invacar LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...

January 1

On 31/12/2024 at 12:09, Marshall2810 said:

Just had this suggested on YouTube and was quite interesting, never really thought about them before. I guess you don't miss them till they're gone.

Don't know if your into all lightbulbs or just household ones @LightBulbFun

In an area near where I live the local authority have just replaced the street lighting with lanterns that emit a red light, apparently its because of the local bat population but you can imagine what it looks like.

Years ago I went to Holophane in Milton Keynes where they were demonstrating dimmable metal halide lamps, it was probably in the very early 2000's and it was quite impressive. They had a 250W, 320W (not a rating generally used in the UK) and a 400W on demonstration, it never really seemed to catch on at the time and now LED has taken over.

12,273 · January 1

1 hour ago, Homersimpson said:

In an area near where I live the local authority have just replaced the street lighting with lanterns that emit a red light, apparently its because of the local bat population but you can imagine what it looks like.

Mars ?

3,268 · January 1

2 hours ago, Homersimpson said:

you can imagine what it looks like.

The Reeperbahn or De Wallen?

5,025 · January 1

3 hours ago, wuvvum said:

That's a rather outdated rule though and literally nobody takes any notice of it these days, other than possibly a copper with a particular grudge. It dates from a time before reflective number plates, when cars were much less visible from the front at night - these days headlights will pick up the reflection of number plates whichever way the parked car is facing, and plates are in fact generally more visible (because bigger) than the mandatory rear reflectors.

I've just sent it on to someone I know as she's got an insurance claim going thru at the mo. She was driving back from work recently at 12.30 am, pitch black, no moon, torrential rain and foggy and someone had parked their black Porsche facing towards her with no number plate on it and she hit it...

January 1

2 hours ago, Snake Charmer said:

The Reeperbahn or De Wallen?

Exactly, I can't imagine the people who live on the road are that pleased about it.

22,178 · January 2

On 08/12/2024 at 05:14, LightBulbFun said:

it does however feel like if there was ever an Autoshite themed game of Monopoly, it would be a chance card "Win an argument with the DVLA over the correct spelling of Invacar, Receive £50"

looks like they processed it

although the reference is a bit amusing "DVLA bus epayments" are they trying to tell me i'd be better off taking the bus or such? LOL

16,852 · January 2

I suspect the BUS is short for business.

11,611 · January 2

5 hours ago, High Jetter said:

I suspect the BUS is short for business.

Sometimes Google Maps used to make that assumption with some odd consequences. I remember it couldn't find Bedford bus station because they had decided to label it as a 'business station', whatever one of those is.

28,605 · January 3

You seen this one @LightBulbFun?

You can see it at 3:46 but I can’t make out the plate unfortunately.

9,839 · January 3

5 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

You can see it at 3:46 but I can’t make out the plate unfortunately.

Interesting. Looks to be a table next to it and someone sitting in it sideways 'behind' the table, with their feet emerging out of the door.

I seem to recall seeing a photo quite recently, of a market or street trader selling goods from a Model 70. Perhaps this is them!

22,178 · January 3

26 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

Interesting. Looks to be a table next to it and someone sitting in it sideways 'behind' the table, with their feet emerging out of the door.

I seem to recall seeing a photo quite recently, of a market or street trader selling goods from a Model 70. Perhaps this is them!

theres a couple photos of people selling their wears from their invalid vehicles

an AC Acedes Mk14/Mk14A Model 67 in East London

https://beetleypete.com/2023/01/07/the-photos-of-david-hoffman-east-london-1970/

and this one of an Invacar Model 70 in funnily enough also in London, Piccadilly (thinking about it this might be a good shot for me to try and recreate with REV at some point, EDIT: looking at the location details in the flicker link, I am not sure I can even stop there at all these days without clogging up a probably fairly busy junction LOL) )

https://www.flickr.com/photos/trainsandstuff/50002470908/

technically this was a little bit naughty as the ministry explicitly stated that an invalid vehicle issued to a person was not to be used for hire or reward!

27,648 · January 3

My dad got business insurance on his motability policy incase he had a crash on his way to a parish council meeting one night 🤣

I'd imagine back then it'd be quite easy to get away with it though. How long must it have taken the bloke in the first pic to pack that all back away at the end of the day, or load up in the morning

22,178 · January 3

On 31/12/2024 at 12:47, Marshall2810 said:

That's beautiful. What kinda application would they be used for? I'm assuming it's something very specialist and commercial

mercury vapour lamps in general, where your work-horse lightbulb for many years in streetlight industrial and commercial outdoor lighting, coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes from 40W to 2000W!

On 27/12/2024 at 17:41, LightBulbFun said:

the other thing, is this big fucking lightbulb I have wanted one of these for a couple decades now!, and thought I had missed the boat to get one (these where only made on 1 off bespoke per order basis, so you will never inherently find old stock of these) but as you can see I actually managed to get one!

what this is a 2000W clear Mercury lamp, the largest size of the common mercury lamp range, although 2000W ones and in clear are anything but what you call "common" even in the Mercury lamp's heyday these where quite niche, 1000W was the largest actually somewhat common size, and clear mercury lamps since the 1960's have been special order items in Europe in any wattage range, so yeah 2000W and in clear is exceptionally rare and sought after (in the USA Clear mercury lamps remained fairly readily avliable all the way into the 2010's but in the USA Mercury lamps stopped at 1000W they never produced this 2000W size, this was only ever used in Europe and Japan)

to give you some idea how much I have always wanted one, here is a t-shirt I had a picture of one printed onto when I was about 11 (and I did actually enquire and call Iwasaki about ordering one at that point in time but sadly I spent my saved up pocket money/birthday money on something else, which was/is something else that was imensely helpful to my hobby, but is something you can easily get today, so I always regretted not getting one of these 2000W Mercury lamps while I still could!) but now I have to regret no longer

if your wondering I do also own the very smallest "common" Mercury lamp ever produced the 40W size and also in clear this is another pretty sought after lamp but relatively speaking quite a bit more common then the 2000W above, since these 40W where produced by the case load of 30 so before they where discontinued there where a few more floating about that more of us collectors where able to grab

usually when you order lightbulbs from a manufacture, they come in whats called cases as a minimum order quantity, so usually 6 10 12 15 24 30 bulbs per case, the 2000W lamp above came in case quantities of 1!

so yes I can litreally now say, been there done that, got the T-Shirt, for both the Car and the Lightbulb

those 1000W examples would of mainly been used in industrial applications, and in the US for highway/parking lot street lighting also (those 1000W ones in that picture are American Sylvania examples, so they are of a unique shape and electrical specfication compared to the most common form of 1000W mercury lamp in the UK, I am very fortunate to have the control gear to fire up not just 1 of them but 2 of them at the same time)

that photo is taken just when they have been fired up and are still cold/striking, the lamp on the left is coated with a fluorescent phosphor coating to convert the invisible UV light coming out of the arc tube to red light which mixes with the blue and green light from the mercury discharge to give white light, while the right lamp is uncoated, normally they not *that* red on start up but this one for brief second was indeed *very* red and I am pleased I managed to photograph it while it was still so when a mercury lamp is first fired up and is cold the pressure in the arc tube is low and thus way more UV light is produced then visible light, hence the red phosphor is dominant and then as the lamp warms up the pressure/power increases and the visible mercury spectral lines become more dominant and it all mixes to give white light

discharge lamps in general are quite expressive lamps, everyone has a character to it, and they always do something different every time you fire one up, flashing and flaring buzzing and thumping before settling down and gently warming up to full brilliance its one of the many reasons I enjoy collecting them and firing them up also

3,502 · January 3

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

mercury vapour lamps in general, where your work-horse lightbulb for many years in streetlight industrial and commercial outdoor lighting, coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes from 40W to 2000W!

those 1000W examples would of mainly been used in industrial applications, and in the US for highway/parking lot street lighting also (those 1000W ones in that picture are American Sylvania examples, so they are of a unique shape and electrical specfication compared to the most common form of 1000W mercury lamp in the UK, I am very fortunate to have the control gear to fire up not just 1 of them but 2 of them at the same time)

that photo is taken just when they have been fired up and are still cold/striking, the lamp on the left is coated with a fluorescent phosphor coating to convert the invisible UV light coming out of the arc tube to red light which mixes with the blue and green light from the mercury discharge to give white light, while the right lamp is uncoated, normally they not *that* red on start up but this one for brief second was indeed *very* red and I am pleased I managed to photograph it while it was still so when a mercury lamp is first fired up and is cold the pressure in the arc tube is low and thus way more UV light is produced then visible light, hence the red phosphor is dominant and then as the lamp warms up the pressure/power increases and the visible mercury spectral lines become more dominant and it all mixes to give white light

discharge lamps in general are quite expressive lamps, everyone has a character to it, and they always do something different every time you fire one up, flashing and flaring buzzing and thumping before settling down and gently warming up to full brilliance its one of the many reasons I enjoy collecting them and firing them up also

I'm sure it's not just me that's found that explanation and knowledge incredibly interesting. You really need to introduce yourself to someone within the industry and look into a technical support role or something. Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life....

22,178 · January 4

My 13,000 Post! between the 1st of March 2018 when I signed up (almost 7 years ago!) and now its been 2500 days thats an average of 5.2 posts per day, wonder how that compares to others, whats your autoshite daily posting statistics?

in Celebration I am going to be a bit* lazy and re-post a string of photos I have posted before, but since the thread is a in a better place now compared to when these where posted I figured they where worth sharing/reposting again (for those for who might of taken a break from the thread and went to the Winchester to wait for it to all blow over etc LOL)

https://www.dudleypeoplesarchive.com/ephemera

https://joanbolton.muchloved.com/

a special for @Mrs6C, @egg and @BlankFrank , another XWC

to go with @barrett's Invacod?

a nice rare picture showing a Tippen Delta Mk1

all together now!

found this in the comments of a facebook post, its a shame whoever posted it cropped out the person obviously standing proudly next to it!

casually parked Invacar Mk12, as if no one told it its 2024 and not 1971

this was an exciting find by Adam, which I ID'ed as being the DNX car! I was hopeful it was a recent picture, but alas doing some digging, shows it to be from 2009 also

"bus halt" *looks around for the segfault sign*

what caught my eye on this is the GEC Difractor streetlight, I mean the AC Invalid Car, a floppy top but with glass sliding windows still is a rare configuration for one of these, and I also cant help but notice the sideways mounted mirror on the A post!

a Stanley Mk7, late one on a B suffix, still looking out for one on a C suffix, I know they ended production and the sole surviving Stanley Mk7 is a 1965 car, so that one in itself will be on a C suffix

a very rare picture of an Invacar Mk10A, and in colour to boot!

"what say you, bet you 10 bob I can beat to the end of the road there?"

I perticularly like this picture of UVW285L as I finally have a half decent photo of an L suffix Invacar Model 70 on Silver on Black plates, I have have managed to get a couple decent ish AC shots, but none for Invacar (just video stills etc) because Model 70 being fleet vehicles etc they remained on silver on black plates until the 1st of Jan 1973 when the rules forced them to finally switch

I like this shot as its said to be in the East of London somewhere, also bonus 2CV sneaking into the lineup of Invacars for @dollywobbler

https://www.deutschefotothek.de/documents/obj/71874530

a nice comparison of Invacar Mk12c vs Invacar Mk12D, I like how they have attached the L plates (also note the DHSS Reserve sticker in the windscreen of the Mk12c XVW614F)

https://www.christleton.org.uk/site/magazine/emagazine_apr_2020.pdf

and finally, a special one for @Datsuncog

https://thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/event/2024-collections-programme-launch/

"Mo Wilson, Graham Totty with his collection of Ledo models from The People’s Show 1992"

January 4

What a great collection of photos for those of us who have not trawled through your previous posts.

17,692 · January 4

WTF is this? It's like a mock-up of some kind given it doesn't seem to have a back or a roof.

27,520 · January 4

7,659 · January 4

5 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

WTF is this? It's like a mock-up of some kind given it doesn't seem to have a back or a roof.

Wasn't it something some students at a college in Shrewsbury made as a design project?Hence the name.

35,330 · January 4

I've been watching a You Tube Video on Falkirk Town Centre in the 1970s and spotted this one for you Dez:

January 6

On 06/12/2024 at 23:56, LightBulbFun said:

remember the whole DVLA issue where the DVLA fucked up the lookup table so all Invacar vehicles suddenly showed up as "Invacare" instead?

and the god awful responses/lack their of responses I got from the DVLA about it?

https://autoshite.com/topic/32723-lightbulbfuns-invacar-general-ramble-thread-index-on-page-1-survivors-lists-on-pages-24134-adgecutlers-invacar-mk12-restoration-from-page-186-onwards-still-harping-on/page/398/#findComment-3099912

well after the above awful response I got back in regards to the official letter of complaint I wrote, I eventually wrote back a response to the head of complaints the official next step, this time I went to town, a 4 page letter with printed evidence stapled into the letter as well, and well, I think the results speak for them selves

I have not actually had a response back to my latest head of complaints letter, *but* as above I was checking on the DVLA records as I do, it actually looks like they fixed the issue! Invacars now actually show up as Invacars once more! they fixed the lookup table! (the above is just a couple examples, but if you look up any Invacar now you will see they all show up properly once more!

(and I did check and genuine Invacare Mobility scooters like Q120DAR do still show up as they should as INVACARE, so that further proves to me like I thought the DVLA did have 2 separate make codes for Invacar and Invacare, and someone fucked up the Invacar one when putting together the make code for Invacare, and that thankfully when fixing the fuckup, they did not cause another fuckup and make all the mobility scooters show up as Invacar as was feared)

the only thing I am personally waiting for them to fix, is now REV's own DVLA record, since if you recall earlier in the year they removed REV from the coded system, so I am still waiting for them to put re-assign the ZA (INVACAR) Make code to REV's record, I did check REV's record, but its still in the G9 manually typed make info code rather then the ZA Invacar code.

hopefully with the lookup table fixed soon they will fingers crossed put REV back into the correct make code, as above I have not yet got a response to my letter yet, so it will be very interesting to see what that says, but I did a while back get an official acknowledgement of them receiving the letter, which I was very pleased about in itself! (for a lot of communication I have had with the DVLA I never got any official acknowledgement from them, that they got said comunication, I always had to chase it up and confirm it etc)

so yes I Am *extremely* pleased to see that with some good old fashioned bloody determinism, it preliminarily seem to have got the whole Invacar vs Invacare lookup table issue *properly* sorted hopefully all the 3rd party sites will eventually revert also (I notice all the 3rd party sites that get their lookup table data directly from the DVLA still say INVACARE the ULEZ checker for example still says INVACARE for TWC, but it will probably take a little bit of time for the fixed make code lookup table to propagate but hopefully all being well those should fix themselve) and again hopefully they will also fix the extra fuckery they did with REV's record also and it will be very interesting to see what their ultimate response will be! (again hopefully they also fix REV's record in all this, and I dont have to chase that up in itself!)

Well done @LightBulbFun

January 7

“Keep watching ‘til the end” - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/152BRq3xpL/?mibextid=wwXIfr

spoiler alert 🙄

January 7

1 hour ago, st185cs said:

“Keep watching ‘til the end” - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/152BRq3xpL/?mibextid=wwXIfr

spoiler alert 🙄

I saw this in person last year. It is a crazy collection.

22,178 · January 7

had a fairly busy day today with REV, as close family who lives abroad was visiting for the first time in many years, and today there was a couple gatherings of family in Central London to attend to

as you can see I got boxed in again! this by a Prius

but after a bit of shuffling, I was soon on my way and at my first stop 2 once common but no longer such bits of street furniture

faded glories?

eventually finished with that engagement and arrived at my next

while I was parking up, a black cab pulled in behind me and he got out of his cab and went "thats an Invacar! I have not seen one of those in 30 years!" and so went the conversation for many minutes, a thoughly decent bloke, he said he even owned a Greeves scrambler back in the day and currently has a 1980's Triumph motorcycle, so that was fun (I showed him around REV and explained the usual Invacar story etc )

the sun soon went down, and as this second engagement took me right into the congestion charge zone....

...I suppose I can tick the "drive through Central London after dark" box now

soon was home with a few more miles on the clock

certainly over 100 miles now since her return

7,476 · January 7

maybe you should park further away from the wall with the cnuts who normally park around you

Quote

21,627 · January 7

4 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

maybe you should park further away from the wall with the cnuts who normally park around you

I was going to say the same, but in reality I think taking up more space is just going to incite them attempting to move REV (again) or causing damage as penance for taking up more space than required.

6,911 · January 7

As it's a dead end,with no passing traffic,can you not park end ways in the corner?

3,052 · January 7

29 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

...I suppose I can tick the "drive through Central London after dark" box now

Daz & Rev's Excellent Adventures! Awesome to see you getting stuck in and this unlocking adventures in your life.

Is that Queen Victoria Street, in between Blackfriars and St Pauls/Millennium Bridge? I used to work just along from there many moons ago. The BT offices are a mad, sprawling complex. There is also Castle Baynard Street which runs underneath in a tunnel, doesn't see much traffic, it's a weird little enclave of London.

21,673 · January 7

7 minutes ago, plasticvandan said:

As it's a dead end,with no passing traffic,can you not park end ways in the corner?

That sounds like a good idea in theory but I suspect a friendly* passing traffic warden would love to take advantage of that.

7,476 · January 7

12 minutes ago, Yoss said:

That sounds like a good idea in theory but I suspect a friendly* passing traffic warden would love to take advantage of that.

but as a blue badge holder he would be within the rules

invacar LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...

Recommended Posts

Homersimpson

Christine

Snake Charmer

Scruffy Bodger

Homersimpson

LightBulbFun

High Jetter

quicksilver

danthecapriman

Mrs6C

LightBulbFun

beko1987

LightBulbFun

Marshall2810

LightBulbFun

Vimesy

somewhatfoolish

DVee8

Dobloseven

Split_Pin

brummiejon

st185cs

Cheezey

LightBulbFun

Noel Tidybeard

captain_70s

plasticvandan

CaptainBoom

Yoss

Noel Tidybeard

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Similar Content

My British and European motorsport venue check list and general ramblings plus nostalgia..... 1 2

Subaru surgery, Alternator saga from the Grumpy thread figured out (page 3) weird fault uncovered...... 1 2 3

Browse Forums

Activity