Rugd1022

What colour did you paint it, 'mint sunrise' or 'misty buff'...?

Don't Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Sound Of The Suburbs - The Members

Some pictograms from today's little Cotswold adventure... St.Martin's Parish Church in Bladon is tucked well away from the main road, we parked the Alfa right up by the entrance gate as it's a very tight squeeze, lord knows how Churchill's funeral party coped back in January '65... In total contrast the cemetary at Prestbury on the outskirts of Cheltenham is very spacious and the founder of The Rolling Stones' resting place was easy to find... Peak-a-boo at Toddington on the way home...

Ex-Rugby Driver Ben 'Chopper' Hewitt enjoying a 'Stud Farm Balti'...

Afternnon all, Just back from a little jaunt around the Cotswolds taking in the graves of Sir Winston Churchill at Bladon and Brian Jones in Prestbury on the outskirts of Cheltenham, then home via the Glos & Warks line for a cuppa. They only died four years apart, but were the products of very different times in many ways. Neither were saints it must be said, but both of them were 'heroes' for some of us I'm sure. Hope all's well where you are, stay safe, or stay put... or both!

Green Onions - Booker T & The MGs

^^^ one of 1967's finest offerings that! Right, onwards... Baby You Can Drive My Car - 1965 Fabs...

Piccadilly, 1952...

Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues

Martin Robey in Nuneaton now owns all of the Interceptor tooling, presses and dies, I think they've invested in upgrading some of the equipment so that new panels and parts are a much better fit than they were back in the '60s and '70s. They also have the entire paperwork archive for these cars which could so easily have ended up in the skip!

Yes I do remember that - I wouldn't be surprised if the one I mentioned was valued properly at around £100k+, I'm not sure how 'early' it is but it's definitely a Series I 3.8 FHC. The beautiful dark blue Aston DB6 which I used to see parked opposite my middle school's gate as a nipper sold a few years ago for £125 in unmolested condition, it resurfaced again last year with a price tag of £375k after a quick tart up. Bonkers undoubtedly, but understandable too. It's easy to get bogged down by classic car values, real and perceived, the sad thing being that many of the 'high end' cars are tucked away in storage seeing little of the road, it can't go on for ever though and there's been a lot of chat recently about the market slowing down. Anyway, enough about values, time to put some Cooper S rubber on the tarmac

The Cooper S passed its MOT with no trouble this morning, musy start using it more really, it's only done about 400 miles since last year's test. Chatting with Nick the tester he mentioned a local old boy who popped in last week to have his his black Series 1 E-Type FHC MOT'ed, he's had it since it was new and never restored it, it's a little tatty around the edges apparently and as he's getting on he's thinking of selling it. He ''thinks it's only worth £15k or so'', he might be in for a surprise so long as some unscrupulous dealer doesn't try it on if he does decide to let it go. Makes me wonder just what else is lurking in garages in my manor, I know where most of them are round here as they get used quite often but I've never seen the E-Type above out and about anywhere.

On our patch we just have one recycling wheeliebin for plastic, cardboard and glass, presumably it gets seperated at the plant later on. I think a lot more folk would recycle their waste plastic / glass / cardboard if there was some consistancy across the country.

Don't know Russ, sorry.

7017 at Stratford TMD, 5th September 1974, photo c/o Stuart Williams...

What'cha Gonna Do About It - The Small Faces

Wild Is The Wind - David Bowie

Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground (I suppose it's inevitable that we end up repeating ourselves but if it keeps things moving...)

Afternoon all, usual greetings / sympathies all round to those in need of same, DIRFT has duly been shunted on the 'crack of dawn' shift (on a rest day no less as we're four men down this week), my relief turned up early so now the kettle is on at home, as is the trusty battery charger for the Mini's hopefully trouble free sojourn to the MOT emporium tomorrow morning. I count myself as extremely lucky to have a sympathetic tester very close by who still loves getting old cars up on his ramps, not to mention two Mini specialists and a very talented body and paintwork man all within a radius of twenty miles from chez 'ere abouts. Her indoors has just started work on a batch of psychedelic pendant / jewellery thingumybobs, using a mix of inks and enamels they wouldn't look out of place adorning a stray Beatle to two c.1967. I've asked her to do a purple one for me to hang off the rear view mirror in the Cooper S, at least it'll match the paintwork and fake fur floor rugs.... well, it makes a change from furry dice... Stay safe all.

Captured Sturmtiger… Correnne in Belgium, 1944... Humber Scout Cat in Falaise, France, August 1944... Trusty Matilda... AEC Matador and gun combo at the Libyan / Tunisian border in February 1943... Bernard Law Montgomery with his own personal Grant tank, 5th November 1942... And again in Triploi, Libya, 27th January 1943... Bergen, October 1944... A Quad in the quagmire in Volturno, Italy in October 1943... A quartet of Quads somewhere in North Africa...

The 404 looks very rakish and the paint combo on the VW bus really suits it, most I've seen round here favour the pastel shades. The 'golden brown' of the top half is similar to what I have in mind if I do a colour change on the green Jap Mini auto - talking of which I had a chat with the lads down at Southam Mini & Metro Centre today about having an engine and manual gearbox built for it, a more detailed chat will ensue in a few weeks time. While I was there they had a customer's Mk1 on the rolling road, the noise was 'rather good' as was the car itself, which had a spaceframe rear suspension arrangement in place of the conventional rear subframe. Also up on the ramps were a pair of early Mk1 Cooper Ss in tartan Red / Old English White and Almond Green / Old English White respectively. My fix for the day was thus much enjoyed!

PS : a very kind soul on Pistonheads has identified the 'Department S' car as a Fiat 2300S Coupe.

Summer - still very humid in our parish, just been down to Southam and Napton on a couple of errands with the car's windows down rather than use the air-con, much better with a proper breeze. And so to Napton, to photograph Ed 'Straker' Bishop's grave... born George Victor Bishop the Ed moniker must have been bestowed on him at some point... Sad to relate that just to the right of the grave is that of Ed's son Daniel, he was killed in a car crash at just twenty years old, life can be very cruel sometimes. Stay safe all.

Splendid news, it's always a relief... the Cooper S goes in for the test on Wednesday, everything looks ok for a pass (fingers and all eleven toes crossed just in case).