worldofceri

As you can obseve, my daughter is now too old for a perambulator, and I am fortunately too young to require an invalid carriage. But we were heartened to find that those fiendish horseless carriages would not irk us whilst traversing this narrow thoroughfare in Sheringham, Norfolk.

Could the ‘Hayburner’ business model work? Needs a lot of paying advertisers though presumably.

Haha! I have many times. I guess I always assumed it was full-size, but it turns out it’s only really suitable for persons up to about 5’ tall. As my lad’s 14 and catching me up fast, I guess I should get him a new one.

Sunrise pic to complement the earlier evening shot. Spent a very pleasant night overlooking a brooding North Sea, apart from being a bit too close to the main carriageway and accidentally taking a child’s sleeping bag.

Heh. My Beetle used to have ‘Tigar’ tyres. Never seen them before or since…

That Volvo F88 possibly for sale soon:

Harrowing for me too, since if there's one thing that stresses me out more than having to do a thing, it's having to do a thing twice. Thanks for the heads up. Should be fixed now.

September 2018. Another Monday morning and this time, a run down to St Albans for this behemoth of a Volvo. Recently purchased, it had developed some malady that required it to be returned under warranty, to the dealer. In Preston. A full day’s work there, but no dramas as it did, at least, run and drive. The following day was a ride around the Birmingham, area to relocate this Beetle. Something of a family heirloom as I recall, the chap was moving it from a late relative’s house closer to home, with the intention of putting it back on the road. Sadly, at the time of writing the DVLA still records it as untaxed since 1990. On the Friday I had a run down to Harefield to see the Lee, the machinery dealer whose acquaintance I’d made over the course of a couple of previous jobs. He had a towable winching machine that he’d sold to a company in South Wales. Although the route was a bit ‘out of my way’, it was actually quite handy that I’d be finishing up in that neck of the woods at the end of the week. My friend ‘Lightning’ and I had entered the HERO Challenge rally in her Austin Healey Sprite. As she lives near Neath it meant I was perfectly located for me to pick the car up to take to the rally base near Bicester. I remissively failed to take a photo of the winching machine in transit. A surprisingly substantial bit of kit, I do recall needing to engage low range to reverse up the buyer’s drive. Delivery achieved, I nipped into Neath to pick up ‘Suzy’ Sprite and by early evening was parked up somewhere in a field near Bicester. The following morning dawned full of promise but sadly, our dreams or classic rallying glory were dashed by lunchtime. A shattered clutch was our downfall. Regular readers may recall that I had transported the Sprite to have the clutch replaced only a few weeks prior. Make of that what you will. Fortunate really that I’d taken the Sprite up on the trailer. Ordinarily Lightning would have driven her to the event. The experts from Maulden Garage obligingly rolled around on the floor for a bit while I photographed their backsides, but declined to change the clutch at the side of the road. So I dropped the car to them first thing on Monday for further transmission fettling.

The chronology of this thread is all over the place.

September 2018. First thing Monday morning was a trip down to Reading for a broken mk5 Golf. I forget the cause of the breakdown, but the owner had been recovered to a nearby garage. The owner’s father – sounded like he would be footing the bill – wanted it taking to his preferred local garage to him, up in Warrington. As is often the case in these types of situation, the despatching garage were not very helpful, hence the extreme-jacknife attitude required for single-handed loading. Couple of days later I headed up to Lincolnshire to collect this old Shogun. Customer was a guy in Birmingham seemingly with a penchant for these things. The old Fens back roads have a distinct character. Flat and straight with visibility for miles encourage you to press on, but then all of a sudden a series of alarming undulations threaten to pitch you into the adjacent dyke. Leaving the Mitsubishi in Brum, I nipped down to Fenny Compton in Warwickshire to pick up this ratty Porsche 914. Destination was just a short drive to the unit of a guy I’ve known for many years who specialises in classic restorations, mainly of air-cooled VWs. The following day I had a run out to near Kidderminster to pick up this Alfa Spider. Collection address was a proper millionaire’s mansion. I could drive right up to the house and swing the trailer round on the drive no bother, it was that massive. Destination was the Warwickshire Event Centre where Classic Car Auctions used to have regular sales. The guy with the Range Rover and covered trailer was a London based chauffeur doing a bit of car transport on the side.

According to the article Mr Longbridge posted, it is. Crane is powered by a donkey engine.

And that article is nearly a decade old. How many newer trucks have come and gone in that time alone? Incredible.

I also spotted this legend in the game this week! Just outside of Warwick on Thursday.

Interesting* fact (that may be incorrect): The mk2 Renault 5 had two types of dashboard, but the more basic type (as fitted to this van) was never converted to rhd, so all UK Extras and base-spec R5s had a marginally posher dashboard than their continental counterparts.

Indeed, it’s no accident that the current London taxi (LEVC TX) basically looks like a modern pastiche of one of these.