Retro Rides Gathering 2012 - 19th August

[ian65]

epic post Nik..... how come our cameras are more or less the same yet your pictures look professional and mine look like a 5 year old took them? I'm gonna have to read the manual.... i couldn't even get the video to work on mine
There were some great cars there, plus some dross.... but it was nice to go to a show with classic cars that wasn't dominated by MG's, Triumphs and the Jaguar enthusiasts club sat around drinking Pimms.
Thanks for taking the time to post all these pics... I've got some to post up but I'm struggling to motivate myself at the moment.... need to be in the mood.

[Lucky]

I'm about halfway through and losing the will to live, Ian I took about 500 pics and these are the ones I wasn't too ashamed to post lol. And I've never worked out how to use the video function either

I do spend a bit of time with Photoshop, even if it's only a few seconds per pic just to tweak the contrast or colour. Worth the time, but it does take a lot of time when you've as many pics to wade through lol. Obviously, some of them I've spent ages screwing about with, like the balck and white or sepia/ washed out ones. Some of them you'd probably never notice, and that's kinda the idea I suppose.

For example, this one I took of the Beetle here....


...if I was a better photograher and had thought about it more at the time, I'd have composed the shot much better. But I didn't so I had to put in the time in PS instead. Knocked the background right back so it fades away, upped the contrast and downed the gamma on the Beetle itself so it pops out of the framemore, and cloned out sompletely some of the stuff that was spoiling the composition, like the bloody Toyota banner. But to look at it, you'd never know (I hope) without the original to contrast with

[Lucky]

Right, onwards ever upwards...

This Olds Cutlass Supreme made me chuckle, a great homage to Daeth Proof


Sense of humour and knowing nod to Tarantino required


Love it (not enough to buy it though, even at £850 lol)


MDK






Some more local colour... I think there should probably be a question mark after the first word of this sign, and maybe an exclamation point after the second. Maybe followed by an "oh s***!"


PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!


Volvo P1800 sooooooo stylish, just lovely




I love the deco interior and beautiful clockset


More spokes and dice. Get the point lol


Proper hardcase Pop, low squat and black. As it ought to be


...albeit this is a close second, tough lookin beastie in naked primer


Complicated instructions


One of my faves of the show (and most people's, judging by the reactions), the famous window-exit zorst, bosozuku-styled, bonkers air-horn parping Nissan Prairie. Mad genius, I salute you


Nissan GTiR Pulsar in not-eating-its-transfer-case shocker


She's a Rover. Whisky in the jar not pictured

[Lucky]

This Moggy 'vert was lovely, nice a fat juicy aubergine. And just check out that setting, what am awesome spot for a car show. Is there a more quintissentially English pic in this thread than this?


Something missing...


For such a gorgeously orginal-looking car (except the wheels) it had a few surprises that had me guessing. Like; side-exit-exhaust? Wha' go on?


I don't even remember taking this pic. Couldn't even tell you what the car is hahaha.


I do remember being impressed at this fella's dedication to ratlook, must have soaked this poor Veedub in salt for a year!


Li'l Scooby pickup makes me think of a giant-size remote-control car. Maybe it's the aerial


Loads of immaculate 'scorts were parked in back of our Exile stand. Failed to take pics of any of them, maybe I'm still in toxic shock Ford overdose from Bromley. Here's a well tidy bay though


More scene-setting


Rare beast in this little Simca. Sorta a shrunk Buick business coupe


Jesus! Its guts are hanging out! Hey, mate, your car's prolapsed it's rectum!... Oh, it's meant to be like that. Sorry


Skoda racer with it's engine in its bum. My brother had one of these briefly in the days of black and white, but it was nothing like this! (ie it was appalling!)

[Lucky]

Surely this must be a homebrew conversion? Sunbeam never made this offically did they?


Nice detail though


Can I do the Achtung! Spitfeur one now?


This Triumph GT6 moved me quite deeply. Absolutley bloody gorgeous




and whilst we're on the topic of nicely set Triumphs..


Even the radio is wood-veneered lol


Every time I see a clockset like this I wonder why anyone would want a digital LED lighty-uppy vulgar modern thing in their dash


TWR-kitted RX-7 had some presence


I'm not familiar with this one but I guess Dave Nock could tell us its lifestory...




Possibly haven't included enough funky Vauxhalls in this thread so here's one to redress the balance


Jeez, what is it with the dice? Everyone knows you should always bet on black, surely?


How about this for a setting? You don't get views like this at Satan bloody Pod lol


One last thing before we move on from the club cars to something else...]

WTF!?




No.....really, what the actual f***!?

[Lucky]

Right, moving on and I make no apologies for over-egging this particular pudding. This is a bit about my favourite of the demo cars, and I reckon you already know which one, because it's your favourite one, too. Even if you don't know it yet.

Need a hint?











I can't ever envisage a time when I'm sat thinking, y'know, my priceless classic Bentley just doesn't move me any more, I need something to, like pep it up a wee bit....












...but then I'm clearly not a glorious British eccentric in the mould of the mad genius (in a good way) who envisaged, created and is possessed of large enough cohones to actually drive....













....this....





















Yeah, because when you're bored of a classic Bentley the only sensible course of action is to wedge a 24 litre triple-bank Napier aeroplane engine into it. And then hang on


Oh my God, I love this thing so much and when I grow up I want one just like it


I could (and did) spend ages just poking around it, taking in all the little touches (as well as the whacking great big ones). From the tiny replica of the errrr.... pilot... in the grille


...to the comical decalling...


lol! Yeah, like you could drive it sensibly...


...and the collection of event cards in the cockpit...


...then move on to the engineering. Like, where the hell do you source conrods for the thing!


... and that's not even mentioning the fact that this is a Bentley, so it's got all the wonderful crafstmanship WO's boys endowed it with in the first place


....and that's all before you come back to the inescapable elephant in the room and rediscover all anew that it's got an aeroplane engine in it.


And it does this. ALL THE TIME


This is possibly my defining image from the day, a roaring fire-engine red Bentley with an aircraft engine, burning smoke from its poor tyres while a sun-drenched crowd looks on in astonishment. Honestly, these are the days that make kids out of all of us. We need eccentric geniusses like this in our world






Sir, I salute you!

[Lucky]

which brings us on rather neatly to my pics from the hillclimb. Not the best, I'm afraid, my big fat ol lens is a bit of a blunderbus to take pics in a hurry, but I did my best

In no particular order of awesome

Zed testing its brake balance


Tubby Amazon pressing on


Beetle exploiting the extra handling advantage of airbrake quarterlights


George and Mabel out for a Sunday picnic potter


Celica Supra ended in the gravel at one point, hope it was OK


Demo car V8 Cortina was a beastly thing




Castrol CRX (proper Haahhhnda colours, just like the RC45s I lusted over)


Drag 'scort put on a brave face despite being a million miles from its natural habitat


Pretty much all the Golfs turned into tripods at the hairpin. Most of them scraped as well


I know this is a crap shot, out of focus and out of frame, but I had to comemmorate the wonderful insanity of taking a Granny limo up the hillclimb


Hakosuka Skyline wasn't running at its best but sounded like the Apocalypse and is so beautiful I still feel much love




Kamei Golf pretty as a picture


Cossie YB engined Kitten... can you say "power-to-weight ratio", children?


Demo Lancia looking purposeful


I think this came past us on the M4, looked and sounded just as excellent here.


Couple of Mercs, though not strictly Retro, doing what Mercs errrmmm, don't usually do

[Lucky]

Wide-arch Moggy Minor was a thing of great beauty








More astonishing engineering on show, the Porsche flat-six underpinnings and lump shoving an unassuming splitscreen around


More traditional home for a Porsche engine, and so clean


The hillarious Prairie in full flight, Note the face on the passenger. Having fun, chap?


Shame the Quattro also needed a map and wasn't running 100%, but fair play for the owner trying it on anyway. Still looked damned fine

[Lucky]

Another Zed, making a beeline for the gravel. Got away with it, thankfully


This was the best I could do with the mid-engined Silvia but you get the idea


Mate, you've got something hanging out the backof the car.... oh,never mind


A few of Steve taking his self-built fuel-injected FB to the max








MkIII Supra had no glass at all in it! Drafty


Vitesse looked so neat and clean I couldn't resist tiltshifting it


Here it is actual size lol


Kamei Golf looked so neat and clean I coul.... ahh, you get the idea...


Escort driver must absolutley hate his car, he drove it like he wanted to crash. Well done, sir lol


'avin the craic indeed


One last one of a three-wheeled Golf


and a final reminder of how top a setting for a show it is


........and I'm spent!



One last thing, a while back I bought an Elford front bumper from Ian and he and Steve were kind enough to organise getting it to the show so I could pick it up, saved me a round-trip to Staffs for it. Except, being the idiot I am, I forgot all about it at the time I offered Madame le Jo a lift because her Ralph the RX-4 wasn't ready.

Hmmmm.... to be fair, it quite likely wouldn't have fitted so well even with just me. With the passenger seat full it sertainly didn;t have a whelk's chance in a supernova of going in. Well, some of it's actually in th ecar lol. This was how we drove back the 180 miles or so. Good job it was a beautiful sunny day. It was a bit loud though

Loud and draughty




Thanks to all those who helped with the gaffer tape and bungees. Less thanks to those who stood around taking the piss and offering useless suggestions. You know who you are. Put it upright out of the sunroof? Thanks...

Lol, top day, excellent in every respect and thanks to those who helped make it memorable. Love you long time

[codge]

Great, Great, Great......Thanks Nik for your usually immaculate pics. The ones with the valley /road climb as a scenery background seemed to be like a model village. Fab.

Black S3 TRE was sold in Wilts in Jan 2012. Seen at Brean Sands near Weston in March with new owner. I still don't know who it is or where it lives.