Vintage Car Thread - Discussion and Parts Requests

[Stearmen]

Hard to believe the prices these days! I can remember when every one of those cars could have been bought for $500, or less, in 1970s currency, about 300 Pound Sterling, with a couple of Bob's left over!

 

[GHT]

Have you got 20 minutes? This film is about the MG car factory circa 1931. The cars, the fashions, the hairstyles and the simple forgotten etiquette, pure nostalgia:

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^Enjoyable 20 minutes - and your comments are spot on. Thank you for posting this.

 

[Rich5ltr]

OK chaps, I've got a few classic cars but this is a current favourite of mine. It's a 1933 Lagonda 16/80 Special Six Tourer (to give it its full name) - that's 16hp and 80mph. Not that I'll be doing 80mph in a car that 82 years old! She was build in Staines, England just some 10 miles from where I live (close to London, Heathrow airport now). Great fun to drive with the accelerator pedal in the centre of the clutch and brake pedals and a crash box with the lever by one's right thigh.

 

[willyto]

That's a stunning car!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Wonderful.

 

[Rich5ltr]

Thanks chaps, on the hunt for a decent tweed jacket to go with it now! ;-)

 

[Rich5ltr]

Another one of my cars, this one's a 1959 Aston Martin DB Mk III. Kind of the last of the 40s/50s Astons while the DB4 was the start of the 60s cars everyone knows. Handbuilt by men in brown workshop coats in Feltham, England. I kind of think of it as a pair of handmade English shoes and the later DB4/5/6s as the Italian leather shoes with their Superleggera construction technique. She's away at the specialists at the moment having some engine work done. Looking forward to getting her back for the summer. Out of interest do many of you classic car owners dress accordingly?

 

[GHT]

Thanks chaps, on the hunt for a decent tweed jacket to go with it now! ;-)

Keep looking regularly at Tweedman's Vintage. They move a fair bit of tweed, that's why you need to keep looking. Nothing like looking the part, although you will have a hard job upstaging The Lagonda.
At classic shows, we get as much attention in our period attire, as our old MG. When the sun shines we take along our period picnic folding table & chairs, together with the vintage picnic set. It causes much amusement.

 

[GHT]

Out of interest do many of you classic car owners dress accordingly?

Is there any other way?

 

[Rich5ltr]

Love the MG, is it a Y-Type? Thanks for posting that video of Abingdon, most interesting...

 

[GHT]

It certainly is, a YB. The Packard was a lifelong fantasy but the reality was so different, it now has a new custodian. The YB was a saloon version of the TD sports car. The 1500cc engine was detuned to 1250cc and it lost one of it's carburettors, but everything else is the same. That's why it's so rare, in the early years, as in ten years after production, the model was unloved and undesirable. They became a donor car for the TD. When new, however, the car was very cleverly marketed. Aimed at the 30 something, who was by now married with a couple of kids, but in his head was still 18. Now he could roar around in an MG with his family and fulfil his sports car fantasy.
That marketing ploy is still used today. The last company that I worked for issued me with a VW Passat. When it's service was due, I asked the service manager if there was a car that I could borrow for the day. "Take my Audi," he said, helpfully. That evening when returning his Audi and collecting my Passat, I commented to him that his car was the same as mine. "I know," he replied, "you see those four circles on the grille? They cost a grand a piece." He was right, the Audi was four thousand dearer than the VW. They were selling an image.

 

[Rich5ltr]

I was heavily into MGs as a young lad. My first var, the one I learned to drive in and passed my test in, was an MG ZA Magnette. Funny story about that - I was delivering some stuff to a posh restaurant in London and double parked it outside in their car park. Sod’s law was that someone wanted to leave and the restaurant manager announced, in a loud voice, “Would the owner of the blue Jaguar outside please move it as they are blocking someone in.” Of course as a young lad I thoroughly enjoyed turning round and saying in front of all the diners, “Oh that’s mine.”

After a year or so I swapped it for an MGA 1600, only two seats so I only had room for a girlfriend and no way could I give lifts everywhere to mates. I joined the MGCC and one thing led to another and soon I found I had another MGA and that became a club racer. An MGA Twin Can followed and when I finally got married a dog and a baby arrived so I got an MGC GT. It was a different world then with the carry cot wedged on the back seat and the Red Setter in the hatchback. Now I’m a grandfather and my son’s wife needs a massive estate car to transport herself and the baby with all the accoutrements required these days!

I got offered a TD by a friend in exchange for one of my MGAs but resisted. I always hankered after the slightly more modern looking TF. Incidentally, the TD never had a 1,500 engine it was always the 1,250cc XPAG unit. It was the later TF 1500 that had the bigger engine – Smashing cars… Happy days.

 

[GHT]

I got offered a TD by a friend in exchange for one of my MGAs but resisted. I always hankered after the slightly more modern looking TF. Incidentally, the TD never had a 1,500 engine it was always the 1,250cc XPAG unit. It was the later TF 1500 that had the bigger engine – Smashing cars… Happy days.

You are right about the xpag, what I meant, of course, was the upgraded power output of the TD because of it's twin carbs. Delighted that you are an MG fan, but that Lagonda is a far cry from Abingdon's finest. We must meet up at this year's Revival. Last year I was lucky enough to catch sight of one of MG's finest, and most rare car the WA, it was parked in the grounds of The Goodwood Hotel. It was this one.

 

[GHT]

There was a wonderful program on TV last night about Richard Biddulph, the owner of Vintage & Prestige Cars. The cars were really top dollar, but Richard was even better. This, fedora wearing, superbly dressed, assertive salesman made wonderful television. The video is just a small clip to give you a flavour. Enjoy.

 

[GHT]

Looks like The Clampett's Car.

 

[Stearmen]

Buchmesse Leipzig, last week. Sorry, I forgot the type:

Wood-carburator.

I think it is a Citroen AC4 Truck.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Wood-carburator suggests it has been out of commission since 1945. For those who question the burning of wood, the compression on those old trucks was so low you could burn leaves (old joke).

 

[Big Man]

There was a vintage J 611 steam engine pulling an excursion train made up of vintage passenger cars that came by where I live today. I was lucky enough to get a couple good photos of my old ’48 Plymouth and the train as it passed through Nebo.

As I was sitting beside the railroad tracks, waiting for the train to pass, my thoughts turned to many years ago when I was a boy and used to come to about this exact same spot with my aunt and wait to see the trains go by. My aunt Hazel would tell me how she and her friends used to put pins on the tracks in the shape of an "X" and let the train run over them. That would mash the pins together and make a pair of play scissors for their dolls. This would have been sometime between1913 and 1917.

As we sat there beside the railroad tracks talking, we would wait for the mail train to come by and pick up the mail. The Post Master, Bob Ballew, would climb a tall post and hang the mail sack on a big hook. As the train came speeding by, a hook on the mail car would grab the sack off the post. That sure was a sight to see, and one I'll remember for the rest of my life.

I also remember the passenger trains that came by on a regular basis. We would sit by the tracks and wave at the people as the train passed. Sometimes the passengers would wave back and sometimes they wouldn't, but always the porters and conductors would wave at me.

When my Grandmother and Grandfather Brown first moved to Nebo in 1906, they lived in a house beside the railroad tracks not too far up from where the old Nebo Depot used to be. I remember my grandmother telling me that some of the "rougher sort" of men in Nebo used to get drunk and shoot at the "colored car" as it passed. She always followed up that story by saying it was too bad the train didn't run over those men. I think about that story and about how far we had come in my lifetime until just recently, when bigotry, racism, and hatred began rearing its ugly head once again. When will we ever learn to get along and treat each other with respect and dignity? Life is too short to hate and be cruel.

It's funny the things you will think about when sitting by the railroad tracks ...

 

[GHT]

That's a great story Big Man, a wonderful reminisce and brilliant photos too. As a small boy, I too would put things on the track, like a coin. The train crushed it so much that it took some effort to prise it off the track, after the train had gone by.
Today, at the lovely pub/restaurant, where my wife and I enjoy a Sunday lunch occasionally, we unwittingly gatecrashed a classic car event. Some fine old motors to see. Here's one of America's finest, an ex-pat that's made it's home on our shores.

There were so many cars, some, like this one, I didn't recognise, I should have made notes. It might be a Triumph Mayflower: