Monthly Archive: January 2018

2018 CARnivale 0

2018 CARnivale

Adding overzealous private security guards rarely enhances an event and the 2018 CARnivale was no exception.     This event used to be held in the city and was relocated to Parramatta Park a few years ago.    It is now much smaller and the cars are squeezed into a small area so unnecessary security barriers can be put up to contain them. This year...

British Motor Museum Reserve Collection 1

British Motor Museum Reserve Collection

The British Motor Museum has more cars than they can display in their main collection.   Unlike most museums, they open up their reserve collection to browse.   The cars are obviously packed in close together to fit them all, so harder to see all the details and photograph.  I still think  its great that the museum opens this part of the collection to the public....

British Motor Museum Main Collection 2

British Motor Museum Main Collection

The British Motor Museum contains the world’s largest collection of historic British vehicles.   It was a really impressive museum and worth a visit if you’re ever in the UK.   It is a nice combination of early vehicles, examples of popular British cars, concept cars and competition cars. The museum is located in Warwick, near Birmingham, about an hour or so north of London on...

National Motor Museum, Beaulieu 1

National Motor Museum, Beaulieu

The National Motor Museum arose out of the collection of the previous Lord Montagu (3rd Baron Beaulieu).  It is housed at the Montagu family estate at Beaulieu in the New Forest.   Lord Montagu’s father was a keen early motoring enthusiast and his personal vehicles started out the collection. Starting with the five original cars in the 1950’s the museum has expanded out to hundreds...

1914 Rolls Royce 40/50 Continental ‘Alpine Eagle’ 2

1914 Rolls Royce 40/50 Continental ‘Alpine Eagle’

The Alpine Eagle is a variant of the infamous 40/50 ‘Silver Ghost’.   It was actually referred to by Rolls Royce as the Continental model.  However, the Continental was a replica of the cars entered in the 1913 Austrian Alpine Trial. During the 1912 Trial, the three speed gearbox had proven insufficient.   Therefore, four cars were prepared for the 1913 season with four speed gearboxes. ...

British Motor Museum – Jaguar Heritage Collection 2

British Motor Museum – Jaguar Heritage Collection

The Jaguar Heritage Collection was displayed near the historic Jaguar Factory at Browns Lane until that site was redeveloped in 2012.   The collection is now split across a few museums, but the bulk of it can be found at the British Motor Museum. During a recent visit to the UK, I was able to tour the British Motor Museum.   The Jaguar Heritage Collection is...

2017 Seat Ibiza 1.0 Review 1

2017 Seat Ibiza 1.0 Review

If car companies are looking for reasons why young people yearn for self driving cars, they need not look any further than the Seat Ibiza.   I rented the Seat Ibiza for the weekend, and my conclusion was that I needed to write this review immediately.   This is an important fact as once another 24 hours have elapsed, I doubt I will remember much about...

Unfortunately, Facebook is killing car forums 0

Unfortunately, Facebook is killing car forums

The online communities for collector cars are now on their third iteration.   They started mostly as email lists, moved to forums and are increasingly moving to social media.   This is not a good thing. The car forums and lists built a real sense of community and there was a lot of effort that went into many postings.  Indeed, some individuals spent a lot of...

W111 battery mounting frame 2

W111 battery mounting frame

When I last replaced the battery in my W111, I was unable to fit the correct sized battery.   In the end I fitted one smaller than I would have liked, but it was the only one that fit into the mounting frame I had.    I knew the mounting frame was not original to the car as the previous owner purchased it on eBay. ...

Classic Jalopy