lesapandre

My advice re:security is to use physical means (no not threatening passers by)...but a big bit of thick chain. My Landcruiser here which has been nicked before is now chained to a lamp post via the chassis. You could even have an attachment welded on. Nothing will stop a concerted attempt but anything is useful. Those things that enclose the steering wheel are good too I believe.

Similar underfloor arrangement to the Mk1 Renault Master except the engine is upright. The master has a sloping front 'snout' though because the gearbox is set in front of the engine driving the front wheels.

Was this to get the filler neck off the rear panel and onto the vehicle wing to improve crash protection in a rear-end shunt - avoiding severing the filler neck and spilling fuel? This may have been to satisfy legislation or achieve commonality in fuel-tank types across the Chrysler range? The 'rear low' fuel filler is a common Rootes design feature - seen on the 1957 Audax Minxs for example.

Priceless. A comedy line-up...and the Two Ronnie's.

It's funny you know - the Marina and Ital estates had quite a different image to the cars. Work-a-day but quite classy in a utility way . The kind of car driven by the local vet or farmers wife etc. Sold quite well I recall. A very late Ital with the revised suspension set-up sounds interesting.

Ahem ahem... https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/morris/ital/ It was Harris Mann and some apprentices at Pressed Steel Fisher pretending to be Italian. Ital weren't pleased.

They are wrong about the number of Pacers left. A friend has one and there is another owned by a mechanic here in SE London. There may only be two on the road mind... I expect all the RHD are long gone - most now are US imported usually by service personnel.

That's the Westminster I think - the distance and dip in the road making it look lower and sporty - crisp bit of Farina styling though. Think what the history of BL might have been if they'd kept on with Italian styling.

Austin Westminster A99 peeping out from behind the Wolseley. Looks like the North Circular.

How did the 'sat nav' work - short-wave radio and detectors along the roadsides?

Hmmm...having looked at this again - I'm guessing the owners of the cars are attending an event at the Bolton Albert Halls - capacity 600. Given that some of the cars visible are introduced in late 1954 - I'm going to date this daytime spring/summer 1955 by the lack of deep shadows. So all we need is a copy of the local paper for 1955 and we could probably identify an event to attract the well-heeled. Well definitely maybe... There are three Armstrong Siddeley Sapphires in the car park - I'm guessing some kind of wool/cloth merchants or clothing manufacturers jamboree. There is also on the far left a very raffish Ford Consul or Zephyr convertible on whitewalls...somebody cut a real dash in that in the early '50's.

Studebaker/Porsche prototype. I'm not sure if it survives.

It's the same on the Mercedes W124 - however is that not a safety thing to avoid the inexperienced driver confusing the lever with something else? In the case of the W124 - with the foot-operated parking brake - the hand release on the driver's side is very similar.

That is absolutely absurd. I love it already. There is a video-review in the link. I'm assuming no European Type Approval. Just the sort of thing we should be importing under our new trade deal with India. We export missiles and import Bajajs. It's retailing at £2,796 in India - if the recession deepens we will all be driving one...

Isn't that "do you know of a house with an unusual amount of plod outside?" Now demolished of course. There is a whole additional thread here of infamous houses still standing. But in the nastiest cases they demolish the building and occasionally rename the street. Notice in the second picture the house number has disappeared - wonder if that was taken by a souvenir hunter...

Studebaker Land Cruiser 1950?

One of the P4 Rovers seems to have the David Bache restyled rear window which came out in October 1954...so some time after October 1954...

These pictures are great for a bit of sleuthing with a cup of tea. I think this is valet parking or at least people directed to a spot by the attendant. So... I think we are talking about a lot of quite well off people here attending a single posh event around 1954 - where everyone was arriving and leaving around the same time - some kind of performance or meeting? I say that because the cars are an unusual mix of expensive at the time recent vehicles - there is an Austin Princess A135, at least two Armstrong Siddeley Sapphires, various Rover P4's, Lea Francis, Daimler Conquest, Triumph Renown etc - more than you would normally find in the average early 50's street scene - there are less cheap cars parked there - you know clapped out vans, Austin 7's, Ford Pops and Morris cars etc normally seen. Many cars parked there are pretty new at the time and very pricey. The kind of cars driven by the comfortably well-off.

Yes it is quite a masterpiece. One of those books never forgotten once read. A piece of art which is a milestone in writing and something the writing of which changed its author in a significant way too - Capote was never the same afterwards. The film Capote is a useful resume of that: The film also contains a bravura performance by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. As a way into the book the film is a good start (also includes 50's cars). Underlines the senseless, random and grim nature of these type of crimes - very far away from Midsomer Murders. I'm not myself much of a crime book aficionado- but I think from time to time it's appropriate to look evil right in the eye. As was written elsewhere about Eichmann - 'the banality of evil'. Anyway I'm getting a bit far from old cars...

The Minor Michael Gregsten was driving when killed by 'the A6 murderer' James Hanratty - one of the last people in UK sentenced to death. There was a lot of media and other attention to the case at the time and later about a mis-trial - but the case was re-examined in 2002 and modern DNA techniques proved the conviction correct.

Car used by killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith when they murdered the whole Clutter family in Holcomb Kansas. They were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas. Truman Capote wrote the book 'In Cold Blood' about the crime. If you have not read it well worth it. Not your usual crime book by any means.

Today:

A wet day in France - the garage building is still there but is closed and converted to flats. All the signage went long ago alas.

Up to the early 1930's there was no legal requirement to have headlamps on vehicles (!) - I think after that a single headlamp was legal for a time (!).

Tractor is a 1946 onwards Ferguson. No idea what model - never seen that trim on the bonnet.