For those interested in old cars.

[Fat Controller]

50 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Here you go,a Merçedes coupé from the days before nasty plastic bling was added and before driving one made you look like a drug dealers girlfriend....

 

The sort of car you could imagine being used by a 'rum runner' instead.....

[MJI]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

Here you go,a Merçedes coupé from the days before nasty plastic bling was added and before driving one made you look like a drug dealers girlfriend....

 

 

 

I don't like the modern ones but that is nice

[MrWolf]

19 minutes ago, MJI said:

 

 

I don't like the modern ones but that is nice

 

Maybe I'm too much of an aesthete, but as the main part of a modern car's design is set in stone by certain parameters, the designers focus on overdesigning the little details such as lights, wheels and doorhandles. The result is a lot of tacky plastic that puts me in mind of things like false nails or looks like a nine year olds drawing of a sports car.

[MrWolf]

35 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The sort of car you could imagine being used by a 'rum runner' instead.....

 

Or the Gestapo. 

[johnlambert]

15 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Or the Gestapo. 

A few years too late for that, but I see what you mean.

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, johnlambert said:

A few years too late for that, but I see what you mean.

 

The later "Fintail" models were always the archetypal bad guys cars in all those cold war spy movies. I think that it probably is a holdover from the war that although they were always stylish, 50s and 60s Mercedes always looked a bit sinister.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by MrWolf
Grammar!

[johnlambert]

Nice to see the Riley RM series getting some love recently in this discussion.  I've put a few miles on a late RMA (not mine, sadly) and it was a car with bags of charm, you could understand why it was praised for its steering and general road behaviour.  The 1 1/2 litre engine did feel a bit under-powered and I'd love to see how the bigger-engined (and slightly longer) 2 1/2 litre model compares.  I know people say that the RMB etc. is heavier to drive but my experience of the RMA is that it required a lot of physical effort to steer, even when moving.

 

Another car that requires quite a lot of physical effort to drive is this Armstrong-Siddley 346 Sapphire.

I was lucky enough to drive this last weekend (one of the duties of being a volunteer at the British Motor Museum).

 

Some would consider it even more fortunate to drive this Austin Healey 3000, it certainly was a lovely car to use on a beautiful day.

 

Not driven, but spotted, this Lotus Elite was incredibly pretty and small.

 

Not as small, or as pretty this Morris Marina coupé was nevertheless a glorious period piece with it's gold, brown and orange colour scheme.  And three Marinas plus one Ital must represent a significant proportion of the surviving examples of a car that sold over a million units.

[MrWolf]

A friend of mine has a Marina MK1 saloon and a van, which probably accounts for the rest of the survivors. Although there is a red coupé around here too.

[New Haven Neil]

Brianthesnail to be found elsewhere on this forum has a Marina estate which recently had a full shell overhaul and is slowly being re-assembled, plus one or two spares cars - he may finish it one day but he's young and has time!

[MrWolf]

He's probably still welding the firewall around the steering rack mounts and above the heater.

 

So much fun!

 

Seriously though, if he's stuck for any spares, my friend has broken up a few Marinas and Itals that were too far gone.

[Northmoor]

I thought the Marina/Ital club was a decent size; while unloved they are pretty rugged (translation = crude and simple) and so many interior parts are BL parts bin there must be fewer hard-to-find bits than for many vehicles of the same era.  Our family had Maxis, not Marinas, but I'd happily have a Marina van as a runabout.

Is XHK 875L the "hot" one that was featured in one of the mags a couple of months ago?

[MrWolf]

I think that a lot of those sort of cars, Marinas, Avengers, Vivas, Hunters, Toledos etc were dumped en masse in the 80s and early 90s because the secondhand car buying public had become obsessed with hatchbacks. The Ford Escort survived in greater numbers, despite being an equally crude rustbucket due to it's boy racer appeal. Current values reflect this, due to a lot of fifty something's with money getting all rose tinted and wanting a Mexico "like when I was 17", even though the reality was often a hearing aid beige 1.1 Popular with a Weber carburetors sticker in the back window.

I'd take a car I can repair over one I can recycle anyday. Far more green in the long run.

[Stubby47]

We went to Tacla Taid on Anglesey last week.

https://angleseytransportmuseum.co.uk/

 

Lots of old tractors, motorbikes and cars.

 

 

 

[alastairq]

Nice looking Zody up front [my favourite Zody Zephs]

[alastairq]

2 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Another car that requires quite a lot of physical effort to drive is this Armstrong-Siddley 346 Sapphire.

 Ahh, the Siddeley sapphire, a nice car for a biiig family.  I was fostered to a family in the early 60's/late 50's, who had a dark green Sapphire....three of their late teenage kids, and me as a 9 year old....plenty of room inside, plus luggage.

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Nice to see the Riley RM series getting some love recently in this discussion.  I've put a few miles on a late RMA (not mine, sadly) and it was a car with bags of charm, you could understand why it was praised for its steering and general road behaviour.  The 1 1/2 litre engine did feel a bit under-powered and I'd love to see how the bigger-engined (and slightly longer) 2 1/2 litre model compares.  I know people say that the RMB etc. is heavier to drive but my experience of the RMA is that it required a lot of physical effort to steer, even when moving.

 

Some would consider it even more fortunate to drive this Austin Healey 3000, it certainly was a lovely car to use on a beautiful day.

Another car in the same category in the picture above, the Jowett Javelin. Like the Riley quite innovative for its day.

[Dunsignalling]

8 hours ago, alastairq said:

Nice looking Zody up front [my favourite Zody Zephs]

Mine too, Ford having moved on from the 3-speed boxes and vaccy wipers that spoiled earlier models for me. I like the Westminster as pictured to its left, too

 

John

Edited October 3, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[PhilJ W]

Old Rolls Royce converted to camera car by Pinewood studios.

[MrWolf]

I bet Rolls Royce were as sniffy about that as they were about the breakdown trucks and lorries.

[alastairq]

Back in the 1980's and 90's, I lived next door to an old retired mechanic [whose 'hobby' was buying & re-building old written-off Fiestas]....who used to work for  a Bridlington garage funeral directors local hire car company.  [This being during and after WW2, & onwards.} 

[Boddy's, I think??]

Companies like this abounded at the time, and had fingers in many 'transport' pies.

 

Anyway, he was a grand old fella who liked to yarn over a cup o tea in his workshop....I did a lot of 'heavy' lifting for him, on demand,  he was in his 80's......

He told me how the firm he worked for bought up a lot of old pre-WW2 Rolls Royces for conversion into hearses or funeral/private hire limos.

Apparently, around that time, a lot of RR owners couldn't afford to run their cars, or get spares, their values becoming almost negligible.

SO impecunious operators would snap them up  for peanuts.

This was demonstrated in the old TV drama, ''Darling Buds of May?

Anyway, the main problem with them seemed to be the engines, and getting spares for them [plus the cost of the spares?]

But old Sid's answer was to buy up crate loads of ex govt. WW2 Ford flathead V8 engines, which came with their gearboxes attached.

These could also be bought for peanuts by the dozen, at the time. [Everything in WW2 seemed to be powered by them!]

However, pulling the old RR engines meant difficulties simply attaching the Ford engines to the RR gearboxes...so Sid's idea was to insert the Ford flathead V 8 into the RR chassis complete with Ford 3 speed gearboxes, then attach the Ford gearbox output to the RR gearbox input!

Problem solved.....for a hearse, no issues with drivng!

Apparently some were also converted into what we would nowadays call, minibuses, for school kids...

The pre-war Rolls Royces became chuck-away things once worn out.

[PhilJ W]

12 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Old Rolls Royce converted to camera car by Pinewood studios.

An interesting vehicle what with the half cab. I wonder what the bar going from the scuttle to the front dumb irons is for, there appears to be a duplicate on the other side. A camera mount perhaps?

[PhilJ W]

Here is a picture of it in action.

[PhilJ W]

More pics of it in action.

Apparently it was used on some of the early Bond films. Its still around with a replica Brewster body. 

[PhilJ W]

21 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Old Rolls Royce converted to camera car by Pinewood studios.

 

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Here is a picture of it in action.

I would like to build a model of it if I could find a decent pic of the rear body.

[MrWolf]

It would certainly be an interesting project, @PhilJ W there's plenty of model Rolls Royce cars out there which would make a good base. I don't know enough about them to know exactly what model it is, it's post 1932 though with the vertical slats in the grille.