I sat back from the first stage of this I could get a feel of the buzz of the motor industry back in the post war years Something that is hard to do without immersing yourself in the history And that buzz was thick Todays notion of healthy competition was in full flow back then With dozens of car makers jockeying for sales And exports being a big priority Foreign cars on our roads were rare Eventually most of it merged into a big useless British Leyland blob Then it all crumbled to dust Now all the cars on our roads are foreign And our own are just pieces of history But what pieces some of them are In the early sixties One company really starting to roll was Aston Martin They made stylish cars And they made fast cars Even by todays standards They could sprint to sixty in just over six seconds And growl their way to 150 mph There was only ever one British marque that James Bond was going to drive Dashing gents...cads...bounders...and secret agents everywhere Had to have one Bond was given the DB5 But the more interesting phase was just preceding this The DB4 This one here is the DB4GT Which these days rolls out of a classic dealers showroom for around £400,000 The Chaps at Aston Were quite pally with the Italian Motor industry And as the DB4 reached it's later phase in the early sixties They made a side step into the coach building zone Though to the Italians This area is purely "Designer" Coach building used to be very popular in the first half of the century Bentley for instance would roll out a chassis with all it's engineered bits And any one of dozens of coachbuilders Would take it away and turn it into a car As the motor industry flowed into the fifties Attention and alliances were turning more and more towards the Italians But it was more like seeing a beautiful woman across a crowded room It was an attraction Because the Italians had a flair for pleasing the eye They knew how a modern car was going to look in the future And they drew it first While we were still drawing Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs So the eponymous David Brown (DB) saw fit To send a batch of the latest DB4 GT's across to The Boot 25 of them made the trip All but one of them went to the Zagato factory And turned into the GT Zagato And if the dealer likes the cut of your jib He might sell you one for £2,500,000 So what happened to the other one? The one that didn't make it to Zagato It made it's way to the Bertone factory And became famous At least amongst the wealthy car loving elite It was dubbed the " The Bertone Jet" Fast and beautiful Starting with those mercurial front quarter bumpers Perfect flowing freehand symmetry From a casual sketch by a Roman God of car design They took one look At the ultimate leisure time vehicle for a secret agent And decided that there could be only one This is a recent photograph And who knows what it's worth I once heard one of the Top Gear team being pulled up for saying That a particular car was a work of art I can't remember on whose authority it was But he was told that a car can't be a work of art Because it has a function But surely art...like love Eludes such definition

24.10.08 18:42 Permalink / comment

Focus Mr Dial A whole week of trying to focus Leads to tiredness and falling behind But one must summon deep and get on with ones ambitions This week I tried hard to focus on my car project The Datsun Roadster The car is sat there all prepped But the guy who's task it is to spray the car Is a lazy enigma to my father He is one of the best in the town When he can manage to get going Just as I had gathered a plan Christmas and New Year derailed me So week one proper of 2008 I focused hard I compiled an order to the states I found a cheap phone to ring them from There was one last hidden hurdle There was some confusion about the serial number And which car I had actually bought During this problem I ventured into lists of serial numbers Trying to date the car Ten minutes got a little bored and checked out the gallery Three pages in I noticed this   What a beauty I rang my Dad immediately Must stop the lazy paint man My Dad liked the sound of it But couldn't see this picture It was going to be silver because we had seen nothing better But silver is Uber Ubiquitous these days I left the house with a jaypeg on a pen And had a couple of glossy photos made at the local developers The one-handed man thought it looked like a TR4 I love this curious ignorance Bought a hardback envelope and posted it first class Today I rang my Dad three minutes after he had opened it "What do you think?" "Fuckin marvelous...it really is" I told him that the colour was off the new Nissan 350Z Which posed a problem because todays cars are sprayed in water based paints at some expense Pops already had a solution Then he pointed out something very subtle that I hadn't noticed They both had very different lines The car dressed in "Le mans Sunset" Has no uprights on the bumper to section up the front And even better...it has no chrome side strips halving the car Giving it a more modern look Saves us a packet replacing the chrome It looks sleeker And has a confident Thomas the Tank Engine half smile that is no longer obscured Dad left the house straight away to get on with it I have been sat here looking at the photo trying to thrill myself A Will to a Thrill can help turn the mill If only I could marry her as well

10.1.08 23:16 Permalink / comment

Cablog: Sunday Service Today it's Sunday And I have gone out early To try and capitalise for the lost time on Saturday This was due to brake failure on Friday The good old Fiat electrics It's curious how this...their reputation...never changes For the whole day on Friday A light kept flashing on the instrument panel It was always too quick for me to work out what it was The only thing that I had established by late afternoon Was that the light was yellow At around 7pm as I approached the corner of Asda car park I stepped on the brakes And for a moment nothing happened Until the tyre traction got a good grip and saw me round the corner As I composed myself...there it was...the yellow brake warning light It seems it must convincingly warn you as the accident is in progress I wonder how many Italians have stared at the same light from over the top of an airbag whilst their car is wedged under the back of a truck Or as they are taking in the rapidly descending scenery of an Alpine valley Sunday morning was rolling well But a pattern was emerging It was the behavior of the traffic lights Nearly all of them were at red as I approached And before I could take it out of gear And put on the handbrake It would change to green My left leg was starting to ache as a result As a taxi driver I can say that I don't mind traffic lights being on Red For many reasons I can get a chance to peek at a map Or to program the Sat Nav I can eat food...drink coffee Look at girls Fill out account forms Rest my poor left leg Close my eyes and dream of swinging in a hammock on a beach Whatever...i just don't like them stopping me for a few seconds I have just been passed by a car emblazoned with advertising for Hypnosis Who in their right mind is going to entrust their mental well being to someone who just passed you in a vinyl covered Vauxhall Astra and looks like he just gave up painting and decorating to do it I get out in the station for a stretch Someone has left a copy of the Sunday Express So I sit in the back and read it for while "Balmy weather is killing our plants" "Public funds wasted on stupid art" "Layabout Immigrants" "Miss Moneypenny Dead" "One years anniversary of the Amish Massacre" "Outer Space Superbugs could kill us all" I sigh and throw it on the ledge No wonder people are doomladen with negative thoughts I take a short ride From the Train station to the Bus station I take note of the man and woman standing at the taxi stand as I pass Good...they are still there when I come back round But only the man gets in Before he closes the door he asks the girl "Are you going my way?" She smiles and hands me a letter...which is what most of the foreign English language students do I turn to the man..."Yeah...she is going your way"...I do the backward nod which means get in Do you know In two and a half years as a cabbie...this is the first time this has happened What a sad observation I have often felt like mentioning it when it is busy But folks just don't seem to want to sit next to each other They can't talk to each other to find out if they have a common destination "Are you going my way?"....seems to belong on Walton Mountain The evolution of the birds in an urban environment I pull up at a zebra crossing For the passenger in the back...it looks like I have stopped for the invisible man A man at the side of the road looks at me and laughs I look at him and laugh back Why have I stopped?...why are we both laughing? Because a pigeon is making full use of the crossing The mans laugh is full of surprise Mine isn't I've seen this a good number of times Can this pea brain have evolved to understand the crossing? Each time I have seen it...it has been a determined crossing...no stopping...no eating...just crossing But for the fact the stupid fucker can fly It looks like it knows what it is doing

1.10.07 17:32 Permalink / comment

Yamaha RD350LC I haven't seen one of these since the eighties This bike was revolutionary I only ever rode on the back of one of these The powerband was a revelation at the time It felt like you had hit the hyperspace button All that out of 39hp It was rich candy to the biker speed merchants And the techno leap was probably too much in one go I knew a few guys who died on these machines Lord knows how many lives the LC claimed

15.5.07 01:09 Permalink / comment

Well Well I am just idling around in the wee small hours Waiting for a plane to Spain It's at 6am And i am too out of synch to get any kip So i am surfing around And i found just the thing for me Brum Brum section Whilst thinking i was getting all nostalgic Initiating a search through the 1982 world rally season I realised it wasn't nostalgia at all In fact what i was looking at could have happened in a parallel universe How could i have gone a whole season without poking my head in to just even keep tabs on it It was all new to me Hang on....1982 I was sixteen Of course Girls, drugs, booze I must have missed most of the eighties So what surprising Delight To find this What a beautiful little monster The Lancia Rallye 037 It looks like an evolution of the Lancia Beta Montecarlo But this Beta has been taken in and loved by some Italian maestro This is a road going version of a car that won a few rounds of the world championship Exceedingly rare I could only find any in high end dealers And would cost about 50,000 to procure it for my collection As soon as i have suceeded in suceeding I will send the bowler hatted silhouetted chinaman with a big envelope And have it shipped Corrrrrrrrrr!!!.....I must have her

4.9.06 03:17 Permalink / comment

Mazda RX5 I got this idea whilst sitting idly in the car for some time Behind an old RX7 Started to wonder if there was anything before it like a 6 or a 2 Well turns out they went from a 2 to 5 As Jap vehicles never broke these shores in any great numbers before the late 70's Mazda didn't even bother sending them here But they sent them just about everywhere else in the world Which is a reflected these days by the "Up it's own arse" British classic car community They think Japs just nicked our designs and montaged them into nipponstien monsters But the whole world nicks our ideas and makes better use of them It's like pretending Brazil are crap at football Anyway i wafflegress The RX5 I think it's a rather handsome fella I can see how it has shades of Hillman Avenger from the rear But who the fuck would choose an Avenger over this These are a cool seventies fastback design And are often seen down under all "street smarted" up Anyway take a peep under the hood And pull the front off  for a cross-section view of the famous rotary engine And Well...i haven't the foggiest I clearly know how a normal engine works But this looks like HG Wells temporal technology I remember one appearing in my dads garage rearcourt in the early seventies You'd have thought that a UFO had landed They were all scratching their heads for months trying to work out how to fix it and get it started

18.11.05 21:29 Permalink / comment

Up North As i grew up i was distinctly affected by cars. One half of my family (dads side) was in the motor trade. They dealt a lot with exotic sports cars and classics mostly doing steering conversions. When i reached the nineties i became very bored with modern cars and spent some of my time dipping into classic car mags. I always envied those who would find superb rare classics in a barn or in a field never thinking that one day day i would stumble on something better than i had seen in a magazine. And so the ball began rolling on halloween last year. 1. I was driving down a local road and started to turn right when i was hit by a motorbike trying to overtake me. He stoved my door in. We had to pull the man from underneath his bike and when he gathered himself he gave me his insurance document. He was called Richard Head (i am not kidding that is what it said on the document). 2. I had to find a door for my car so i went onto the owners club website and posted my problem (my current car is fairly rare). 3. This resulted in a trip up to lincolnshire to visit a collecter of old japanese vehicles (mainly Datsuns). 4. Shortly after securing the door i was shown around and was amazed to stumble on a soft top roadster that i had never seen before. This was it, my turn for a car in the barn. 5. I swiftly offered to buy the car and dashed back to Hull to visit my sister and to get an image off the net to show my dad. 6. He loved it and said that in fifty years in the motor trade he had never seen one before. 7. He agreed to a deal where i supply the money and he does all the restoration. 8. He is even going to build a garage at my Grandmas house to accomodate the project. 9. When it is finished next summer it will look like this. It is a Datsun Fairlady Roadster, there are only four in the country.

8.7.05 14:33 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment