| 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 we saw the farce of thousands of people wanting to go and see the cars but being held up due to some kind of security ‘all clear’. Spectators were being yelled at and I can’t imagine it was […] 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. The museum offers volunteer tours of the reserve collection twice per day. Despite many people at the museum during my visit, I was the only one to avail myself of the tour. I ended up with […] 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 the M40. One of the first cars you see is an 1897 Daimler, the oldest UK built example. It was used extensively in its heyday and is still in working condition. You can see its flame […] 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 of cars, representing all parts of British Motoring history. Today the museum is run by a separate trust. The museum is probably best known for its racing cars and expensive collection of Edwardian vehicles. As well […] 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. Power was increased to 75hp (from 60) through increased compression and and improved carburettor. The four cars were known as Alpine Eagles. The success of the Alpine Eagle allowed Rolls Royce to market the model to […] 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 housed in the same building as the overflow collection. The collection has a good representation of Jaguar vehicles from swallow sidecars to the current models. Key models include the SS1, SS100, the first and last E-Types […] 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 it. If I were to sum it up in one word, it would be ‘Dreary’. The Seat Ibiza has all the personality of a dishcloth. I’m sure the Seat is well made and well equipped for […] 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 time writing up great howto guides on various topics. Some of these car forum/email threads are now 10-15 years old, yet are still invaluable resources to the collector car community. At the end of the day, […] 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. When he purchased the car, the battery was held down with ocky straps. At the recent German car day, one of the other members suggested my mounting frame might be from a W113 SL, rather than the […] | |
