Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - 50 Years ago this month I passed my driving test.

[High Jetter]

When they said it's time to give the Merc a bath....I think they meant something different! 🤣

[hairnet]

On 17/02/2026 at 16:44, Mr Livered said:

Shoe repair shops are a load of old cobblers

@cobblers he dis you

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

No need for an extra trunk for the car we got from you!

I read that as extra duck as i scrolled 

[Six-cylinder]

26 minutes ago, hairnet said:

I read that as extra duck as i scrolled 

There was plenty of room for a duck as well!

[richardmorris]

Not something I’ve considered before. But do the seats in the Range Rover fold down to give you a good load space?

[Six-cylinder]

17 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Not something I’ve considered before. But do the seats in the Range Rover fold down to give you a good load space?

Yes seats fold to give a good load space.

The floor is 1985mm long with seats down, 1120mm between the arches and 824mm high in the boot opening.

(I don't have any pictures of my own boot so here is somebody else's full of stuff)

[Six-cylinder]

Hospital sh1t today, test driving riding something new!

Well at least for small blue mobility fans I had my own version to park in the car park!

[Mrs6C]

15 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

riding something new!

One of these, by the look of it...
https://towrite.uk/downloads/internal-peopl-carrier.pdf

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

Hospital sh1t today, test driving riding something new!

Well at least for small blue mobility fans I had my own version to park in the car park!

oh you can see him thinking "how can I appropriate this to the FoD..., if I just hop in it now and make a beeline for the exit...." cut to this thing being chased by a line of police cars and @Zelandeth walking past thinking "ahh another day in Milton Keynes"

 

if you want a proper* connection of that patient Mobility vehicle to Invacars,  Curtis made a Digital Fuel gauge for the Model 70 in later years  

 

begs the question if there was ever a Digital speedometer!

[hairnet]

would

beats an allegro anyway

 

[Mr Livered]

"Kindley Supported by:"

🙄

[richardmorris]

5 minutes ago, Mr Livered said:

"Kindley Supported by:"

🙄

Stindards aint wat they used to be.

[RayMK]

22 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Hospital sh1t today, test driving riding something new!

Well at least for small blue mobility fans I had my own version to park in the car park!

That's my quite frequent port of call as well.  You were lucky to find a space so near to the entrance, but once in the hospital it can be a long walk depending on the department, so the buggy thing is handy.   They also have very small electric buses (with a roof!) which seat 3-4 passengers. They are used to scoop patients from the carparks and deliver them to the building entrances.  It took me nearly 45 minutes to find a space when I last visited 7 weeks ago.  There were no blue badge spaces anywhere but I was eventually in luck with a normal space not too far from Urology.  I usually find a space more quickly on the A&E road but roadworks along that road spoilt my plan.  Next visit is in early March but I doubt that I'll risk going in the Reliant.   Your little blue Fiat will have brightened up the day for quite a few patients or visitors. 

[hairnet]

luckily only a haemo on tuesday so park right outside the entrance on the bike and 10 secs into the dept

[Six-cylinder]

27 minutes ago, RayMK said:

That's my quite frequent port of call as well.  You were lucky to find a space so near to the entrance, but once in the hospital it can be a long walk depending on the department, so the buggy thing is handy.   They also have very small electric buses (with a roof!) which seat 3-4 passengers. They are used to scoop patients from the carparks and deliver them to the building entrances.  It took me nearly 45 minutes to find a space when I last visited 7 weeks ago.  There were no blue badge spaces anywhere but I was eventually in luck with a normal space not too far from Urology.  I usually find a space more quickly on the A&E road but roadworks along that road spoilt my plan.  Next visit is in early March but I doubt that I'll risk going in the Reliant.   Your little blue Fiat will have brightened up the day for quite a few patients or visitors. 

The plan was Mrs6C would let me out in the drop off zone by the main entrance only to find the road works. Plan B was I would go in the South entrance then Mrs6C would take the car and find somewhere to park it. I should have bet on a horse that day, as I drove up to the zebra crossing a lady pulled out of the disabled bay bang opposite the crossing!

[wuvvum]

On 24/02/2026 at 18:08, LightBulbFun said:

if you want a proper* connection of that patient Mobility vehicle to Invacars

I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that he didn't... 🙃

[LightBulbFun]

6 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Plan B was I would go in the South entrance then Mrs6C would take the car and find somewhere to park it.

plan B is what I did when I took mum to the hospital for one of her routine checkups 

where I quite litreally then just drove around in a circle until I figured out a place I could park, that probably bemused the locals I imagine, or caused some bad Deja-vu! 

not had need to take REV to a hospital, but I can confirm she looks comedically lost in a supermarket disabled parking bay!

[Six-cylinder]

Tomorrow is Milton Keynes Mini Club and I would like to take my Mini Mayfair. This afternoon I did legals and levels, made sure it would start and nothing was seized. It started without much trouble on its own battery. Then drove up and down the yard, I have just looked it up and the last time I started it was 13^th Nov 2025, I think that is pretty good for an old Mini.

The big question mark as to if I take it, is the weather. Will our group leader make sure it is dry for a Mini Club event!

[hairnet]

put it back

[richardmorris]

2 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Tomorrow is Milton Keynes Mini Club and I would like to take my Mini Mayfair. This afternoon I did legals and levels, made sure it would start and nothing was seized. It started without much trouble on its own battery. Then drove up and down the yard, I have just looked it up and the last time I started it was 13^th Nov 2025, I think that is pretty good for an old Mini.

The big question mark as to if I take it, is the weather. Will our group leader make sure it is dry for a Mini Club event!

You mean you actually want to take a mini to a mini specific event?

[High Jetter]

At least any rain will wash the dust off! 😀

[LightBulbFun]

On 17/01/2026 at 16:35, LightBulbFun said:

and there where 5 of these Airport/runway lighting 200W 8.33A 24V Osram-GEC Halogen lamps! (again given these happen to be 24V I wonder if they where intended for some use outside their normal intended application, ie someone was looking for a 200W 24V lightbulb for some application and settled on these?)

BTW a little bit of an addendum on these, after lighting one of these

and then powering it off

check it out, the Purple vapour of Iodine!  

 

this is quite significant as this confirms these are *much* older then I first realised and date to August 1965 (rather then August 1989 like I first thought, the date code on these is "WH" which could be August 1965 or August 1989) the significance of that being these are an example of the earliest Tungsten Halogen lamps to be produced in England/Europe  

(I also then after this had a bit of a shifty and pulled up an eBay listing of what I knew was a later example, from 1990, and sure enough the construction/etch style is pretty different https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234336194430  I had some thoughts that my examples might of been older then I thought, but Halogen lamps from the 1960's are extremely rare, so I did not want to say anything until I had confirmation!)

[Six-cylinder]

1984 Mini does 25 miles today without breakdown!

This morning turned out to be dry and even a bit sunny so I took my Mini Mayfair out to the local Mini club breakfast meeting. Just 3 classic Minis turned out along with a few Binis and some dailies on the grounds that their Mini’s still needed fixing!

The drive there is not far so when I left for home, I wanted to drive my car some more miles and just went for a drive around the area before putting it away.

When I got back Stanley the horse was cutting the grass!

 

[Six-cylinder]

While I was at the Mini meeting I saw a friend pull up and drive away. He had never seen my Mini and thought I had left so went to my house because he had a present for me. I rather like it, a small tin that once contained tea with a classic Mini embossed in the lid, with raised embossing for the details like bumper, indicators, badge, mirror, grill and lights.

He also returned my 1981 Club International magazine that I had accidently given him with some Audi brochures. I want to make it clear I did not even know I had the said magazine or what its content was like. I had received it a few weeks ago with a batch of magazines, brochures and a car book that I had accepted from somebody I did not know to save them from the bin when clearing their loft. The moral of the story is check what you are giving away more carefully in future!

[richardmorris]

2 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

While I was at the Mini meeting I saw a friend pull up and drive away. He had never seen my Mini and thought I had left so went to my house because he had a present for me. I rather like it, a small tin that once contained tea with a classic Mini embossed in the lid, with raised embossing for the details like bumper, indicators, badge, mirror, grill and lights.

He also returned my 1981 Club International magazine that I had accidently given him with some Audi brochures. I want to make it clear I did not even know I had the said magazine or what its content was like. I had received it a few weeks ago with a batch of magazines, brochures and a car book that I had accepted from somebody I did not know to save them from the bin when clearing their loft. The moral of the story is check what you are giving away more carefully in future!

Is club like a posh fiesta?

[Six-cylinder]

5 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Is club like a posh fiesta?

The bit of the content that surprised me most was all the cigarette ads! I had forgotten that was a thing.

[richardmorris]

2 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

The bit of the content that surprised me most was all the cigarette ads! I had forgotten that was a thing.

Innocent that I am, I had no idea Jps were cigarettes - I had a black gilet with jps branding in the late 1970s for school! I thought it was just a racing team.

[Mr Livered]

3 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

I want to make it clear I did not even know I had the said magazine or what its content was like

A likely story! 😉

I must confess, I find the headlines in the red box (bottom right) on the magazine cover intriguing. Some things are best left unseen though!

[richardmorris]

27 minutes ago, Mr Livered said:

A likely story! 😉

I must confess, I find the headlines in the red box (bottom right) on the magazine cover intriguing. Some things are best left unseen though!

It will certainly bring a new dimension to the FOD magazine exchanges!

[hairnet]

44 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Innocent that I am, I had no idea Jps were cigarettes - I had a black gilet with jps branding in the late 1950s for school! I thought it was just a racing team.