Practical Classics anniversary issue.

[CortinaDave]

Just thought it was worth saying that after moaning about the mag lately, the 30th anniversary issue is out, and its kept me quiet for ages.really interesting look back at the last 30 years with features about the past writers and project cars etc as well as a new project car that right up my street - clapped out Sierra FTW.Happy days.

[Mr Lobster]

Looks like I might have to break my resololution to stop buying it then...

[barrett]

is this the one with D_Hirst's Laurel in? I couldn't see it last month, might have to get this one today...

[Mr Lobster]

is this the one with D_Hirst's Laurel in? I couldn't see it last month, might have to get this one today...

Hirst_of_Wakefield got a small mention in last months PC. No picture though.

[Split_Pin]

Great edition. I had forgotten about some of the staff members. Peter Simpson MK1 has changed a lot. he looks a bit like Mike Reid of Saturday SuperStore fame.Good to see that some of them still own the cars they had when they originally wrote for the mag, such as Nick Larkins Cambridge and Peter Simpson's Leopard bus.And I have truly come of age now that a Sierra is the resto project. I remember when it was stuff like 50's Alfa Guilettas, early 60's beetles and an A30 that was the Project!

[trigger]

I remember reading about Nicks Cambridge getting vandalised when it happened back in 1995 and being really sad about, I was only 15 at the time.I'm also looking forwards to the Sierra rebuilt, I know it's much more modern that what they normally do and i can imagine many of the older readers being a bit brassed off about it but sod them, They have the Austin Seven rebuilt to enjoy!.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I can recall the utter excitement of buying the first issue - May 1980? There was all kinds of stuff about the shite I was into - A40's, Minor 1000's etc.Around 1983 I even sold a few bits in the 'Going Spare' section!I feel old.

[Vin]

I see Mr Bo11ox has written into the letters page under the pseudonym Jason 'Del Boy' Bristol.....

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I bought this last night, great stuff!!! Sat there chuckling for a good couple of hours. I LOL'd at the 'letters page taboo subjects'* Too many MGB's and Triumphs* What is and isnt a classic* Bring back Nick Larkinetc.The thing I like best about PC, is that it has a sense of humour.

[Rocket88]

I bought this last night, great stuff!!! Sat there chuckling for a good couple of hours. I LOL'd at the 'letters page taboo subjects'

 

* Too many MGB's and Triumphs

* What is and isnt a classic

* Bring back Nick Larkin

 

Nick Larkin does come across as a bit of a tedious old fossil. Many moons ago, there was something on [i think] Wheeler Dealers, when a young gal was trying to sell some old Farina porridge, and he moaned that it had been plate raped......and offered her some derisory sum for what looked like quite a tidy old bus. He comes across as one of those blokes who thinks radial tyres are "new fangled", and still bemoans the passing of ricketts, dypheria, and National Service............

[hammy]

I've had the fortune to meet Larkin before, he is stuck in a timewarp that finished in 1984 and his ranting nonsense has irritated me in car mags, bus mags and even on TV.In Bus & Coach preservation which he & Simpson set up, he would often let his soapbox platform run away with him and start spouting all sorts of crap about bus companies doing away with old names or liveries in favour of "bland corporate garb". Fine, but throughout history we've had successive bland corporate garb with Tilling & NBC livery. Now 20 years have passed, loads of buses are restored in NBC livery which people despised at the time the buses were new. We can't live in the past forever, its the variety of change that makes everything old so nostalgic. Later on he would rant about the death of the London Routemasters again with his same rose tinted spectacles on. I understand the banger boys love him even more, and that they've invented stories about certain (fictional) cars being raced just to wind him up and get him to print it in some magazine rant about it, only to realise that he's been had on yet again.

[AnthonyG]

I bought this last night, great stuff!!! Sat there chuckling for a good couple of hours. I LOL'd at the 'letters page taboo subjects'

 

* Too many MGB's and Triumphs

* What is and isnt a classic

* Bring back Nick Larkin

 

Nick Larkin does come across as a bit of a tedious old fossil. Many moons ago, there was something on [i think] Wheeler Dealers, when a young gal was trying to sell some old Farina porridge, and he moaned that it had been plate raped......and offered her some derisory sum for what looked like quite a tidy old bus. He comes across as one of those blokes who thinks radial tyres are "new fangled", and still bemoans the passing of ricketts, dypheria, and National Service............

He did used to write up the old 'street scene' photographs they did in Popular Classics.

 

No matter how depressing the subject material - e.g. a queue of traffic on a rainy day in an industrial town in 1951 with only one of the pictured cars made after the war, it was always held up as an example of how wonderful the old days were!

 

I bet he likes condensed milk, spam and powdered egg.

[Mr Lobster]

Agreed about larkin. Probably a decent bloke but stuck in a past that has long since vanished.Looks a good magazine though. Not had a proper read yet but from the quick flick through looks like it shall keep me amused for a while.

[saabhappy]

I've only spoken to Nick Larkin once, a long time ago when he was writing for Popular not Practical Classics. He seemed a nice bloke. The Farina was on "Deals on Wheels" and NL was as kind as possible in telling the lass selling it that it wasn't worth what she was asking. Personally there are plenty of decades I'd rather live in than this one - good luck to the bloke.

[Tayne]

.

[saabhappy]

If it wasn't on Deals on Wheels it must have been Auto Trader, but it definitely wasn't on Wheeler Dealers.

[AnthonyG]

. Personally there are plenty of decades I'd rather live in than this one - good luck to the bloke.

Don't disgree there, but I wouldn't pick the early fifties . Post 1955 it all got a lot more jolly - what with rock n' roll, Zephyr Mk2s, 'You've never had it so good', teddy boys, etc etc.

[Talbotman]

Yep it was Deals on wheels.....i presume if my exoerience of tv appearances is to be believed - the whole scenario was all set up by the producers anyway...?

[saabhappy]

Yep it was Deals on wheels.....i presume if my exoerience of tv appearances is to be believed - the whole scenario was all set up by the producers anyway...?

In the same series there was a lass trying to sell her Trabant which her husband had bought for her - romance isn't dead then - and the bloke who came to buy it fitted exactly the picture I have of people who own Trabants. That looked very staged as well.

[Talbotman]

Yep- the guy that bought the trabant was the infamous collector that had about them 100 of the stored in his back garden - and was forced to get shot of them a few years back.......But then again as Autoshites own Mr bickle was also a star on this now satallite perenial- perhaps he could shed more light.......perhaps his repeat fees help fund his megashite collection!!!!!

[saabhappy]

Yep- the guy that bought the trabant was the infamous collector that had about them 100 of the stored in his back garden - and was forced to get shot of them a few years back.......But then again as Autoshites own Mr bickle was also a star on this now satallite perenial- perhaps he could shed more light.......perhaps his repeat fees help fund his megashite collection!!!!!

These programmes get repeated as often as Murder She Wrote don't they?

[j-j]

Yep it was Deals on wheels.....i presume if my exoerience of tv appearances is to be believed - the whole scenario was all set up by the producers anyway...?

Shouldn't think so - I was on Deals on Wheels 12 years ago and it was for real - they filmed a genuine sale and told them when it was arranged to happen. In fact, I was told that if I didn't find a buyer they would be unable to film the sale (hence, my mate and I faked the whole thing to hit TV) Anyway, that lot (Ideal World production) at least, didn't stage it

[Tayne]

.

[Minimad5]

I hope the episodes are on Youtube ... anyone care to share (If you know the link)

[Jon]

Re the Nick Larkin content, I had no problem with him, except that his grin always looked a bit smarmy and I always imagined him to talk talk like George Formby, with a little chuckle at the end of each sentence.Oh, and his article on all the different Morris Minor shapes, basing it round a fictional town was just embarrasing! So guess I did have a couple of problems with him after all.

[j-j]

Were you selling a Saab j-j?

Nah, it was a shite maroon BX and I was 18. It was repeated a lot of times.I had a thread about it on here yonks ago.

[j-j]

Can't find it on YT... thank fuk

[Minimad5]

Can't find it on YT... thank fuk

... AWWW !Do you know what episode / series ?

[Tayne]

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[eggy]

Brilliant issue,great content throughout,good to see alot of the stuff ive missed due to the fact i was born when the magazine was just 9 years old.The letters about skin infection concerns over the Gunk adverts made me chuckle especially. Im just waiting to see the letters pages in the next few months with people comlaining about the sierra,cant wait to see the progress of it.

Peter Simpson MK1 has changed a lot. he looks a bit like Mike Reid of Saturday SuperStore fame.

I thought Max Clifford my self.