barrett

That's a great find at a boot sale. Even has the bumper thingy intact! If you ever want to move that one on I'd give it a loving home alongside the French Dinky & Norev versions I have

That Ritmo is absolutely brilliant, but what a shame the interior has had that non-original retrim in weird pleather. Surely that should be cloth (most models) or disgusting slippery vinyl for the absolute base model. Re-trimmed cars never look good. I reckon anyone who puts 'euro plates' on an old car can't be trusted on matters of taste, so it's not a surprise... but still, looked so good until I got to the inside pics.

Could be anything, really. Nothing really to go on apart from the front wheel, which looks 1940s or later but could easily not be original. sorry.

Quite a few cyclecars tried steer-from-the-rear, inspired by the legendary Bédélia

I love those little Tomicas. In another dimension I could see myself seriously collecting them, as the subject matter is just so great and they all seem really well detailed and faithful. I'm sure I have mentioned before but in my whole childhood of buying second-hand cars from jumble sales etc I only ever found one Tomica, which is the S60 Crown. It got a crappy repaint in black, and it's one of only a tiny handful of my childhood models I still have. It's the proper 70s casting, too, but I suspect I could still buy a brand new one as they seem to have rereleased loads of the old castings, like your Cedric. Lovely stuff.

Came here to post the exact same one-word reply but I'm glad I've dodged that bullet of looking like a total wanker, thx Wuvs

It was September 2021, which as far as I know was after the rules had changed. I remember being very surprised when I saw it had happened as I knew the rules had been changed to mean the car had to have an MoT. I suspect it just won't/can't be enforced, or else if the plate is valuable enough people will 'get' an MoT one way or another. Maybe you're the person to ask this question which nobody else seems to know the answer to: when did the VED exemption for historic cars first come in? the 'rolling' exemption was abolished in, I think, 1997, but it had obviously been in place for some years before that. Not an easy piece of information to find - any ideas?

It's perhaps not the clearest advert but I don't think they're trying to claim it's an actual TDF vehicle. The history of that car (previously owned by @wuvvum) is well-documented. I think it's just a poorly-worded advert rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead.

People say this, but I don't think it makes any difference in reality. We sold a car last year with a valuable plate on it and there was zero chance of it having an MoT without a full restoration, but the plate was taken off straight away and is now on retention. I'm not sure if somebody put a dodgy MoT on it or there is some other loophole in place.

Nicked from a current ebay listing. Proper job.

I'd happily pay £4 for that if it's still there next time you visit

Here's my latest dispatch from the mean streets of Sussex, starting with a ropey old camper A very cleam Mk2 Consul in central Brighton A Baja in Worthing and a grubby 205 a couple of streets away. These have really thinned out recently, although they're still one of the most numerous 80s/early 90s cars Back home, I have photographed one or maybe two coachbuilt Commer campers in Brighton before, but I think this is a different one The sort of vehicle I have zero affection for Popped over to Bexhill and Hastings yesterday very briefly. Was hoping to have more time to wander around looking for cars but I spent most of my time in a couple of record shops so only managed a handful of spots. Still not bad going for a couple of hours of mooching - I reckon this bit of Sussex probably has a higher concentration of tat that Brighton does these days, or even Worthing. This 'action shot' was the first thing I saw, sounded nice and parpy This was parked up just behind me when I took that last photo Very grotty MR2 looks to have been sitting for a long time End-of-life Vitesse was nice to see street-parked. There was a fwd 1300 nearby which must be connected, but I failed to get a shot My spot of the day was this. Don't recall ever actually seeing one of these before - when they were 'common' they would have been so anonymous I would have ignored them entirely, and now they're old, weird and rare enough to be of interest they've all disappeared This 242 was VERY clean and looked like a superb and sensible means of transportation My phone went into HDR mode for some reason, when I zoomed to get a shot of this without getting out of the car. Not sure what's going on with that registration. Very sorry Minor was excellent. Big hols in the rear wings and a fine coating of grime on every surface. Glorious Volvo was parked a few cars down, possibly connected And ending on a BUMMER, a boring Mercedes thingy. Did look very clean and I like the hubcaps/colour. Had that nice patterened biege cloth trim, too Still, 10 interesting things isn't bad going in such a short space of time. I must head over that way more often for more spottage.

Spot of the Year!!!

That's not a great example of an S-type (wires AND whitewalls???!) but yeah, they still do seem like a real bargain especially considering how strong Mk2 prices have remained. And when everyone says the S-type is a much better car it seems like a no-brainer really. I should probably do the ropey old 60s Jag thing before the petrol runs out.

Okay, I'll admit I have developed a problem with buying this shite. Latest arrivals. Mercury Fiat 124 Sport Coupé - I think this is serial number 312 but it's not marked. The '300' series was Mercury's early 1970s range which was cheaper, less detailed than its previous models. Alongside is the Politoys Export Fiat 124 Spider, number 555. Had to be done, because where else are you gonna find models of these cars? Neither are particularly detailed, the Politoys in particular is quite basic, but it does have an opening bonnet with engine detail and that very fragile windscreen. This is one of the less attractive colours offered, but beggers can't be choosers (when 'beggers' signifies 'UK-based collectors of rare Italian diecasts) Not much to go on underneath.... Still, two more I've wanted for a while. Just need to get the Pilen 124 (which is an 'AB' series car with the quad headlamps) and the Mercury 124 saloon and then I'll have the whole range, for some reason. Next up is a classic 'Why did they model that?' example. The Mercury No. 29 Alfa Romeo Canguro This was a one-off concept based on the TZ chassis, with a GRP body styled by Bertone. Pretty weird (although very sexy) subject matter, but Politoys also did one in 1:43 and in 1:66 'Penny' form. There was a Spanish Joal copy of the big Politoys, too. I don't (yet) have any of those to compare to this one, but watch this space. The Mercury is pretty nice, although typically a bit lightweight Rear window has had some damage and is a bit fogged. This was filthy when it arrived but I took it apart and washed all the bits and it now looks pretty snazzy again. Some opening bits, although the bonnet doesn't open very wide there is an engine just visible in there. Overall a pretty nice thing, although my edicated guess is that the Politoys will trounce it on accuracy/quality. Very worryingly, the bloke I got these from reckons he has multiple examples of every single Politoys and most Mebetoys and is now thinning out his collection, so will be sending me a full list of what is available. I can forsee this getting very expensive very quickly.

What, this one?!

That's almost certainly the only Xantia in the USA. It would have cost thousands to ship it over. It's also a really interesting colour (I have NEVER seen that colour before) and it's a very early 'sinker' with the wonderful tweedy interior. If you're a US-based Citroen pervert and you want one of these, It's a comparative bargain. It also looks in great condition to me, who cares about a few scuffs? Even in the UK that would be £2k+ and there's loads of Xantias here.

Slightly sad to see this in a yard. Used to be a local feature near me, on a big wide quiet road with free parking which was something of a magnet for camper vans as they could be left undisturbed for long periods. Some were live-in vans, others just campers belonging to Brightonians who needed somewhere to park them. Sadly some of the residents of this (very posh) street took offence to this and there was an organised, targeted attack of vandalism against them - mostly some pretty bad graffiti ('MOVE YOUR FUCKING VAN' in huge letters down the side of one). That Blitz actually got off quite lightly - I can only assume that 'SLF' stands for 'Surrenden Liberation Front' which should demonstrate that this was the work of upper-middle class older people undertaking an act of class war against people below their social standing rather than a bunch of local bored kids. Anyway, the council has now put in some totally bizarre parking regulations (presumably after much campaigning by residents) which means its still free to park there, except for a two-hour window in the middle of the day, when it's resident permit parking only. Which seems like a fantastically insidious way of 'moving on' live-in vans. All very depressing NIMBYism which seems to be prevalent in my supposedly liberal and accepting city.

I am probably really out of touch with 'modern classic' prices, but £11k for this non-running heap sounds absolutely ludicrous Seller says "Please genuine interest only, no dreamers with 8k because 8k won’t buy it." I'd have thought £8k was a rip-off tbh https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203951650568 Particularly when you can buy this minter in a much nicer colour for £10k... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294992282883 Still, I've learned today that Mk1 Sciroccos only have a single wiper, which is cool

Incredibly it's all new - this is one of the two CAs used in The Lady in the Van film in 2015, when it looked like this One chap managed to track down both vans after filming and decked them both out in this blue Dunlop livery. The other one was turned into a camper and he drove it to Budapest and back. Does look really authentic, I reckon he did a great job.

I know it's pointless repeating endlessly the complaints about old-school antiques places and their lack of pricing awareness, but surely five minutes on the internet would pay dividends in terms of actually flogging stuff, rather than have it clog up your window for years and years. Meh. Anyway, those 164s are pretty common and £20 would buy you a mint boxed one if you were so inclined. Unboxed for a bit less, ie: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/POLISTIL-S20-VOLVO-164E-1-25-SCALE-MODEL-CAR-MADE-IN-ITALY-/234553629438

4000 miles in the last year in the little 205, not bad considering I work from home a couple of days a week, and usually have two or three other cars in rotation. Anyway, after a bit of dicking about it's now got a clean-ish ticket and should be all good for another year. Will be treated to a service soon!

Nice haul. Is that a Guisval Citroen BX I can see in there? I could probably give that a home if it's not a keeper...

I don't have £350 to buy it, any way to transport it, anywhere to put it or even the most basic skills to fix a car, let alone recommission one that's been off the road for ages. Apart from that I'd be the perfect custodian. Just thought I'd flag up a rare car that's in danger of being broken up in case any other Shiter was tempted but hey ho, won't make that mistake in future *shrugs*

SOMEBODY SAVE THIS! Not that easy to tell but from the limited pics it doesn't look too bad, and the interior is great. 55k on the clock. Catford, £350. Really deserves a second chance. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/996480277676901/