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

On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:49:39 -0000, "Alistair Ross"
wrote:

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!!

Around 1963, I was a teenager hitch-hiking, and an elderly gent in an
old Aston Martin DB 2 gave me a lift. This elderly gent was so
doddery that he seemed to be barely in control of the car and I was
fearful for my life for the whole ride. But his enthusiasm and what
he told me about the car is probably what started me off.

The date being 28 Jan 2010, "Alistair Ross"
decided to write:

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!!

My elder brother (by 10 years) had a succession of interesting cars
including an MG P and Riley Imp and Sprite. When I was a pre-teenager
I would walk two or three miles down the road to meet him coming home
from work just for the ride.

--
Richard Porter
rich@ / www. richardporter.me.uk
"You can't have Windows without pains."

On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:49:39 -0000, "Alistair Ross"
wrote:

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

About 10 years ago I guess. My mate at the time had a MG Midget, and the
idea of having a car to tinker with along with free tax & cheap
insurance appealed to me.

I went out in search, found an Austin A40 Farina which made a perfect
first resto project, and have been hooked ever since. At one point I had
14 cars round here - now down to just the 10, 7 of which are Mini
variants!
--
Regards, Chris (Please take out my car to reply by plain text email)
---1967 Riley Elf----1972 Mini Clubman Estate----1971 Mini Clubman---
--1988 Mini Jet Black---1979 Ford Capri---1984 VW Type 25 camper V8--

On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:49:39 -0000, "Alistair Ross"
wrote:

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!!


I've grown up with them. Ever since I was a nipper, my Dad owned
Classic Daimlers, in fact he remembers having to fit curtains into the
back of his 1954 Daimler Conquest because my Mother needed to
breastfeed me in the back on the long journeys and she was NOT going
to have lorry drivers seeing her doing it. That was in 1979.

By the age of 4-5 I was to be found at weekends helping my Dad with
repairing/servicing the cars - he had some 6 Daimlers at that time,
including a one-off special developed for ITN as an outside camera
broadcast vehicle, it looked like a Morris Traveller only about twice
the size. If I was ever missing from home when not at school, my
parents would go 3 doors down the road to my Grandads house/yard,
where he ran a car repair business. Or more than likely ring them up
and tell me to come home. At the age of 10 I remember assisting my Dad
welding a car floor, and being required to run backwards and forwards
to the kitchen with milk bottles full of water to put out the carpet
which had caught fire.

By the age of 17 I was learning to drive, and on passing my test
couldnt wait to take one of the Conquests out for a drive. Owning a
rather decrepit Vauxhall Nova at that time meant that I had plenty of
opportunity. If ever the Nova wouldn't start I could simply jump intot
the Conquest knowing that it would never let me down. By that time I
was also responsible for much of the maintenance, my father being too
busy working in the City to do the jobs himself.

At 19 I defied my Dad and bought without his permission my first
classic car, a 1965 Series 2 Landrover, the start of my bug for
classic landrovers. A situation that has been repeated on two futher
occasions with the dicktat "No more landrovers" being ignored. Now he
doesnt bother saying no, just swears when I turn up with another car.
The landrover bug continues unabated to this day, 12 years later,
although any classic car will grab my attention, particularly if I see
it being used activly. I hate to see classics sitting in garages for
364 days of the year.

The current fleet between me and my father consists of a S2 Bentley, 3
Series2/3 landrovers, 2 Classic Range Rovers and 5 Vauxhall Senators.
The Daimlers having sadly been disposed of a few years ago. However
there are enough car parts around here to build at least a couple more
vehicles.

Alex

Alex wrote:

I've grown up with them. Ever since I was a nipper, my Dad owned
Classic Daimlers, in fact he remembers having to fit curtains into the
back of his 1954 Daimler Conquest because my Mother needed to
breastfeed me in the back on the long journeys and she was NOT going
to have lorry drivers seeing her doing it. That was in 1979.

Well, it is unusual to be breastfeeding a 24 year old.

In article ,
Alex wrote:
I hate to see classics sitting in garages for
364 days of the year.

Same here - mine lives outside and is in use near every day. And as such I
don't mind making some mods to make it more useable - provided they are
easily reversible if needed.
This approach gets me some criticism by a few of our club members. The
ones who go for the 'best in show' type awards. Who invariably brag about
having the fastest model in the range and how much better it is than the
others - yet drive it to meetings at 50 mph max. ;-)

--
*Too many clicks spoil the browse *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:38:01 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Alex wrote:
I hate to see classics sitting in garages for
364 days of the year.

Same here - mine lives outside and is in use near every day. And as such I
don't mind making some mods to make it more useable - provided they are
easily reversible if needed.
This approach gets me some criticism by a few of our club members. The
ones who go for the 'best in show' type awards. Who invariably brag about
having the fastest model in the range and how much better it is than the
others - yet drive it to meetings at 50 mph max. ;-)

Couldn't agree more. All mine live outside and those that are taxed &
tested are used as daily drivers. All the more pleasurable on the few
occasions they've won awards.
--
Regards, Chris (Please take out my car to reply by plain text email)
---1967 Riley Elf----1972 Mini Clubman Estate----1971 Mini Clubman---
--1988 Mini Jet Black---1979 Ford Capri---1984 VW Type 25 camper V8--

Alistair Ross wrote:
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


For me as a child in the 50s, but it wasn't classic cars in those days
(I don't think the term had been invented), it was vintage and PVT cars
that generated the interest. In the early 60s it was still those sort of
cars I lusted after but with a driving licence but little money I had to
be content with some very dubious machinery. The MOT test had been
introduced in 1960 but standards were very low in the early days.
Nevertheless scrap yards were filling up with large quantities of cars
over 10 years old, some of which didn't deserve to be there. Looking
back on that era I find it surprising that neither I nor any of my
friends made any attempt to rescue interesting cars we encountered in
scrap yards in the course of searching for spares for our much more
mundane transport.

"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