Spottedlaurel

No Proton excitement here, a more humble selection of purchases by me today: Boxed Matchbox from a different branch of Poundstretcher. They also had a fair few of the Mercedes and HW Delta Integrale. Greenlight Datsun was from a little collectables toy shop I hadn't visited before. They also had a '66 Patrol plus modern Nissan Z - the latter isn't of as much interest to me, but I might find time to go back for the Patrol and have a better look to see what else they had.

As well as the aforementioned Viper from Aldi I got this Delta in my local Poundstretcher today - they had more of them if anyone is desperate. They seemed to have some new (old) Matchbox stuff in too, including black Mercedes TE and red MR2s with lights up or down (didn't look closely enough to see if they had both LHD and RHD variants).

HWs now at £1.49 in Aldi. Didn't look like they'd restocked in the branch I visited so I just got the red Viper.

I'll PM you.

Genuine barn find found: It's getting in the way in a building owned by a client. Saw it this morning, vaguely expressed interest and they asked did I want it?! They've threatened the lad who it belongs to that it's going into a skip if he doesn't get something done with it. Turns out I took photos when it was still on the road 10 years ago. It failed an MoT in 2015 and wasn't repaired: As a 957cc Popular I think it's as low-spec a Mk2 as it's possible to get, and not really something I'm interested in myself. But, it's the sort of thing I can imagine someone bringing along to an ECR meet, or maybe even FOTU. @trigger do you know of anyone?

It's clearly having the desired effect, a Triumph Herald owning friend I saw last night was talking about having bought several tickets.

Good luck! It's gradually improving on mine, and it's something that seems to be less evident once it's really, properly warmed-up.

I have a spare set of the all-important Mk1 15" alloy wheels if anyone wants to take it on. My goodness, the days of buying knackered £25 Laurel C32s that could be got back on the road seem to be long gone. TBH, even if that particular one was £25 I still wouldn't buy it, because reasons.

Discovered the sensible daily RX had a flat tyre this morning. Mercifully it was one of the pair that I was looking to replace soon, it's just brought it forwards a little earlier than planned. At 7.30am and needing to do the long commute as I was also taking Mrs SL to work I looked on the driveway for the next available car, and it ended up being the Carina E as it was in front of her Auris. LS400 is right at the back with a flat battery (I foolishly forgot to disconnect it the other week) and it's too horrible to use the Laurel for work journeys at the moment. It did the job perfectly, of course. I'd also used it for the 100+ miles round trip to head office the other week, and it took four of us down to banger racing at Ipswich on Saturday night, so I'm starting to put a few miles on it. Switching the auto 'box to 'Power' mode seems to have made it much more responsive, it's never going to be super-quick but it certainly goes well enough and it's doing around 31-32mpg. I'm wondering if what I thought was a misfire is a slight issue with the 'box in overdrive/lockup - it has a slightly 'shunty' feel which isn't evident in the lower ratios. Much better than it was however, so maybe it just wants regular use and perhaps some fresh ATF? Will definitely be a handy back-up car over winter when I don't want to use the Laurel and the LS400's MoT expires. It was in good company on one of its recent trips to the garage. We managed 100% Toyota fleet use today. Son was in his Yaris, Miss SL drove the Avensis SR and her BF has got his MR2 back on the road after some bodywork and a fresh MoT.

That ad! It contains many exclamation marks! I lost my original Super Seven when throwing it around in the garden.

Nice. Yes, it appears to be a recolour of the Moving Parts version, same reference numbers on the base (apart from the white code, which might signify the colours?). I have a light blue with gold graphics version. What's rather cool about it in the Japanese issue packaging is that it appears to be reminiscent of the original Japanese issue Superfast. An example here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155597505567 They've even replicated the base pretty closely:

Roving correspondent @bunglebus kindly procured these for me: Still haven't managed to get myself a red Alfa yet, and white ones were missing from the Aldis I recently visited (ditto the Datsun estate).

1980s issue for their range of plastic kits?

We took a family trip out in Miss SL's Avensis SR last night to record this: Formerly of @BorniteIdentity who did most of the legwork in getting it this far. It gets used for work every day, trying to get it to 300k.

I've been seeing that Bluebird on Flickr and various eBay ad's for more than 10 years now.

Similar to the one in the Moving Parts range? I picked a gold one up in France this summer.

Maybe this kit? Can't immediately think of the book, the best I found were by Mat Irvine (who worked for the BBC and used to occasionally appear on TV, stuff like Saturday Superstore). There was a small paperback, then an enlarged hardback some years later.

That's wonderful! Even has the Enkei wheels like I found for mine.

I don't bother showing too many of my kit purchases on here, but I got a nice batch last week: This one from @inconsistant on here. With what has been done to it so far I might continue with as a police cruiser, I have a couple of Joker Goon Car versions of the same kit to build in other ways. Monogram did a series of these quite basic but nicely proportioned kits, I've done several others in the range. Happily I can build this one without the front spoiler. Very pleased to get this one off eBay as BIN purchase. Early Fujimi release that I'm unaware of having been reissued, and it's about as close as I'll get to being able to replicate the much-loved 160J SSS I had back in the '90s: One of the few kits that I've brought into the house and not stored out in the garage.

Kallista seen back in 2014 (on Mrs SL's birthday, it would appear): This one was a 2.8.

Yes please, thanks! May be several weeks before I can visit a Smyths. Saw the HW Nissan 5-pack set in Tesco the other day for £8.80 Clubcard price, but I already have one of them. Still no sign of HWs in my local Aldi.

From my John Powell photo collection: Cheltenham, July 1979.

There was a Deville on one of the Ipswich-Felixstowe runs some years ago: With the wide range of cars taking part it was a good opportunity to compare the doors with Maxi, Landcrab and Land-lobster.

Altezza is the one I'll be looking out for. Is the Toyota a reissue of the bright green one from the Mountain Drifters range that I picked up recently? Anglia looks great, just like a National Hot Rod.

Hmmm, could well be. I'm struggling to find it around here....