Beaulieu 2013 International Autojumble PICS!

[Lucky]

Welcome along, one and all, to another of my flaccid photostory threads where I try and beat you into submission with endless drivel and use smoke and mirrors to pretend there are actually some photos worth looking at in here.

Or is that a double bluff?

Haha, you'll have to read the entire thing now, just in case...


So, it was time for me and th'boy Rich/Phil to make our pilgrimage down to the New Forest to look at whole fields full of automotive remnants we could neither afford, need, nor even in some cases, identify. Yep, it was time for the autumn International Autojumble at Beaulieu. Which is a lot easier to say than it is to spell. Unless you're American and insist on pronouncing every last bit of a word, in which case you'd be bemused to say the least trying to locate "Beeahooleeoo". (There's a story on the railway about the American who was trying to find the correct train for Loo-gah-bor-roo-gah. Turns out he wanted Loughborough. Well, someone has to. It's almost certainly an apocryphal urban legend, but one you'd just love to be true).

Jokes and casual borderline racism aside, this is truly an international event, took us completely by surprise first time out. I'd always assumed that was just bigging it up a bit, but in actual fact the car parks are full of Euro-plated cars from everywhere you can imagine (and some you can't) and you overhear more conversations in French, German, Dutch, etc... than you do in English.

Anyway, undeterred by the appalling British weather, we piled into Safka the FB and blatted down the coast to the depths of ol' King Bill the First's private wood. Whilst not exactly a show as such, it's well worth a look in. The event incorporates all sorts of things; there's a For Sale paddock where punters can enter their car and try to leave the place without it clutching a handful of Euros instead; there's a Bonhams auction of exotica for the great and good (not the likes of us, evidently); there's a paddock for used cars businesses to sell their wares (and we're not talking Arfer Daley types here, these are coachbuilt Rollers and the like); and finally, the immense and sprawling cornucopia of all things used and grubby that is the jumble itself. Plus you get free access to the museum itself as well!

phew! Plenty to get on with. We didn't get close to getting round it all last year, so arrived a lot earlier this year in the hope of greater success. Guess what? We didn't get round it all again, but at least arriving early meant we weren't queuing for as long to get in. It seems a lot of real enthusiasts will stay in local B&Bs or hotels for the full weekend, and really to get round the whole thing you would need the two days.


So without further ado, shall we plunge into the melee of the sales paddock? There's no rhyme or reason here, so if these pics seem eclectic then that's a pretty accurate representation of how it actually is. However, I didn't indiscriminately photograph everything there, so the ones that have made it through I guess represent my own taste or peculiarities to some extent. As those who've read my threads in the past will know, I have a deep-seated Americana perversion so it was no hardship that one of the first cars we came to was



This lovely 2nd-gen Corvette (depending on how you delineate 'Vette generations; we've had this argument before, let's not go there. It's second gen cos it has twin headlights rather than the original singles. So there)





The weather was fair when we arrived, but the forecast was for heavy showers all day, and the cars were showing in either immaculate shine or rain-blown droplets depending on how conscientious the owners were with the chamois. Suits me either way, to be honest...



We've talked before about the number of Ventiports relating to the prestige level of the car with Buicks. This has three, so it's the Super, one down from top-of-the-range





The big ol' Buick illustrated the futility of trying to keep the cars clean and shiny on a day like this. By the time we'd gone half-way across the paddock the heavens had opened again and it was back to Square One for the long-suffering vendor



Such a cool car, even on a grey dreary day you just segue seamlessly onto the streets of American Graffiti!



Thunderbird is a bit late to be one of the coolest ones, but definitely much preferable to the wretched abominations that have worn the badge recently!



Another car that ought to be California cruisin top-down, not shuddering under English autumn rain





Thirteen and n'arf grand Isetta BMW bubble car could have fitted in the T-bird's trunk! Just as well value is not directly proportional to size



...or reliability for that matter. I know it's a cliche, but even the badge has malfunctioned...



Old Cyclops Rover



Never get tired of photographing Tuscans, marvellous things. There was one of these on the excellent TVROC stand at Wings and Wheels and I took the opportunity to explain to the wife how TVRs are so close to being the ultimate penis extension that the designers even moulded one into the curves of the bonnet. It's like one of those magic eye pictures, or a colour blindness test... keep looking... keep looking... turn your gaze just so... and suddenly BOOM! moment of clarity... Car bonnet turns into male member. Amazing trick. She giggled like a schoolkid for ages about that one (maybe that says more about how puerile and childish we are than anything). Be careful though, it's like taking the wrong colour pill in the Matrix, you can't ever go back. Once you see the Giant TVR Penod Bonnet, you can never un-see it



Mini was drawing some attention, since it was stripped-out and powered by a Honda VFR 800 VTEC engine in the back. All very nice, and cool engineering, but I found the VFR evolution engine extremely underwhelming when it was in a VFR to be honest. I imagine even in as light a car as a Mini it barely has enough gumption to get out of its own way. Shame. Now, a turbo Hayabusa, now you're talking...



Period-perfect early XJS in Seventies Baby-sick Yellow was a thing of beauty. I had sooooooo much want for these back in the day, and still do now



Always got time for the absolute excess of a Caddy coupe



Think this one's a Series '61 Coupe de Ville from 1950





That single-spoked wheel like a vinyl and chrome tongue poking out of the console licking the deeply ribbed (for pleasure) rim; those clocks that are like a multiplayer game of Tempest; the zany zig-zag of the heater controls where mere letters and numbers are too mundane and passé to communicate thermal zones to the discerning gentleman motorist... can only be one car...



Did you guess, lol?



The last true triumph for Art Deco, and the most wonderful thing ever to come out of France since oven-baked Camembert with crusty bread. Let it never be said I'm partisan against French cars again, lol. Those green globes of hydro-ride glory, ooooh. Longest and most delicate intake snorkel evaarr?



Why does it keep its radiator in a weird grey rubbery bag though? Odd, even by Citroën standards! I like how you can partially zip it open to let some air out or to insert your boil-in-the-bag supper Top Gear stylee





While we're on Gallic charm, here's another big Citroën I had a lot of love for on the day:



Never thought I'd be fancying an H-Van with opening rear hatches, but how cool a burger wagon or ice cream van would this make? The vendor obviously had a GSOH, judging by the "Very Expensive" label in the window



Never heard of Kougar cars before. Despite their evidently hopeless dyslexia, I didn't find much on the internetz either, although I freely admit my Google-fu is weak. Evidently some kind of Jag-based special/kit car thing, it looks more like it's Allard-inspired to me. In a good way



This jolly green giant blew my skirt up rather



Not just because of the Art Deco, Faberge nostalgic beauty of its dash (weird steering wheel is like a prop from Hellraiser disturbed before it had a chance to finish growing its layer of skin, mind you)



Just look at it! Majestic!



It is, of course, a 1946 Hudson Super Six and even on such a grey day its resprayed green brought the place a lush forest light. Yours for only £250 more than the bubblecar, too. Like, who knew!





If it wasn't for the grille I'd prefer the looks of the A to the ruler-straight MGB all day long. But as it is... not so much



It was around this point the black clouds that had been threatening on the horizon boiled up properly and it back to rain again. Rich/Phil started mewling about not having a coat (why would you, after all, this is England) and disappeared. I manfully soldiered on for a bit, though as you can see the darkness under the clouds was affecting the photos rather. If not in terms of quality, in terms of cheerfulness!

[Lucky]

E-types are a funny old thing. In many ways they fail to move me; they have that appalling pram-wheel offset fail, the coupes have that awkward high glasshouse roofline that spoils the silhouette and they just don't rock my world. Perhaps it's because they're ubiquitous as well; every single show seems to have a plethora of them. It's a bit like Mustangs; they're the lowest common denominator and you find yourself thinking "I simply CBA taking photos of more Mustangs, they're everywhere". But of course isolation they are extremely cool cars and if you saw one on the high street you'd be getting out the camera phone. So the short version is I make it my resolution to take more pics of E-Types and Mustangs. So...



Late-model Mitsubishi GTO/3000GT is the Japanese sportscar the world forgot. No-one bought them new, no-one buys them now. Which is a shame considering how advanced a lot of their features were; active aero, electronic everything, four-wheel drive and steer, twin turbo 3-litre V6... they should be a huge puddle of s***s and giggles but somehow are perceived as a) dull and b) fragile as a handgrenade with the pin out. Shame, I always rather liked them. Admittedly not as the Dodge Stealth monstrosity the States got. Not sure the spoiler is helping this one sell. Brightens up the day though, doesn't it?



The clouds parted... or at least the rain eased up so I vetured out from the shelter of some random toolchest seller's gazebo to dodge the drops. Some things never change. Taxis, evidently, have always been huge agricultural and ponderous things. But at least this one had some nice enamel work





Wonder if it came to buy with its own plate, lol.



I love Bristols. Who doesn't lol. I like the cars, too. They just reek of quality, low production British eccentricity. Power, handling and luxury all in a strangely-styled designer suit. I believe this is a 407, so there were less than a hundred built. I'd love to tell you the price but it started chucking down again so I got distracted. Five litre v8, mind.





Moar E-type. See, I'm a reformed character. I have to say, this white one really did look good in the rainy gloom, very crisp and clean. Even if the jaguar emblem in the grille bar thing looked as though it had suffered horrible scarring in some industrial injury





Conversely, perhaps not the best day to be trying to sell a brown Bentley!



E-Types were not the only big cat around. This gunmetal XK sat languidly boasting of sporting prowess in shiny cloisonné



The "140" in "XK140" refers, of course to the top speed of the car. Warpspeed science fiction back when this thing was bought!



Ashley-kitted Spitfire III was a re-profiled version of the popular little British sportscar. Even managed to pull off Nato green paint!



What you need on a wet miserable day is a nice bright sunbeam. Or even a vintage Sunbeam



It's not just the mix of cars that's extreme, the pricing can be too. Last year there was an (admittedly very pristine) Renault 5 GTT that was asking 30 grand... which was more than some coachbuilt Bentleys! This year the one that made me stop and say "Really!?" the most was this Abarth 500



yes, yes, all very funky and modern and trendy. But seriously, would anyone in their right mind pay 27 grand on a car that'll probably have ceased to exist even before the warranty and if it does fluke more than three years of life will be worth three grand? Odd. Here, have something cheaper to admire while I calm down. Another Buick Super, a '48 model with matching sunshade. Lovely



By now the weather had got truly Biblical and I had to admit defeat and scurry off to find the shelter Rich/Phil had headed for. I'm led to believe cameras don't work too well when they're full of water. The obvious place to wait out the rain was the Beaulieu Museum itself, so that's what we did. I went in thinking I wouldn't be taking many pics because it can't have changed that much in a year, but of course I was wrong. There was plenty I'd missed last time around, some new stuff and refreshed exhibits, as well as old displays that were well worth revisiting. First, out of morbid curiosity, we stuck our noses in the external annexes housing the cars from Top Gear and from the screen. Whilst a couple of things did raise a smile...



...by and large I find Top Gear more detestable than it is enjoyable, and likewise I point-blank refuse to take photographs of yet another yellow Trotter's Independent Trading Reliant Regal, even if it is alleged to be the original. So just the invalid carriage it was, then



Oh, yeah, there was a Ford Anglia that apparently was the screen car of one of the kids in a Harry Potter film, but since I'd rather smear myself in spam and spend the night in the Home For Retired Pit-Fighting Dogs than watch any of that appalling drivel I left that well alone as well. I read one of the books once, just out of scientific curiosity and to discover why every other person on the trains seemed to be reading one. They're, like, childrens books, did anyone else realise this? Baffling. Though it does explain volumes about the mindset of your average commuter, lol. So, moving on, we went into the museum proper. The atrium is quite a thing, surrounded by cars on plinths and draped in memorabilia of all kinds. The rather less than humbly named "Magnificent" lives here; the Hillman Minx Magnificent, believe it or not



Ford Model T, as anyone knows, was the first production-line vehicle and the car that really brought motoring to the masses. Apocryphally, Henry Ford stated customers could buy one in any colour they liked as long as it was black. So, errrr, here's a brown one.



I spent ages trying to line up the shot I could see in my head, what with dodgy lighting and other punters getting in the way. And none of my photos came out like it was in my head, isn't that always the way? But since I spent ages failing epically, you can share it anyway



This is, of course, the excellently-named Hispano-Suiza Alphonso XIII of 1912, sporting a stump-pulling 64hp back in its heyday. In a strange way, the venerable Spanish marque is still with us today, as its French subsidiaries were eventually subsumed into Snecma (who built Concorde engines amongst other things) while the Spanish side ended up owned by the parent company of Pegaso who produced brilliant sportscars in the 50s when they could be bothered but mostly churned out efficient and utilitarian trucks and buses until being eaten by Iveco.





This Daimler Phaeton is the oldest surviving Coventry-built Daimler in the world, and dates from the same year as the Lord Montagu who started the museum bought his first one, 1897

[Lucky]

In the museum proper, the overwhelming impression once again is that they really need a bigger building. Everything is so wedged in tight that it can be actually quite hard to focus on any one vehicle at a time! Whilst it's great that there's so much out on display, it'd be greater still if you could actually walk around/step back and admire the exhibits a bit more sometimes. I understand there are far more vehicles in Lord Montagu's collection than are ever on display at any time, and they have to be rotated to some extent so there's definitely an argument that maybe less is more and fewer cars in better space or more cars in a bigger venue might be the way forward. By way of illustration, here's a TVR Vixen squeezed in the smallest possible space. It's in there somewhere, keep looking



I don't think I've ever seen a Jowett Javelin on the road. All I know about them is that they were a typical British car industry missed opportunity; excellent concept (Unitary construction making for huge cabin and luggage room) but badly executed (at the expense of ease of maintenance, such as having to remove the front wheels to access the spark plugs). Guess this sorta thing is still a problem today, as anyone who's experienced having to lift the engine to fully drain the oil on an Audi V10...



Some British sleeping giants lined up



Little blue Imp was immaculate, but so wedged in it was impossible to get a decent picture. Strangely, it alone of all the cars was dressed with a presumably contemporary headline. Not sure what a car made in Scotland had to do with the Kennedy assassination, but you know what these conspiracy theorists are like!



This is a car I find it hard to stop taking pics of. Even though from some angles it resembles the fastest tractor on Earth



This is, of course, the Cord 810, from the eponymous company of Erret Loban Cord, the entrepreneur involved with the 'tween-war American Holy Trininty of Duesenberg, Auburn and his own self-titled company. The funny arrangement of the front end that gives the cars it's tractor stance is due to it's fully-independently suspended front wheel drive, transmission stuck out the front Traction Avant-style



The car was styled by Gordon Buehrig and featured many innovations, besides being the first independent front-drive American car. It even offered a radio as standard fitment, something unheard-of back then. The pop-up headlights were modified from Stinson aeroplane landing lights, simply because Cord also had a majority sharehold in that company too, and were pop-ups actuated by a hand-crank on the dash! The rear end, disappointingly, was a prehistoric tube axle on semi-elliptic springs but I couldn't get anywhere near a photo of the back end, sadly. The chromed external exhausts on this particular model identify it as the 812 variant, with supercharging added to the Lycoming V8 engine



The museum seems to reflect the chaotic any-order-you-like paddock outside, for next to the bonkers 30s excess of the Cord is rather randomly parked a late-ish model '89 Lotus Esprit. Strange choice in many ways; not the best, most pure styling, fastest; not really exceptional at anything within the Esprit canon. Maybe it was cheap



Strangely, I managed to take an almost-identical shot to one from outside and not even notice until I downloaded the camera later. My subconscious must really love this angle on the E-Type front bar, lol. Enamel and casting is less mullered on this one.



See? I love E-Types, me. Can't get enough pics of them.



I think I took almost identical pics to this last year, but make no apologies for including my second-favourite Ferrari.



and yes, I know that technically it isn't actually a Ferrari, before anyone gets all pedantic



Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Apparently, our fine four-fendered friend. Oh come on, everyone loves Chitty, don't they?



Before Jaguar were the Le Mans-conquering, globe-bestriding sportscar colossus they became, they had rather more humble origins as a sidecar company. Swallow Sidecars, in fact, and they spent their time making things like this;



yep, a re-manufactured Austin Seven. As if to compensate for this, it's the recipient of the most over-the top branding exercise ever, with about four different ways of telling you no, this isn't an Austin, it's an SS, see?



Not entirely sure what these funny little intake trumpets were all about, but I imagine somewhere at the bottom end of these things lies a lot of rust



Vauxhall Prince Henry cars were road-going sporting champions in their time, this one competed with success in many road rallies where just driving from London to Scotland was quite an achievement in itself, let alone against the clock



See what I mean about it sometimes being hard to tell what you're looking at when things are squashed up together? Somewhere in here, if you can pick it out, is a very early poor man's car, a Royal Enfield Quadricycle. Which is basically a motorbike with four wheels.



The gentleman's lady friend would ride in (comparative) luxury on the bench seat on the front, the rider himself sat behind on this;



Which looks rather as though it might be actually infectious. Of course, no true lady would enjoy being perched out front on such a dodgy contraption, fine clothes stained by oil and grime from the exposed mechanicals, pelted by rain and exhaust from other motorists, mud from the unmade roads, the more unsavoury "exhaust" from horses... hmmm.... wonder why these things never caught on?



The Bugatti Type 15 is an object of great beauty, from a time when the decorative arts were still aplied to everything with great panache. Hence you end up with the spotted wooden wheels and embossed engine head



Nice to see some shiny brasswork, too. Well, it's essentially plumbing, after all. Like the spare spark plug holder built into the firewall, an essential piece of equipment before any long trip could be undetarken



The wooden boat-tail rear deck is something that looks like it would be equally at home on a luxury yacht. Not sure why the seats are offset against one another so the passenger sits slightly behind the driver.



This baby must take quite some polishing!



This ancient and very rare and valuable Silver Ghost has quite a history; when it was discovered and bought for the museum, it was working as a tow-truck in a small one-man garage in Scotland, and no-one really knew where or how the old boy had obtained it!



Now fully restored, it's a great survivor and bears little sign of ill-effects from its previous life as a lowly beast of burden



1912 Fiat Tipo Zero was the first Fiat really produced in large numbers, with over a thousand sold. This was specifically aimed at middle-class owners in an attempt to democratise car ownership from its rarefied heights. Arguably this was the car that set Fiat down the road to the mass-market they have strongly occupied ever since



Naturalistic curlicues abound on a piece of emblematic heraldry produced only a year after the Titanic went down. The tail end of Art Noveau was morphing into the regularity and repetition of Deco, but for now the organic curves and plantiforms were still dominant in decorative art



This old Sunbeam dates from a time when owners would often insert their own mascots onto the radiator shroud, hence this overblown RAC motif, complete with King's head, laurel wreaths, Atlas supporting the entire thing, wheel spokes, all surmounted by crown! Phew. Sometimes art and design is as much about knowing when enough is enough and when to stop...



One end of the main hall is dominated by a huge sculpture suspended from the ceiling. Made from sections of square tube cut at angles to represent the blurring road surface whizzing past, it supports several racing cars from various eras. Such as this excellent Jaguar XJR in easily one of the best five liveries.



The display certainly gives you a chance to see details and designs from an angle you wouldn't generally get;





The insane aero of the McLaren Mercedes become almost an abstract set of swoops and curves, so absorbing that the actual car itself almost becomes a let-down!



Older Ferrari F1 car boasts more steering wheel controls than many of us would want while trying to control a 200mph bollide, but seems almost Spartan compared to modern cars that seem to have an entire mixing desk stuck to the wheel



Peering over the edge of the walkway that joins the vintage car display to the Bond car exhibition gives you the opportunity to see the cars on the main floor below from a different angle, too. Such as the stubby sidepipes of this Allard dragster



The bold livery stripes of the Rothmans rally Escort (and yes, I know I've banged on about it before, but things always do look better in fag packet colours!)



The no-frills cockpit and giant string-covered steering wheels on vintage Sunbeam racers. Strange staggered seating arrangement again, anyone know why this was done? Write in and let us know



From above, the BRM Type 15 looks like some bizarre insect spreading its wings to fly. Metaphorically or not, lol



Generations of the most winningest (urrrgh, sorry for the Americanism) engine evarr, the incomparable Ford Cosworth DFV (Double Four Valve).



Here it is in one of Sir Jackie of Stewart's Tyrrells. Originally Lotus and Chapman's secret weapon after he somehow schmoozed Ford into getting Cosworth to build him the engine to go into the new monocoque rear-engined Type 49. Ever the sportsman (well, from a position of strength anyway), Chapman agreed to let other teams have access to the amazing engine, and within a couple of years every F1 team used it. In the '69 and '73 seasons cars powered by DFVs won every single race, and between '67 and '85 DFVs won 155 from 262 races



...and one of those aforementioned genre-changing Lotuses (Lotii? Lotuss?). Visionary design meets engineering excellence



The Bond display had been moved around some since we were here last year... a lot of stuff had been loaned out on various promotional junkets and so on... which was good cos it gave us a chance to view things anew and see stuff we'd missed last time round. I still think it must be the best job in the world to take a new and achingly gorgeous DBS and fill it full of bullet holes...



...take a flap disc to the paint and whack it a few times with a huge mallet. Someone in a props department somewhere was living the dream the day the opening scene to Quantum of Solace was storyboarded



If you were the car that could lay claim to the greatest number of body rolls in a single stunt on film, then you'd probably look a bit worse for wear, too.



We all know it was a travesty when Bond was allowed to defect to BMW (or was it the lure of sponsorship Euros for the scripters) but at least the cars did have some hella cool gadgets. It's interesting to see the evolution of props throughout the years, from rockets that were little more than washing-up liquid bottles painted silver in a Blue Peter stylee to obviously functional arrays like the flip-down side vent moulding on the Z8 (albeit the missiles are more convincing, they still look like props close up. Good enough to fool a camera though)



Got to admit, there have been times in the franchise when Bond has been properly cool. Tailored suit, backdrop of the Alps, nonchalant pose against a DB5... hard not to look cool really!



and yes, that cheeky little flipper that snuck into the previous shot does indeed belong to one of the most iconic film cars ever



(albeit one from the earlier Blue Peter level of prop missiles. Like a cat's hard-on)



However, The Spy Who Loved Me is the first Bond film I remember watching as a kid, and thus has a special place in my heart, the Esprit especially. That scene where it drives up out of the sea onto the beach; the fat guy staring in disbelief at his booze, Roger Moore winding the window down to evict a fish clamped disapprovingly between thumb and forefinger, eyebrow arched in disdain and arrogant superiority. Rightly so a classic of cinema



Perhaps less iconic, though the star of a probably more enthralling chase, was this little thing. Funnily enough, I remember there being what might have been a limited edition model or may have been a one-off by the dealer one of these for sale at my local Citroën garage, complete with stick-on bullet hole decals and Bond 007-Walther PPK logo. It was unsold for absolute years, became almost a standing art installation in a corner of the forecourt. Proving, surprisingly, that even prospective 2CV owners have taste boundaries beyond which they will not step



One of the engaging things about the Bond exhibit is that it doesn't just feature the cars, but all kinds of more eccentric transport featured in the films. Given the callous disregard shown by most studios for obsolete props once their purpose is finished, it's amazing so much of this stuff has survived. Such as the "Little Nellie" gyrocopter from You Only Live Twice...



Although it's not very spy-ish with 007 logos plastered all over it, I love the way it's also covered in stickers from genuine flying clubs worldwide



Blofeld's escape sub, probably just as well he never got it in the water, it doesn't look too seaworthy up close like this!



Pierce Brosnan-era Cagiva and BMW R1200C, perhaps the most preposterous stunt bike of all time



Given Bond's frequent exploits over in the States (and the huge film-going market to tap into there, of course) it's no surprise that he's used plenty of American muscle in his time. The exhibit features a trio of giant red Yank tanks, one of which is Rich/Phil's holy Grail to which he must pay frequent pilgrimage and homage, lol. But firstly, the Mustang Mach 1 that was in the car chase in Diamonds Are Forever, an otherwise execrable film let down badly by the pathetically camp and sub-Avengers caricature villains, lack of captivating plot and such utter nonsense as Bond's escape in moon buggy complete with wildly waggling hoover-pipe arms. However, the up-on-two-wheels Mustang stunt is awesome. Not sure why this one has the odd snakeskin decal applied, which wasn't on during the film. Also, according to Rich/Phil's amazing ability to decipher VIN plates, this is one of the very first Mach 1s off the Dearborn line, the year the film was shot, so it certainly didn't hang about getting onto set. Judging by the front ride height, it's shy an engine, would love to know whether it's an actual film car and what the story behind it is



Not perhaps the first car that springs to mind when you think of American Muscle cars, but the AMC Hornet performed one of the most memorable stunts on film



the 360-degree barrel roll jump over the river from The Man With the Golden Gun. Still an incredible stunt to watch even today, whilst the rest of the film has dated shockingly around it. Nowadays they'd just CGI it in and it would be far worse for it. In those days they just built a ramp, strapped a suitably adventurous lunatic into the drivers seat and sent him off



This might be one of the film cars, but not the one that actually did the jump. That was clearly caged up and had a central driving position to balance the weight properly



Is it just me, or when you look at these funny old sidelights, do you see... well, ahh...y'know... a ladies'....errrmmm...

No. Just me then



Of course, the car we (well, Rich) were here to see was



The Mercury Cougar as driven by the delectable Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service



Personally I think it's a very unfairly underrated film; certainly one of the better early ones. Telly Savalas makes a great villain, I love the high camp kitsch-up of hypnotising a bevy of beauties to perform and subliminally-activated assassins... and even gorgeous George is OK throughout despite some catastrophic accent malfunctions. And it did feature Diana Rigg driving a Mercury Cougar (on ice, with a ski rack) which is a tough act to top



Anyway, it's a great car all up, far nicer and more exclusive than the equivalent Mustang on which it's built. This pic was a minor miracle; usually this atrium is rammed with people but as if by magic they all just melted away and let me take a couple of unexpectedly clear photos. Wish I'd had the sense to quickly move the information board out of the way!



Rich/Phil's car is actually better than this one (or would be if he'd ever get it finished), but then it has taken him ten years restoring every nut, bolt and washer and it's obviously never been driven around an ice rink racetrack being bashed into by Minis and giant Mercedes, so maybe that's an unfair comparison



The final car before we leave the world of Bond is perhaps not what you'd exepect;



Certainly not a muscle car or chase scene refugee, but Cubby Broccoli's own Rolls Royce that he was wont to loan to certain scenes because there was no easy way of procuring another. Amongst others, the car stood in for Auric Goldfinger's car in the scene where Connery cheats his way to winning a golf bet

[Lucky]

So, leaving the Bond exhibit behind now that Rich/Phil had his fix of Cougar righteousness, we headed towards the exit. The rain seemed to have stopped by now and we were aware that several acres of stalls awaited us beyond the paddock. As seems to be the way with Beaulieu though, I spotted something I hadn't seen before, a display case full of mascots. As regular visitors to my threads will know, I've got a bit of a thing for vehicular heraldry, and love badges and emblems and stuff. So while Rich fretted about all the rusty and derelict bits of old car he could be poring over, I had to snap a few pics. Sadly, I can't tell you what each one came from, cos I intelligently forgot to photograph the key. I've seen the first glass Lallique lady gracing the radiator shroud of a classic Rolls at Goodwood before, and the second (whiplash mermaid brass) one is an old Cadillac emblem, such as was used on the gold-leaf Caddy owned by Liberace. Not sure about most of the others, though many of these grand ornaments were brought aftermarket by wealthy owners to adorn their car with, hence proprietary makers like Lallique being represented







When you see ones like this dumpy li'l gal you realise how difficult it is to actually get it right, and it puts just how wonderful a piece of art Charles Sykes' Spirit of Ecstasy is



And this one, well... she's ah... a chunky ol lass and no mistake!



This one made me laugh when I noticed the dude seems to have come in fancy dress with bunny ears and everything



Classic Art Noveau Mucha-style lady



Little Lord Fauntleroy doing the butterfly dance or something



Classic St Christopher signed by Lallique. Like several of the glass figures, this one has a bulb holder incorporated into the base. Must look pretty special when lit up at night!



My favourite one was this elegant lady, the fact she seems to have forgotten her clothes notwithstanding. Just a really top quality piece of glassware. I'd have her on my mantlepiece. Errrr.... that wasn't meant how it sounded....





This caught my eye, too. Not because I particularly like Vauxhall lumps, but because I love cutaway drawings and displays. My favourite bit of a Haynes manual has always been the front cover. Probably the most useful bit, too, lol



And in my defence, it's hard getting out of the museum without having your attention drawn by the elephants in the room...



Even though I recently saw these amazing machines recumbent on Lord March's cricket pitch, you can't not photograph them really. Just incredible feats of derring-do, to strap into one of these record breakers and point it towards the horizon. I won't go into facts and figures because I did all that recently on the FoS thread (and last years' version of this one) but suffice to say, they're quick. Lol



There's been a revamp here, too, perhaps following their loan out. The Golden Arrow of Seagrave has gone in favour of the Bluebird IV, though the ridiculous turbo-shaft powered Proteus Bluebird is still here. And slightly easier to get into a single frame than it was. Although it's still annoying when someone shoves their chubby arm into shot at the last second and you don't notice until its too late



The twin-bulge upper deck of the Bluebird IV was dictated by the massive Rolls V12 that replaced the earlier, less powerful and more unreliable Napier it had previously run. When you see the size of the engine you understand why it was a tricky thing to package



You really can't have seen much from this vantage point, it really was a case of set the controls for the heart of the sun and hope it kept in a straight line. Seagrave had an aiming sight mounted on one of the bulges for the Napier engine in his Golden Arrow so that he could actually focus on where he was going! Note the doubled-up rear wheels here, for extra traction on the sandy surfaces.



Seagrave's first serious record car following his Sunbeam V-12 ex racer was the "1000 HP Sunbeam Mystery" built for him by the works and featuring one front and one mid-mounted V12 Sunbeam Matabele engines more normally used to power aircraft and powerboats.



Despite the grand title given it by the factory, it was closer to a "mere" 900BHP and was nicknamed "The Slug" by the public, not due to it's speed but its appearance. Speed was not a problem, as it boldy boasts on the bodywork, it was the first car ever to achieve 200mph



As mentioned previously, the engine Seagrave turned to in his later car the Golden Arrow was the Napier Lion W-12 aero engine. Just so happens that Beaulieu had a spare one they didn't mind cutting up for display purposes...



The valvesprings in this are about the size of the shock springs on my last MX bike! Industrial engineering, lol



Whilst still pretending to be heading for the exit, I managed to stumble into another section of the Bond exhibit on the ground floor. Oh, dear, never mind. Rich/Phil was getting the knock now cos he's just recently bought his latest basket ca...errrr.... project, an Opel Kommodore, a car no-one has even heard of before let alone seen. So he wanted to be out in the autojumble searching for obscure GM parts lists so he knew what he was actually looking for in terms of spares. However, I was unmoved, since if he'd have brought a coat or even let me take my umbrella from the boot of the car, we wouldn't have been hiding from the rain (one thing about working on the trains is that you are never, ever, at a loss for an umbrella. Just wait till it rains and every train will have two or three left behind on it). Anyway, there's this bloody Aston DB5 stood in front of me, I'm not going to miss a chance to photograph that, am I? Love the authentic oil drips on the carpet...



The bloke with the diamonds in his face's XKR from the very silly Die Another Day was here too. In fact, there were two of them, oddly. More rockets with actual working mechanisms. I like the engineering, and the fact there's clearly a little Q department somewhere in Eon Productions designing stuff like this



Rockets look like they maybe came in a Nerf blaster pack though



It seemed rude to leave without taking in a quick tour of the cars we'd glimpsed from the mezzanine level, too. I'm pretty sure I took a more or less identical pic of this Allard last year, but haven't gone back to check yet. Never mind, hard drive space is relatively cheap these days



Connaught racer was a stubby little thug of a car. Must be one of the earlier uses of those canards so beloved of ersatz race bodywork makers these days



Why bother with fancy ducting and intakes? Just stick the carbs out of a hole cut through the bodywork!



The 1950 BRM looked even more bonkers and hardcore at ground level. I love the louvre work, it's like a proper racecar built using the hotrodder's arts!




These disc brakes are industrial-scaled. Must be one of the earlier disc brake racing cars, IIRC Stirling Moss won the first race for a disc-braked car with an early 50s Le Mans C-Type Jaguar despite that they'd been around for fifty-odd years already.



The Allard dragster, likewise, was no less mad down here. Apparently Sidney Allard was so impressed by the American drag racing scene when he visited that he vowed to bring it back with him. The result was the 5.7 litre Chrysler V-8 engined 170mph Dragster, which he offered for sale to customer race teams! If only manufacturers were so accommodating nowadays



Sir Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell again.



V10 3 litre Williams Renault test car from Damon Hill's championship-winning year. This car was a test mule used to perfect setup on the race car.



The original over-the-counter racer was the Bugatti Type 35, which dominated early racing in the way Lotus and Audi and Mercedes have all had periods of total ascendancy. You could order one in all sorts of engine sizes to suit which contests you wished to enter, or even supercharged. If you had the price of an average house to spare on a motorcar, of course!



Very elegant engineering, as you'd expect. Bolt-off alloy wheel rims saved ages on tyre changes, massive drum brake housings were cast into the wheel so saved on weight and maintenance. Bowden cable operated, though, scary!



And finally, to a car I find it very hard to stop photographing. But I think you'll probably allow me a bit of indulgence...



For me, this is one of the most beautiful man-made objects ever made. And I don't just mean in an automotive context either, but in any genre



Another Gordon Buehrig (re)-designed car, the boat-tailed Auburn 851 Speedster was the final swansong of the Auburn company, but what a way to burn out!



The car itself was simple enough, the flat-head Lycoming V8 managed an unstressed 68hp though later models were hopped up all the way to treble figures that gave them the "115" designation. It had a clever double-ratio rear axle that worked a bit like a selectable overdrive on all gears (it didn't exactly, but it's too complex to try and explain any better than that, lol). Buehrig redesigned the existing rather square car to feature these wild swooping curves, but it was too late to save the company. Like the other Cord-overseen companies Duesenberg and Cord itself, it did not survive the Depression



But the world is a better place for having eccentric egomaniacs like Cord in it. Auburn lost money on every Speedster they made, but wasn't it worthwhile for the rest of us, who get to admire the beauty of such a wonderful automotive sculpture? Volkswagen lose money on every Veyron they make, too, but wouldn't the world be a worse place without such boundaries being pushed back irrespective of such tawdry considerations as profit?

[Lucky]

And with that it was back out into the weather again. We wandered past the main hardstanding through mini dealers' forecourts set out on the grass bordering access roads. I love this event, not only can you spend hours poring over obscure rusty trinkets and everything automobilia, but its set alongside a sales showroom that's easily the equal of most classic car shows. Every time I do one of these threads I mention about how it's rare for me to find a BMW I like enough to photograph, but then I always seem to be successful so maybe I actually have a closet Bimmer love deeply repressed or something, lol. Here's a nice 2002



Complete with excellent "OBRUT" sticker on the front bumper. Fantastic, who says ze Germans don't have a sense of humour?



Caught this XK at exactly the wrong angle; all I can see is the awkward line where the roofline joins the rear wing. Always nicer as a drophead than a coupe.



I love the colour though. And the leather bonnet safety. Pah, aerocatches, who needs 'em



Still my favourite Aston, the V8 blunt instrument





I was taking photos of this nice Essex Stiletto White Cossie when some random passer by started on at me in a most odd fashion. He was this plummy-sounding twat and was basically "why are you taking photos, is it that you can't afford the cars so you have to make do with a photo of it?". At first I wasn't sure if he was taking the piss or just trying to be friendly and came across a bit awkwardly, so I said "Something like that, mate. Although it is only a 15 grand Sierra, I could probably stretch to one."

Dunno if he'd had one too many sherries or what, but he carried on like "Why would you want all those photographs, do you sell them?"

"No, although I post some on-line, forums and suchlike," I said. "As to why, well why would you take a photo of anything?"

"Well, I wouldn't," he says.

By now my usual tolerant and easy-going good nature was exhausted so I said "Good. Well, off you go and let me get on with taking mine then" and pointed the camera at a Bugatti replica just alongside.

"Oh, yes, you'd be able to afford that one, too," he said with more of a sneer than a laugh. "It's only a replica, that's more your level"

Fortunately for him one of his mates who seemed quite used to the fella's mouth writing cheques his ass can't cash took his sleeve and started pulling him away with an apologetic look. Which was good, because my next question was going to be whether he'd like me to punch him right in the middle of his arrogant stupid ****ing face. Honestly, what a bellend. I had to check I hadn't stumbled onto the set of the remake of Trading Places or something. Just goes to show money can't buy you class I suppose...

Anyway, strange encounters aside, here's a Sierra Cosworth.



and the aforementioned Bugatti replica. I'm not sure what the original base was, because I was still thinking rather more about following the pompous fool to a secluded corner and beating some manners into him to pay proper attention. However, even at a glance, whilst it's a funky thing that must be a good wheeze to plod about in...



...even from a distance it doesn't really take you in, and up close things like the big industrial and ugly steering box give the game right away. Especially when you contrast it to the elegant and almost delicate setup on the Type 35 a few pics back



Big humongous Jag looks like it ought to be carrying gangsters to their next heist. Either that or Government ministers... actually there's not much difference between the two now I think about it





I love E-Types, me. Actually, this gunmetal is a genuinely really nice colour...



This company specialised in restoring E-Types in fact, and had one in a state of undress to show off their skills



There's something very right about that big old XK lump with a forest of SU carbs hanging off the side, more so when it looks like it's actually a new car!



This is a car that's had "future classic" stamped all over it from the moment it first appeared, and it seems that even in the snootier circles of the car world people are starting to wake up to the worth of the car. I love them, especially early ones like this with the pop-up headlights (all the coolest cars have pop-ups. Dunno why, they just do. Yes, they do)







Absolutely gargantuan Chevy Advance Design truck rocked my world. I've always had a thing for pickups, giant American ones in particular and never had an excuse to buy one. I'd love something like this though, you could box in the back and actually live in it. Coolest campervan evarr!



Only downside being this one had been on the sharp end of a shockingly bad restoration at some point. Whilst I love the wooden bumper, the paint involved more orange peel than the man from Del Monte's portfolio



Likewise, the huge Ford F100 woody next door was rather excellent. But, well... y'know, it's a Ford...



...as was this fire engine. Now, I've not really got any rational use for a fire engine (well, not since my brakes stopped catching fire) either, but that doesn't stop me wanting one!



Here's something a bit different, a sporty little number from one of the foremost sportscar manufacturers. Only not quite what you'd expect...



Oh yes. Can you tell what it is yet?



lol, only Porsche can make a tractor that looks like it's going fast even standing still!



Pressing up against the windows of the Bonhams auction tent was a bittersweet experience. There were untold wonders inside, all well out of my aspirations and wallet range. Presumably much to the delight of my erstwhile pompous fool acquaintance from earlier. But we could peer through the wobbly plastic windows like kids outside a sweet shop and fantasise. Cool Alfa is cool. Pagoda roof Mercedes are becoming quite a collectible nowadays too, I understand



I'm really not sure if I "get" the whole bubblecar thing, mind, but if you look past that there's what seems to be a genuine original GT40, and that's enough to get any petrolhead salivating. If you have to ask, you really couldn't afford...



I love these old Dolomites. So splendidly over-the-top. I think they're referred to as having a "waterfall grille"



but it puts me more in mind of a fencing mask. Like, with epée rather than a mask you'd wear for creosoting....



More excellent mascotry. This uni-cycling weirdo adorns the radiator shroud of a 1929 Crossley. Whatever that is. No, I'd never heard of one either



Judging by the accompanying photos, this 1930 Rolls Royce Phantom II has been reduced to a huge pile of component parts and restored from the ground up at some point. Certainly a very grand old bus, as you would expect for £185 grand



Or if you were feeling really flush you could go for this beautiful drophead '38 Derby Bentley with coachwork by Hooper, a snip at £245k



....or even this vintage Sunbeam. Hmmm, think we've found the expensive corner! You have to admire any car that actually has doormats built into the running boards





If you were a bit pressed for cash, at the more affordable end of the vintage market was this Alvis at a very reasonable £64k IIRC



Sporty little number, too; comes with adjustable suspension (basically friction damping)



Interesting rabbit mascot too. I thought Alvisses (Alvii?) had a bird mascot. Dunno if this is Alice's White Rabbit or Benjamin Bunny or what. Maybe the owner just liked his coney pie



This is a Talbot Six. You can tell cos it handily says so on the radiator. Beyond that I can't tell you anything much about it, sadly. I took this cos I like the little temperature gauges built into the rad head on these vintage cars



but if you'd like to know what the actual car looks like...



Another big DS was lurking under the trees. This one's a Pallas. I was never sure quite what the "Pallas" appellation referred to; presumably neither a prefix to Athene, goddess of wisdom and courage, nor the recently resurrected 80's British prog rock band. Write in if you know, lol



As rain scooted through in random pulses, the average vendor collapsed into a stupor of indifference though it was quite entertaining watching the diehards dashing out with chamois a-flapping as soon as any errant drops landed on their wares. Most were content just to let nature have her whimsical way. Which is probably just as well, since twenty-odd feet of Dodge Coronet takes a lot of chamois-ing



Even the shelter of the old horse chestnut trees wasn't enough to save it



In fact, they probably compounded the misery by dropping sticky sap and leaves on it as well as rain, lol



Athough the sun did come out in brief glimpses and we were starting to feel optimistic we might make it across a few of the sales fields without getting too badly soaked.



I guess if you have to have a 911 then this is the sort of thing you'd want. Although I'd rather have the tractor personally.



This is what one would generally think of as being somewhat crass and the sort of vulgar thing nouveau-riche would inflict on a car, but since this was once the property of John Entwistle out of one of those modern popular beat combos I suppose we could just write it off as rock'n'roll, maybe?



Yeah, not every day you see a Rolls Shooting Brake, let alone one with gold-plated accents all over it



This wee beastie lurking under the trees certainly got our attention



suspicions something wasn't as it appeared were stirred by the surprisingly low price tag of 85grand. But at a glance it certainly looks very much like a Peter Brock-designed Shelby Daytona Coupe



But when the owner/cleaner opened it up, all was revealed. It's a new build using the original bodywork shapes, over modern running gear and an LS-3 Chevy engine



But then, what hasn't had an LSx conversion nowadays, and I mean, you still damned well would, wouldn't you!



Right, here's a rather more unusual engine-converted sportscar then...



The badge is a bit of a giveaway, really



This is one of those marvellous eccentric one-offs nailed together in a shed by a bonkers genius. Basically a 1905-ish Fiat with an Issotta-Fraschini aero engine stuck in it...



...just. I knew nothing about this, but a quick search on t'net reveals this is the brainchild of one Graham Rankin who started work on this beast over 20 years ago, eventually selling it on to the man who finished it off, Mike Vardy. It took him seven years to finish the job! The engine is a 16.5 litre straight block six, with bore of 140mm and stroke of 180mm. It develops 250bhp at 1650rpm... and 820 lbs/ft of torque! It's errmmm... prodigious!



Apparently the engine still has an interruptor gear takeoff on the front to prevent the machine gun from shooting off its own propellor. When it was a plane, obviously



All cars should be built with wooden dashboards, lol. None of your poncy Jag-style veneers here, this is a dash you could cut vegetables on!



Fantastic set of controls... no idea what most of them do, but they look awesome, lol



Pair of industrial-sized Zenith updraught carbs supply the fuelling. Apparently the original inspiration for this came from old drawings that were found sketching a Fiat in-house racer of similar design. The car was never built, but it's interesting to wonder if the original Fiat designers would have approved of this homage. I guess the nearest "genuine" thing is the epic Mephistopheles speed record car that regularly appears at Goodwood



This is a pretty unusual set-up for a chain driven car, with the wheels mounted ahead of the drive sprocket. This is notorious for creating problems as the springs compress under braking, thus putting massive strain on the chains, a problem apparently circumvented by using really strong springs and extra radius control arms



Excellent thing, I would have liked to have taken more pics and found out more about it, but we had to press on. The route to the autojumble fields led past the old ruined Beaulieu Abbey walls, where a brace of cool Jaguars held me up briefly. Well, you can't just walk right past a C-Type, can you?



And this, of course. From a time before Jaguar were Jaguar and were still going by the SS name. Of course, post-war those letters had unwanted connotations, and the name changed for good



I took pics of this SS100 last year (guess Suffolk Jaguar have it as a demonstrator/showpiece rather than for sale) but I figure it bears repeating. What a perfectly-proportioned little car!

[Lucky]

And then, FINALLY, we made it into the fields of automobilia! To be fair, we didn't make it far, because the first field was mostly made up of stalls selling brochures, books and promo material, and as any true collector knows, this sort of thing can cost you hours of your life. Especially when you're looking for material on cars as obscure as Rich/Phil's Kommodore (rather cruelly nicknamed the Kamp Kommandant. By errrmmm, me) or early 70s rotary-engined weirdness. However, we were pleasantly surprised by how much there was to chose from. In fact, conscious of the paltry condition of my funds, I was forced to pass up on a load of stuff. I was forced to part with some cash for an RX-2 brochure, not just because it's a very cool and iconic rotary, but also because I love the totally of-it's-time feel of the photography. It reminds me of when I was a kid and all the girls on Top Of The Pops looked like the model in the brochure (this was the Seventies, I didn't see any actual girls in real life back then, only on the telly. And then only in black and white. And on one of the three channels there were to chose from. Jesus, what a sad old ****er)



Anyway, who knows? Culottes might make a comeback one day. I wonder if that's the same quarry they used to film Doctor Who in every week?



I also snaffled up an Elford Turbo Series 1 flyer, because the car is soooooooo lovely. An Elford SA in Mushy Pea, life don't get better than that!



...and a Series 2 American-market brochure, just because I'd never seen that particular one before and it was quite a weighty tome as brochures go



My first ever memory of rotary Mazdas was walking past what I now know was a Mayan Gold Series 2 that was parked in a corner of the Citroën garage I cut past on the way to school. It looked like a Star Trek spaceship amongst the dumpy Dyans and other French weirdness, and I always wondered what made the car so special that someone who worked at a Citroën dealer would drive a Mazda in preference. Of course, now I know better and by a strange quirk of fate Super 7 who work on my rotary Mazdas have moved into the premises right next door to the very same Citroën garage. My life has come full circle only now I cycle past rows of Pluriels and DS3s on the way to visit my own RX-7s, lol. The Mayan Gold '2 is long gone, but at least I've got a nice brochure with one on the front to reminisce over. This happens when you get old and menopausal, y'know, it'll happen to you too one day. Anyway, I didn't even realise there was a centrefold until I got home. I'm not sure if this is the place to post it, though, this is a family forum and I wouldn't want to get in trouble putting up anything too pornographic... maybe if I just sneak it in while no-one's looking...



Ooooh, filth! I was mulling over whether to splurge on the press pack from the FD RX-7 launch and wrestling with my conscience over twenty quid being expensive for a nice red wallet with some black and white photos when something else caught my eyes. It was the stallholder picking up her Bichon-Frize's poop in a carrier bag. But over her bent shoulder, I spotted...



Written by an ex-racer and test driver for the MazdaSpeed team who ultimately put the 787B on the top step of the Le Mans podium in 1991, this charts the history of Mazda's involvement in motor racing with the rotary engine, from the earliest 110S Cosmo...



...Through the RX-designations, '2s and '3s and even '5 Cosmos, to the RX-7s that finally started winning on an international platform...



....and eventually, of course, the ultimate expression of rotary porn, the 787B herself. A car so good it won at a time when massive teams with incredibly potent cars were right at the height of their powers. A car so good they changed the rules to stop it winning again...



Excellent book, going to keep me out of mischief for ages. I've never seen one less than around £70, so when I picked the copy up at Beaulieu and it was £69 I figured that was par for the course, and really I couldn't afford it. But the identical copy underneath that was £30... Holy shitballs, thirty quid? No, it definitely said that on the price label. I took shameless advantage of the poor good lady's preoccupation with trying to tie up the bag of still-warm Bichon-Frize excrement in her hand; waved the price tag under her nose, shoved the tenners into her free hand, and was gone before she could say "hang on, there must be a mistake there". Even better, Rich had found an Opel Kamp Kommandant manual. Had he bought it? No, it was a tenner. I shuffled my feet slightly embarrassedly and voiced the opinion that a tenner wasn't really all that much for something you really wanted... OK, we could come back and see if it was still there at the end. *sigh*

Anyway, after a pause for a few minutes to wait it out in a big tent while the sky turned black and torrential rain sluiced down, we wended our way between trestles and groundsheets piled high with anything and everything even loosely related to the car and car culture. Really, the best way to imagine it is as the biggest car boot you've ever been to. Then double that. Then imagine every single item is old, obscure, and car-related. And sometimes just odd and interesting and NOT car-related. Yeah, sounds like heaven, doesn't it? Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is simply with some random pics that hopefully convey the random nature of just how...well, random... it all is? here we go, in no particular order of relevance;

An ancient Indian V-twin sidevalve engine. Good luck freeing that up...



...everything from actual-sized to actual-human-sized Spirit of Ecstasy figures rub shoulders with dancing elves and capering Shakespearean Pucks...



...absolutely venerable Michelin man. Original RAC livery jacket. Stuff!...



...bloody hell, this place sold just about everything... from a ship's figurehead to prints, brand new bottles of Shell oil, chunks of Beetle, old mileposts...STUFF!...



...deepsea diver's helmet (Like, WTactualF), telescope, Del'Ortos...



....a marvellously patinated old Shell bottle. Wanted this. Too much moneys...



...an apparently French ship's engine speed instruction instrument (not sure of the proper name for one). I say apparently French because there's no instruction for "Surrender" on it...



...huge replica of Jaguars' Leaper mascot, overshadowing bayonets and other nastiness. German WWII "potato masher" and grenade top left of picture, hopefully decommissioned!...



...Betty Boop as a lamp. I've got a thing for Betty. Doesn't make me weird. She's not bad, she's just lost her way a bit. Lamp was too much for me at £140 or I'd have loved to take her home to live in my garage. Ooh, that sounded so wrong...



...moving on *coughs* a pre-war and extremely unusual DKW two-stroke bike...



...bumpers? You want bumpers? We got bumpers. You come talk, we make deal. Buy our lovely bumpers...



...what must be a rather rare and valuable DeDion Bouton, despite the fact it has woodworm and has apparently spent quite some years being used as a chicken coop...



...some of this stuff it's hard to see being of any use, but I guess if your doobrie-firkin on your 1920 Whateveritis has stopped working, you've no choice but to take a punt on one of these, no matter how dodgy they look. I love this patinated clock from (I think) a Bristol just as an Objet d'art, I'd put a clock in that and call it ...errr... a clock



I almost missed the most significant item on this table, hidden amongst old Norton crankcase halves and other obscure chunks of bike. Spotted them? Lurking under the laminated paper at the top? Yeah, only a pair of Norton rotors. Funny little fellas aren't they? Had they been cheap enough, I'd have had them like a shot so they could get some polish and go on the mantlepiece, but the guy wanted hundred quid for them, so he got to keep them. Daft, there's no way they were in a useable condition...



Remember when you could go down to the local garage (usually run by an old boy with silver hair, a flat cap, and grey overalls who doddered out and hand-cranked the pumps to FILL YOUR CAR FOR YOU! Young ones will think this is pure fiction, of course) and get a bottle of oil filled for you there and then?



You want hubcaps? Headlight rings? We got hubcaps, we got headlight rings. Come see, Mercedes hubcaps. Good quality! We even got random Triumph Stag grilles...



...horns. Mmmm. Nothing like a nice pert horn...



...for no especial reason other than it made me go "Huh? Why?" a Japanese-language promo poster of River Of No Return...



...I wish I'd bought this print now, it was only a tenner, FFS. And it's a great picture. Damn...



...a very rainswept and unappealing corner of Hampshire reflected in the impossibly shiny tank of a BSA Gold Star...



...the French, it must be allowed, do some things incredibly well...cheese, making love with their faces, surrendering... and functional decorative design. I guess because it's law you have to carry a spare set of bulbs for your car there, they've evolved things like this, the most wonderful, beautiful bulbholder of all time...



...wonder what they sell?



When we arrived, I'd jokingly told Rich/Phil to keep his eye out for a Weber twin-choke 48IDA, since it's one of the acmes of old skool rotary carburation and I accidentally bought a spare engine with a manifold for one attached. I didn't think we'd necessarily spot one, but I should have had more faith. Four of the damned things. Sadly, the guy was reluctant to start unbolting one from his Edelbrock manifold and the £2800 for all four plus the mani was a bit salty for me. So I had to leave it. Bummer



Really, this is just ONE side (of four) of ONE stall... if you really were hunting for that elusive doobrie-firkin, it'd take you the full two days of the event just to get round one field. And there are four



...more mascots, old clocks, big cam, HUGE Solex carb...



...I love old instruments; I love the design that goes into making them nice to look at as well as functional so this French stand was one of my favourites. I could (and did) spend a long time poking about through these...



There was an entire section of one field selling running (and non-running) bikes, should you need one. How you got your purchase home was your problem, lol. Nice old suicide-shift Harley;



very old Phelon and Moore. Exposed valve springs rattling away between your knees, very reassuring!



the grandly-named despite all evidence to the contrary "Majestic" sidecar combination



there were some excellent period posters on one stand. Is it just me or does this fella look lascivious, to say the least. I'm not sure his lady friend is enjoying this experience too much... in fact if this was originally artwork to illustrate what a sex-pest abduction via motorcycle-powered bathchair looks like, it wouldn't surprise me



in fact, this wicker-work sidechair looks quite well-appointed and comfortable until you ask yourself would you want to be bolted to a pioneer motorcycle clattering across largely unmade roads with exposed valvegear clunking away next to your ear...in a wicker chair? No, me neither



not sure they ever caught on as a viable method of goose-rustling, either...



....signs! you want signs? We got signs... etc etc...



I just took this one cos I liked the clouds. There was a buzzard circling about at one point, too. All too soon this view would be blotted out again with ever-higher and blacker cumulo-nimbus. It looked as though Mother Nature had one last "up yours" to throw into us before the day was done...



See? See what a good idea it is putting clocks in other things? I thought of it first, lol



errrr...not everyday you see a bicycling monkey in a policewoman's hat...you can write your own punchline to that one, really



Sense of humour at work in the advertising on this stall;



This dude paints up panels in the style of old bomber art. Good quality stuff too. Not cheap but then one-off art shouldn't be cheap, should it?



and we all like a nice bombslut, don't we?



....and that was that. Rich/Phil found his obscure Kamp Kommandant parts lists, and even had enough cash left to pick up the brochure on the way back out. And I found a pretty much pristine Matchbox Mazda RX500 concept car;



for the princely sum of a quid. But the skies were black as a politician's heart now, and the first fat drops were beginning to fall. It looked like this was it now, there was little hope this was just a shower and most of the stallholders were packing up anyway, it being close to the close of the trading hours. We scurried back through the fields of bric-a-brac and took momentary shelter back under the horse chestnuts. Which was OK, as it gave me a chance to snap a few I'd missed before. Cool XJS 'vert is cool. You can even see how hard it was raining...



just as well this half-bumpered MkI Escort was dazzling white, even through the gloom



likewise the cheeky grin of a big Healey parked away in the shadows, teeth bared like the baleen of some bizarre land whale



but there's really nothing like a yellow Elan to brighten up a rainy day!



It wasn't going to stop, so we made a dash for it across the paddock. Suddenly, Rich/Phil came to a halt despite the rain, finger pointing accusingly, voice stretched in horror and outrage. "What's that... thing!?" he demanded in the tone of voice usually reserved for finding a soup-plate sized spider hiding in your salad, or maybe standing in something a stallholders' Bichon-Frize has left behind. I followed his trembling finger and saw what it was that had upset him so badly. And I have to say, it's left me
quite traumatised too. I warn you, if you're of a nervous disposition, stop reading now because what is seen once cannot be unseen. Still here? well, I warned you



It doesn't look too bad from the back... it looks like what it is, in fact; a Nissan Micra that's had a bad histimine reaction and swelled up horrifically. But from the front...



I've just been sick in my own mouth again. If anyone out there can still read through tears of horror and spasms of uncontrollable laughter, know then that you're gazing in loathing at the detestable and disfigured shape of a Nissan Mitsuoka, a Micra-based "homage" to classic Jaguars. That is all you need to know, the pictures speak for themselves. Just pray you never see another, especially not in real life. It's even uglier, believe me. This one was being marketed as a "Jaguar with reliabilty". Yeah, it reliably makes people openly laugh at you in the street...Yours for only four and a half grand. I kid you not.

So, me chuckling at Rich's un-soothable outrage, we left behind the museum and the autojumble for another year and made our way up the muddy gravelled path to the overspill carpark (read; "field"), stepping over rivers of muddy red water that ran along the path. Footsore, tired, wet, but happy and burdened down by pointless trinkets and weighty tomes, it had been another top day out (pompous patronising fools notwithstanding). Even at the top of the hill, the car park kept on giving, and I had to pause to take those last few snaps. After all, it's not often you pass a Pontiac Eight sat in a public car park



all the way from Germany, I believe as well. Impressive stuff!



There were still plenty of cool cars dotted around but in all honesty I was spent. There was just enough energy left to take one of our own transport, Safka the little FB. I was feeling quite well disposed towards her as she'd made the trip without complaint, and more importantly without catching fire like the last time I'd driven her any distance



so that's it for another year. Thanks for reading, as always, it was good to have your company. Now, go away

[ian65]

Probably your best show thread to date on here Nik.... laugh out loud funny and some great cars. Great post
I keep meaning to go to this but something always seems to come up to stop me.

[spirit r]

Thank You! Great work. Love the high quality pics you make.
Wished can placed the license plate in the same way here in germany.

Mini.jpg

[myatt1972]

Superb as always Nik, good of you to get pi** wet through so we could all stay dry

[Lucky]

Cheers, guys. In all honesty, I wasn't tooooo wet, I had he sense to wear a coat, lol

Thomas, we're not really supposed to put a license plate there in the UK either, but it's one of those things where as long as it's more-or-less the correct size and there obviously isn't anywhere else to put it, the Police usually turn a blind eye. For example, I've had one on my FD that's completely the wrong size and in completely the wrong place for years, but not yet got a ticket for it, though a couple of MOT (equivalent of TUV) inspectors have grumbled and every so often a policeman tells me it really ought to be changed...