AnthonyG

A Mk3 Escort van! Good god, what a way to go. It makes a Vectra C look positively extravagant!

There is a MG Hector as well, again for the Indian market. The ‘Gloster’ would probably sell OK in darker corners of the South West. ‘Available from select dealers in the Forest of Dean only’

Someone put up some post office/national mail service vehicles earlier, so I thought I’d include this recent find: Vitesse Mercedes 170D, from an antique place in Weobley Herefordshire. For a antique place, quite affordable at £4! Made in Portugal so I am assuming 80s/early 90s. Interestingly (to me anyway!) the swastika in the Deutschmark Reichpost logo is actually an ‘X’ - looking on Wikipedia, reproduction of this symbol is illegal in several countries, not least Germany and Austria.

Having volunteered in a charity shop I agree. All Haynes manuals - £10-20 new so therefore ones for ‘classic cars’ must be worth at least £5, even if anyone who still owns a 1977 Toyota 1000 must have at least three HBOL by now. Back to the bagged up collection @flat4alfa purchased, I used to work with a manager who knew a bit about collectibles (this is pretty rare tbh) I think the only ones she (or I if I had found them) would have saved from bagging up would have been the Corgi Lotus, and perhaps the little British Gas van if it was mint. Are there any other collectibles in there?

50p in local charity shop. It was in a box of the usual modern Chinese rubbish, I felt since it had survived at least 40 years in such good nick it merited saving from further abuse from children! I remember Initial vans from the 1980s, there were everywhere in city centres. Initial were really big in laundry services (like the old roller towels in public conveniences).

The one I was on last November had two presenters, one was an ex driving instructor who was alright, the other was an ex-cop, presumably traffic, who was an arrogant nob who was obviously a bit pissed off he couldn’t just arrest anyone who mildly irked him anymore. He also made references to urban Bristol and street crime which made me suspect he would be stopping and searching black people all the time given half a chance. He spent most of the time trading insults with / telling off a mouthy retired HGV driver who appeared to have time travelled from 1976, with sexist jokes, eyerolling and smirking, he was such a throwback in his fake leather jacket and Mexican bandit ‘tache. I guess they both would have agreed on the premise of a young black male equals a likely criminal though.

Surely sticking an electric motor in a 1960 Mini will devalue the hell out of it anyway? It’s not like petrol is going to be unavailable in 2030 or something. Instead of scrapping it, he could put an A series back in it, Q plate it with an IVA, and flog it to a buyer in the USA or Japan where they won’t give a fuck about its original registration. I think the EU are taking the view that an electric converted ‘historic’ vehicle isn’t an historic vehicle anymore, in terms of perks like free tax, roadworthiness test exemptions etc and it sounds like the U.K. is doing the same. Personally I don’t have a problem with that.

That Triumph 2000 estate is gorgeous. I’d much rather have it than any of those electric moderns.

Compare the elegance of the vehicle with the ‘not even one shit given’ attitude of the driver!

Nope - Doctor Retro’s was an early K series Rover one, on a J plate I think.

It’s disturbing how much I do look like a French cabbie in that pic. Only needs one of those horrible cigarettes for the full effect. Gitanes - yuck…

Chain restaurants are mostly owned now by private equity/vulture funds stripping the last bits of cash out of them before dumping it onto another vulture fund lower down the pecking order, or occasionally someone foolish with far more ambition than talent or business acumen (like the ‘race car driver’/yacht enthusiast who ended up with BHS for a £1). Companies that that must be dire to work for and even worse places to stay in or eat at.

Interesting. I did get the feeling that Nissan is on a bit of a death spiral in the States from the odd US website article I read, I guess their cars are not that different to a Hyundai/Kia and their SUVs are similarly very generic and ‘meh’. And the only non-US brand to really get anywhere with pick-up trucks is Toyota.

Maximas were popular in the States, not quite as much as Accords and Camrys, but certainly a high seller for Nissan when Americans still bought sedans in volumes of hundreds of thousands annually. I actually didn’t know they’d sold this second generation one over here! On a sales par with the Honda Legend of the same era I expect.

Road and Track road test, April 1961. They like it a lot - ‘The net result is a car which is almost impossible to criticise’ Quick, terrible pics but you should be able to read the text. I can bring the magazine next time if you want to scan properly (and I’ll have a look if I have any other US road tests).