Old car news & purchases

Classic car shows attended and 2 new additions to the collection

Tatton Park Classic car show
June started off with my usual visit to Tatton Park, for the classic vehicle show. Despite the hefty cost of getting in as a punter, and the proliferation of far too many modern cars (most of which you'd see any night of the week at Tescos or in a pub car park) its worth going just for the autojumble.

It is always worth having a mooch around the public car park before going into the show itself. Car park highlights this year were a tired but very original looking racing Vauxhall Viva HB on a trailer, a trim Standard 8 for sale (original numberplate now sold), a tasty DB6 Aston Martin, and a nice 1968/1969 Riley Elf also up for grabs.

Once in the show it was time to take a pile of photographs, many familiar vehicles were on show but also some welcome new 'faces' within the lines of classics parked up in their respective categories. Unusual vehicles this year included a Porsche 356 in the sales area, a lineup of Austin Metropolitan cars, a faded but mega-original Standard Vanguard Phase 2 in the de rigeur shade of pale grey, and at the other end of the spectrum, a lary De Tomaso Pantera GTS on a private plate.

Vintage vehicles were pleasingly numerous, with many examples of Austin, Morris and more sporting marques to tempt the eye. My favourite was a 1920s Austin Taxi with all the kit inside, and period suitcases on display within the cab. Top stuff. Military vehicles were consigned as usual to the sunken area off to one side, and there was a reasonable selection of wartime and post-ww2 vehicles to pore over.

I think my favourite commercial vehicle this year at Tatton was up for sale (dangerous...) near the vintage cars, photo above. It was a 1916 REO Speedwagon looking in very original timewarp condition, up 'for sensible offers'. I am still not sure what a 'sensible offer' is for anything, perhaps one day I'll find out. But a mighty fine old truck to pootle around in. Sadly I doubt my level of reasonable offer would have been enough, sob.

Before heading off to the 'jumble I ambled over to the Standard Motor Club stand, where they had an excellent turnout of cars. I was particularly interested to spy a Standrive-equipped Standard 10 similar to my own example (my Standard), very few still run this curious transmission arrangement. Temptation reared its head once again when I made my way over to the stand of a local classic car club, where my old Volvo 122S was on display in fully restored condition. It was interesting to catch up with Jerry who now owns it, and the rumour that he might consider selling it set my mind whirring about where I could park the thing if I bought it. Perhaps wisely I never did make a firm offer for it - without dry storage space for it at the moment, it would have been too painful watching it sit outside and deteriorate. Photos of cars seen at Tatton can be found here.

Gaydon Classic Truck show
The week after Tatton saw me heading down to Gaydon for the annual classic commercial vehicle show, probably the largest show for old vans and lorries in the UK.

There were some beautiful old commercials on show, the quality of some restorations always amazes me. Admittedly many are restored by companies that operate modern truck fleets, so have plenty of dosh to throw at the old lorries, but nevertheless the turn-out of great old lorries was fantastic. Old vans and trucks aren't for everyone I know, but I would defy anyone who is a car fan not to find something at this show that they'd like to have in their own garage, whether its a mighty Scammell or a tiny Austin pickup truck. One of my favourites this year was the Australian-bodied E493A Ford Prefect Ute - very nice. Going slightly larger, and the Bensons Quality Sweets ERF wagon was a mighty fine machine.

Other highlights for me included a great Diamond T lorry, a ex-military Morris Commercial breakdown lorry, and some very attractive V8 Ford Pilot pickups.

An advantage of entry to this show is free access to the museum at Gaydon, where there is a fascinating array of British motorcars on display, including many BMC and British Leyland prototypes built in the 1960s and 1970s.

Donington Jaguar and Classic Race Day
The following weekend dad and I sped over to Donington Park for the historic race meeting, on a fantastically hot summers day.

The lineup included several Jaguar saloon and sports car races, and other races including a double bill of Porsche Cup and Unlimited races.

The amazing weather contributed to a very pleasant Fathers Day spent watching the racing, and chatting to various drivers and mechanics in the pits during qualifying. The Jaguar races saw a mixed bag of XJ saloons, XJS coupes (6 pot and V12) and Jag-powered specials taking to the undulating Donington track, with some good close on-track tussles being acted out.

One of the most interesting competition cars in action that day was actually a Porsche, a 1972 935 that demolished all its opposition with ease, until coming a cropper in its 2nd race when a problem with a wheel forced its retirement. This same car also retired from this series' visit to Oulton Park a month or so before. But while it was running, the bright orange Porsche was a treat for the eyes, out-gunning all its more modern adversaries on the track. Some of the Jaguars at this meeting can be seen on the Donington photos page.

Mazda MX5 Eunos
Having decided that her old UK-spec MX5 was getting a bit long in the tooth, 'er indoors kindly suggested that it was time we found a younger replacement. Many hours were spent trawling magazines and various websites, looking at MX5s and imported Eunoses. Our original plan had been to source a UK-spec car, but many that we looked at had suffered from dodgy paint repairs, or, worse, serious rot issues, even on examples found on dealer forecourts.

In the end we snapped up a low mileage Eunos import, which had been undersealed on arrival into the UK. By this time we'd decided that body condition & mileage were far more important than the age of the vehicle, or whether it was an import or not. The advantage with buying an import Eunos over a UK car, is that they don't spread salt all over the roads in Japan I'm told during the winter, so theres less chance of raging rot. The downside is that they are not undersealed by the factory, but so long as its done once in the UK things should be ok. Having looked underneath our old UK car I'm not that convinced that factory underseal was much use anyway! Touch wood this new Mazda seems to run well. Time to sell the old MX5 now.