"Alistair Ross" wrote in message
...
While chatting at work (we are all petrol-heads) someone asked, "when did
the classic car bug bite". For me it was when invited to a relations
wedding (nightmare for a young lad) the best man took pity...Drove me back
to the reception in his 1932 MG J2......I was hooked, still am!!

ttfn...Alistair


In the 1950's I used to visit my uncle and aunt in Radnor Mews, Paddington.
They lived opposite a range of garages which maintained /sold mostly pre-war
Rolls's. There was, I remember, a Bugatti a few doors up:; I recall it
from my I-Spy book which said it could be recognised by the horseshoe
radiator and the exhaust note which was said to be like "calico tearing".
I've heard this expression used quite often since; I now know what calico
is, but I've never heard it tearing....

In about 1961 I had a drive in a 1934 MX4 Morgan. Perfect - water-cooled
Matchless engine of just under one litre, the owner told me with huge
amusement how he used to blow off Mini Coopers at traffic lights... That, I
think, made me think about cars in general - weight? driver aids?

I got involved in "classic" cars in the late sixties, early seventies; I
knew a couple of lads who ran a car business dealing in interesting cars,
and if they had anything which wasn't quite good enough to be sold on they
offered it to me (mug?) but it meant I had quite a lot of fun cars. This
included a Ferrari, Astons DB4 & 5, Facel Vega HK500, Jaguars ranging from
E-Type (three of them) to Mk 10, plus quite a lot of "lesser" cars - Healey
3000, MGB, Lotus Elan, Spridgets and I really can't remember what else.
Rule was you T-Cut and polished them and flogged them before anyting
expensive went bang.

I probably lost interest in cars around 1985 or so when I got company cars;
some of them were quite good (AlfaSuds 1300GTi, 1500GTi; Giulietta 1750,
Opel Manta GT/E ) but none of them really had the fun factor of some of the
earlier stuff.

I got invoved with bikes, rather later than I should have done, but included
a Moto Guzzi and a Ducati. Then came aeroplanes - Robin DR400 for work,
Victa S150 for fun.

Now well into retirement age, I use a 20-year old Pug for transport up to
the local village and a 1966 E-Type roadster for enjoyment.

Geoff MacK