Eye-catching black and whites

[artdjones]

A few more Irish car assembly scenes.

[Skut]

[martc]

^^^ You know, assuming the roller snapped off due to hitting the car, I would have thought the car would have ended up a lot flatter than it is rather than offering enough structural resistance to wreak a steam roller.

[martc]

Moto Guzzi's wind tunnel at the factory in Mandello del Lario. The Guzzi factory is the oldest motorbike factory, in continuous production, in the world - 100 years next year. There's also a second larger Guzzi factory in Mandello as well as the factories for Lafranconi (silencers) and Gilardoni Vittorio (cylinder heads).

[spartacus]

1 hour ago, martc said:

^^^ You know, assuming the roller snapped off due to hitting the car, I would have thought the car would have ended up a lot flatter than it is rather than offering enough structural resistance to wreak a steam roller.

I thought that too, I would have thought the steam roller would have ploughed over/through the car, although, I guess if the pivot is cast and the car crashed into it at speed then that may cause it to snap?

[martc]

2 hours ago, spartacus said:

I thought that too, I would have thought the steam roller would have ploughed over/through the car, although, I guess if the pivot is cast and the car crashed into it at speed then that may cause it to snap?

I was reading a traction engine book a few months ago (reminisces, how to drive them, which were the best etc) and the steering pin/pivot above the roller is the weak link, prone to snapping. But it was only a real danger if you got your roller up against an insurmountable obstruction, or into a trench or similar and then applied maximum power. The engine would then 'ride over' the pivot snapping it. The pivot could also weaken due to numerous small knocks; but all the same I would have thought a 30's car would have just folded or would have been simply pushed to one side.

[artdjones]

[artdjones]

[Skut]

17 hours ago, martc said:

I was reading a traction engine book a few months ago (reminisces, how to drive them, which were the best etc) and the steering pin/pivot above the roller is the weak link, prone to snapping. But it was only a real danger if you got your roller up against an insurmountable obstruction, or into a trench or similar and then applied maximum power. The engine would then 'ride over' the pivot snapping it. The pivot could also weaken due to numerous small knocks; but all the same I would have thought a 30's car would have just folded or would have been simply pushed to one side.

I choose the picture as it reminded me of something I'd read in Apex : The Inside story of the Hillman Imp.     (During Imp prototype testing)

"One young man ran head on into a steam-roller and incredibly wrote it off. He had hit the front roller with such force the the stalk holding the roller was broken, resulting in a steam roller 'on it's knees'. That particular Imp driver was not hurt , though others were."

[JimH]

The lump of cast iron that the front fork swings from is usually known as the perch bracket. There were about as many designs as there were designers but almost all combined the twin qualities of being both truly massive and as fragile as a Premier League footballer's legs. When you look at the load they take (particularly on the heavier rollers) it is not surprising that could be broken if you were a bit cack handed with them.

[martc]

Moto Guzzi 500 v-twin, 1935. This was the famous v twin before the famous v-twin. It developed 51bhp - almost unheard of at the time. Stanley Woods won the Senior TT riding one, the first 'foreign' victory since 1911 - which was a 3.75hp  Indian ridden by Oliver Godfrey.

Here's our Oliver, looking a little sheepish.

[warch]

On 12/2/2020 at 12:08 PM, martc said:

 

Moto Guzzi Alce Militiare (bottom) and some sort of Gilera I think (top) and some spectacular hats.

 

The Italian Bersaglieri, wearers of the distinctive and dreaded* black cockerel feathers 

* especially if you happen to be a cockerel with black plumage

 

[artdjones]

[artdjones]

Chapel St., Dublin.McQuillan's tool shop is still there.

[JimH]

On 11/28/2020 at 2:58 PM, JeeExEll said:

 

This one is a blinder. When you see things like that you begin to understand why cars used to be ruinously expensive and didn't last very long. As the clueless are so fond of saying,  "they don't build them like they used to".

[bigstraight6]

42 minutes ago, JimH said:

This one is a blinder. When you see things like that you begin to understand why cars used to be ruinously expensive and didn't last very long. As the clueless are so fond of saying,  "they don't build them like they used to".

If only cars from this era had decent rust proofing as that’s what finished them off in about ten years, the vast majority still being good mechanically.  We now see the exact opposite with fairly recent cars with no corrosion ending up in scrap yards due to buggered complex mechanical issues..

[Andrew353w]

10 hours ago, artdjones said:

That's a Wartburg 311 on the left, just in front of the lady with the pram. Ireland was one of the markets the East German exporters explored before they launched their sales campaign in the U.K., so there might be a few still lurking in isolated garages somewhere on the "emerald isle"....

[artdjones]

3 minutes ago, Andrew353w said:

That's a Wartburg 311 on the left, just in front of the lady with the pram. Ireland was one of the markets the East German exporters explored before they launched their sales campaign in the U.K., so there might be a few still lurking in isolated garages somewhere on the "emerald isle"....

The now retired Council roadman who looked after the stretch my house is on told me he had once owned one. He said it had had a VW Beetle engine put into it by the next owner, but when it went out of use was allowed to sit in a field and disintegrate. There might be a few hanging around though.

[artdjones]

1 hour ago, bigstraight6 said:

If only cars from this era had decent rust proofing as that’s what finished them off in about ten years, the vast majority still being good mechanically.  We now see the exact opposite with fairly recent cars with no corrosion ending up in scrap yards due to buggered complex mechanical issues..

The plastic wheel arch liner is a great invention. It protects so much that used to be totally open to road dirt. Such as the inner/outer wing joints and the front end of the sills.

[Asimo]

Tewkesbury High St. 

Warners are now selling Citroens but on the edge of town rather than in the centre. What is the car?

 

Hotel parking. The Royal Hop Pole is now a Witherspoons and there are drinking tables where the cars are parked.

Rail access to the wharf.

 

 

[artdjones]

5 minutes ago, Asimo said:

Tewkesbury High St. 

Warners are now selling Citroens but on the edge of town rather than in the centre. What is the car?

 

Hotel parking. The Royal Hop Pole is now a Witherspoons and there are drinking tables where the cars are parked.

Rail access to the wharf.

 

 

Tewkesbury is a lovely town, or at least it was 40 years ago, which is the last time I was there. I think the car could be an Audax Minx convertible, with the usual brightwork on the sides removed.

[Six-cylinder]

7 minutes ago, Asimo said:

Tewkesbury High St. 

 What is the car?

 

I am thinking Hillman Minx convertible?

[lesapandre]

53 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I am thinking Hillman Minx convertible?

Yes it's one of the early Audax without the fins they added later on.  Designed by Loewy Studios.

Warners are still going strong...

https://www.warnerscars.co.uk/about-us/our-history/

[JimH]

On 12/3/2020 at 11:24 AM, Skut said:

I’n no Aveling expert (when I win the lottery I am going to buy every Aveling and gas axe the lot) but it looks like nothing has broken there. It always surprised me on the Fowler that next to nothing held the fork into the sliding block in the perch bracket (the block let it swing from side to side) and you mainly relied on gravity to keep things in place. Since things like rollers tended to be rather feeble things (and Aveling singles were more feeble than a new born fawn) there was insufficient torque to pick the front up.

It looks like in the crash the front has been picked up and the fork has become disengaged.

Either that or the owner of the roller subscribed to Max Flattening and he had tuned his roller to make it way more powerful. It is possible that what we are seeing there is a very early car show leaving fail.

[Asimo]

Swansea

[Shite Ron]

[Tayne]

 

 

[Remspoor]

[Remspoor]

[Remspoor]