Tag Archives: Queens

Coffee, Croissant & Cars – Avenue Drivers Club

Last Sunday I had a lie in thanks to the Avenue Drivers Club meeting taking place just a stones throw from GALPOT Towers. As I wended my way down to Queens Square a few throaty exhausts wafted across the relatively still morning air and cranked up my anticipation for what I might find.

Among the vintage vehicles that turned up was this 1927 Austin Seven complete with child seats for the two young ‘uns that came along.

Possibly the largest vehicle present was this Mopar Beast a 1995 Dodge Ram 1500 V8 Magnum, a badge on the side of the cab suggested that it had passed through Regency Conversions of Fort Worth, Texas, exactly what they might have done to it I cannot say.

Another of the larger vehicles present was this 1958 Alvis TC 108G one of just 37 with elegant Graber styled bodywork.

When I first saw the car above, I paid no attention to the number plate and thought it was a 3rd Generation Camaro or even a Firebird. A closer inspection revealed it to be a 1995 AC Ace built in the UK and powered by a 5 litre / 302 cui quad cam Ford V8.

Now in far better condition than it was when it left the factory is this 1962 Lotus Elite, resplendent with the yellow cam cover of it Coventry Climax motor peeking through the bonnet. With a little luck I may be able to get some photo’s of a couple of Lotus models missing from my Saturday Lotus blogs courtesy of the owner of this car.

Continuing the theme of contrast this mid sixties 4.7 lire / 289 cui Ford Mustang and 1988 Ferrari 328 GTS present alternative approaches to performance motoring.

Strangest vehicle of the day award goes to this 2003 Cadillac De Ville, looks like a soft top but is actually a simulated soft top, the logic of which somehow completely escapes me, if you know or can fathom the reasoning for this option please do not hesitate to chime in below.

This DAX and 1983 Ford Escort RS 1600i present further contrasting performance options, the DAX is probably the newer of the two vehicles. You could have used some of the chrome/polished steel features in the engine bay of the RS1600i to straighten your hair !

Perhaps the biggest contrast of the day was provided by this 2003 SMART and the Chevrolet aluminium block powered Ford hot rod which with the supercharger boost turned right down easily produces over 600 horsepower making the Chevy powered Ford easily the most powerful car present.

I don’t recall ever seeing a Crossley, not to be confused with Crosley, before nor a Mercedes Benz C63 AMG Edition 125 which is 80 years younger than the 1932 Crossley 10 standing next to it.

While the Crossley bore some impressive patina my Patina of the Day award went to this 1924 Lanchester 23 a two ton vehicle which was more powerful and cheaper than the equivalent Rolls Royce of it’s day, was and possibly still is capable of 70 mph and has a city friendly 44′ turning circle.

I saw only two two wheeled vehicles and again they could not have been more different a 1959 Vespa and a far more recent, I’ll stop short of saying modern, Harley Davidson with all the trimmings.

Should you find yourself in Bristol on the second Sunday of the month I really cannot recommend a visit to Queens Square around 9 am for Coffee, Croissant and Cars highly enough. As everyone was preparing to leave David Roots kindly offered me a lift home in his Alfa Romeo 4C Special which made the perfect end to a morning of strong contrasts.

Thanks for joining me on this “Coffee, Croissant & Cars” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

The Misfit – MG C GT Sebring Replica

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During the endless mergers that took place in the British motor industry after 1945 many models like today’s MG C GT owe more to merged corporate parts bins than to fresh from the ground up planning.

The rational behind the MG C roadster and GT models was too build a vehicle to replace the six cylinder Austin Healey 3000 whose ancestry can be traced back to the Austin Healey 100-Six launched in 1956.

The recipe for the new MG-C was to use the MG B body shell first seen in 1962 and fit it with the 3 litre / 183 cui six cylinder Austin C series motor that was more commonly found in the Austin Healey 3000 sports car and Austin Westminster saloon/sedan.

Unfortunately the cast iron block C series motor has 2 cylinders more than the motor around which the MG B was designed around and the C series motor was a good deal taller than the MG B 4 cylinder. This meant the chassis cross member that held the 4 cylinder motor had to be replaced, the front suspension strut suspension replaced with torsion bar suspension, the front bulkhead had to be modified and when all was said and done to accommodate an automatic transmission option the engine was not placed as far back as the engineers would have liked to achieve a 50/50 front rear weight balance.

The new MG C also had to run on 15″ wheels in order to keep the oil sump off the ground, but all in all the engineers were pleased with their 120 mph creation which had a respectable 53/47% front to rear weight balance.

Unfortunately the press panned the car in essence for not being different enough from the MG B but also because they found the handling tended towards understeer / push. It has been noted in some circles this characteristic may well have been exacerbated by the fact that the MG C was so much smoother than the MG B that journalists might not have been aware of the speeds they were traveling when experiencing the understeer push phenomenon.

Completely oblivious to the handling criticisms Prince Charles took delivery of an MG C in 1967 and this car has apparently been passed onto Prince William. The car seen here has been turned into a replica of the triple carburetor MG C’s raced at Sebring in 1968 and 1969, though the tailgate spoiler was not used by the works cars of 1968 and 1969 which were racing in the same class as full blown racing cars like the Porsche 907 and 908 models.

Of the 9002 MG C’s manufactured between 1967 and 1969 4458 were hard top GT’s. With the merger of British Motor Holdings with Leyland owners of the Triumph brand in 1968 the Triumph TR 6 was chosen as the newly merged corporations 6 cylinder sports car of choice and so the MG C died an early death, though in 1973 an even larger, but much lighter, engined MGB GT V8 would appear.

Thanks for joining me on ‘The Misfit’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Coffee, Croissant, Vintage & Classic – Avenue Drivers Club

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The Avenue Drivers Club was formed in 2009 by a small group of enthusiasts of cars that will do at least 100 mph and the Avenue Café on Queen Square, Bristol. Every second Sunday of the month they meet at 9 am at Queen Square for coffee and a chat.

Being Bristol the 100 mph criteria is not strictly adhered to, as I found out yesterday when I was pleasantly surprised to find several interesting Vintage vehicles, like this 1925 Talbot 10/23, which would struggle to reach that 100 mph speed under their own steam.

Like wise The BSA Ten powered by a twin cylinder air cooled engine from 1925/26 would struggle to reach 100 mph and if it did the owner would not know about it as his speedometer fell out on the way over to the meeting.

Not too sure what the function of these accessory is it appears to shine red yellow or green lights forwards and rearwards and one was mounted either side of a 1933 Morris Cowley. If you know what purpose these lights were designed for please chime in below.

GALPOT regulars may remember this Austin 10 choking on a clothes peg from an earlier blog, turns out the full name for the car is Austin 10/24 Ripley Sport. This car is thought to have been first owned by the Debyshire County Constabulary in black.

Despite my many recent Tuesday MG blogs I have not yet been able to establish exactly what model MG this nifty little 1936 racer is, if you know please chime in below.

In the running for car of the day was this absolutely immaculate 1953/55 Bristol 403, the condition of this car really has to be seen in the flesh to be believed, I can imagine this car will still be turning heads in 60 years time.

Another vehicle falling into the sub 100 mph bracket was this 1962 Austin Gipsy a would be competitor to the otherwise ubiquitous Land Rover this one with a 110″ wheelbase. There was also an immaculate Series One Land Rover and an early ‘proper’ Range Rover in attendance.

Representing Triumph was a 2000, 2500PI a GT6 and this 1966/67 TR5PI which rather took my fancy.

At the more powerful end of the scale was this 1969/70 Aston Martin DBS, with an even more powerful Ferrari 365 GTB/4 parked up behind it.

Among many things I learned yesterday was the existence of Fisher cars, I mistook this for a Ginetta G4, it is actually a Fisher Fury powered by a 1 litre / 61 cui motorcycle motor.

Car of the day was without doubt this K1 Attack, another vehicle I had never heard of before which originates from Slovakia and is powered by a Honda Type R engine. Sundays blog will reveal more about this car. Only 4 are thought to exist in the UK and this is the only one with RHD.

At the end of the meeting which lasted a very short 3 hours David Roots, who told me about the Avenue Drivers Club a couple of weeks ago kindly gave me a highly entertaining ride home ‘aboard’ his unique Lenham ALFA Romeo.

My thanks to David and everyone else who brought out their pride and joy I simply did not have time to include in today’s blog, can’t wait for the next meeting on the second Sunday in May.

Thanks for joining me on this Coffee, Croissant, Vintage & Classic edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l pscho on tyres, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

12 04 12 Errata I originally had the cool white car down as a Attack K1, it’s actually a K1 Attack and it is not powered by a motor cycle engine but a Honda Type R, apologies to all concerned.

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring

Tag Archives: Queens

Coffee, Croissant & Cars – Avenue Drivers Club

The Misfit – MG C GT Sebring Replica

Coffee, Croissant, Vintage & Classic – Avenue Drivers Club