Innholdsfortegnelse for 1/19/2022 i Classic Car Buyer

When it comes to old cars, we all have things we get all pernickety over. Mine is number plates, which are often the subject of much discussion and have earned me a reputation in the CCB offices for getting rather too obsessive. For me, there’s a certain etiquette that has to be followed. When buying a pre-2001 car, usually from the mid-’80s onwards with acrylic plates, it always bothers me when the original plates have been substituted for ones with the narrower post-2001 Charles Wright font. That’s when the width of the characters was condensed from 57mm to 50mm to make space for the Euroflag part. Sometimes I’ve been lucky enough that the original dealer plates are still fitted and legible, other times I’ve had them replicated. If you go…

Newcastle classic car auction house WB & Sons is to host a new Sunday Club event, offering a relaxed meeting venue for all types of cars, bikes and any other interesting vehicle on the Sunday before its auctions. The meetings will be free to enter and to display your vehicle at, with the first taking place on February 6 from 10am until 2pm. The venue’s cafe will also be open, and with WB’s next classic sale taking place on the following Saturday (February 12), visitors can check out over 100 cars, bikes and other auction lots. WB & Sons’ premises can be found at Samson Close, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE12 6DX. See wbandsons.com.…

Sign up to our newsletter at www.classicsworld.co.uk The growing transition to online trading ushered in by the pandemic has meant that classic car parts can continue to be bought and sold, even during restrictive periods. It’s a process that’s become a lot more comfortable for many, with several classic auctions operating in such a manner and online used car retailers such as Cazoo and Cinch helping to normalise a lack of face-to-face contact when buying. Sadly though, scammers have also been quick to take advantage. Over the past few years, we’ve consistently reported on the high number of fraudulent classic car listings that have continued to blight eBay. However, 12 months ago we also covered how Facebook Marketplace was increasingly being used as one of the platforms to rip people…

France has officially begun an expanded test of noise-detecting cameras to crack down on excessively loud cars and bikes, The nation’s first “acoustic detector” has been switched on in Saint-Lambert-des-Bois to the west of Paris – a popular biker haunt. The Bruitparif-designed Meduse cameras consist of a 360-degree camera along with four carefully positioned microphones, and can distinguish from which vehicle any excessive noise is coming. Should a level of 72 decibels be exceeded, the camera kicks in and snaps a photo of the number plate so a fine can be issued. During 2022, the devices will also be rolled out in Bron, Nice, Paris, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Forget, Toulouse, and Villeneuve-le-Roi set to be part of the scheme. Offending bikers and drivers will be hit with a €135 fine, once a…

South Western Vehicle Auctions will host its first classic sale of 2022 on Friday January 28, and even though the catalogue had yet to be finalised at the time of writing, it already featured a great selection of vehicles ranging from pre-war entries to modern classics. The sale will take place behind closed doors at the firm’s Poole base as per usual but viewing appointments can be pre-booked ahead of the sale. The sale is a particularly strong one for traditional classics, with a lovely and very original 1957 Wolseley 1500 setting the tone with a very attractive £1000-£2000 guide price. An estimated £2750-£3750 could be enough to net a 1951 lowlight Morris Minor, while even earlier Brits in the shape of a 1934 Vauxhall 12 Light Six and a…

MGA (1955-1962) The MGA marked the start of a new era for MG in more ways than one. Not only did it restart the MG naming scheme which had by the early ‘50s reached the end of the alphabet, but the MGA was also the first sports car from the marque to properly break with the engineering and styling laid down by the very first MGs in the 1920s. After some tricky years as Triumph and Austin-Healey stole its thunder, the sleek, ground-hugging MGA saw the octagon back on form, racking up both racing victories and sales successes. For the first time in a while a factory-built coupe version was available, offering well-trimmed all-weather motoring. The spicy and smooth high-performance Twin-Cam model was available from 1958 to 1960 but only…

Writing this as the forecasters promise a cold snap for the northern half of the country, this wintry image seems appropriate. This archive image is undated, but the fact that the Land Rovers in shot are Series 1 models and have the headlights outside rather than behind the grille means they’re post May 1950 models. Since it’s a Land Rover publicity shot and the car being rescued is the Austin A40 Somerset which was launched in 1952, our guess is mid 1950s. The date is pinned down a little further by the ‘Highland Patrol’ signs on the Land Rovers, this having been formed by the AA in June 1953 to cope with the increasing numbers of tourists visiting the Scottish Highlands. We wonder though, even in the more genteel Fifties,…

Toyota could be set to trigger a game-changing approach for the automotive industry by comprehensively refreshing ex-customer cars at its UK manufacturing facility. According to a report by Autocar, Toyota GB’s President and Managing Director Agustín Martín has suggested the Burnaston-based firm will implement the process as part of its new fleet-focused mobility sub-brand, Kinto. The idea is that Toyota will extend its contact time with customers to at least to 10 years by taking vehicles back to the factory after their first use cycle of two or three years, which is the length of a typical lease contract, and refurbishing them ready for a second user. The same process could then be carried out for a third user. After that, Martín suggested Toyota will focus its efforts on recycling…

Bangers & Cash, the hit TV series featuring North Yorkshire classic car auctioneer Mathewsons, is back for its fifth series this Thursday (January 20) at 8pm, screened on UKTV’s Yesterday Channel. Once again, the documentary series will follow the antics of the family-run business as it searches for forgotten motors in the garages, barns and sheds of the nation, before taking them to the auction house. Later this year, a spinoff series filmed at The Motorist in Sherburn-in-Elmet will also hit our screens. Bangers&Cash: Restoring Classics spinoff will follow the journey of vehicles purchased via the auction before they are repaired, restored and then re-auctioned.…

After five years in operation, online automotive site DriveTribe is to shut down at the end of the month due to what it calls “significant industry challenges.” Marketed as the brainchild of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, it was first launched with fanfare in November 2016. However, despite fostering an active community and helping many motoring journalists to launch their careers, it never achieved the success expected of it at launch. After two years it was announced it had lost $16m, and despite successful fund-raising in 2020, the pandemic has not helped its cause. In a blog post, DriveTribe says tightening marketing budgets related to the ongoing chip shortage have made it impossible for the ad-supported site to stick around. The DriveTribe and FoodTribe websites and apps, and…

Manor Park Classics will begin 2022 with a new auction format, hosting a seven-day timed sale beginning on January 30 and concluding in intervals on February 6. If a bid is placed in the final 60 seconds, the time will extend to avoid ‘sniping’ and allow others to bid again. The cars are all stored in the firm’s huge premises in Cheshire, with comprehensive viewing available. At the time of writing the selection of entries was relatively small but varied, ranging in era from the early ’50s to the late ’90s. Amongst a trio of MGs are two contrasting MGB GTs – one a no-reserve running project from 1977 with much of the work completed, the other a professionally restored 1968 car estimated at £8000-£10,000. Completing the octagon-badged line-up is…

WHICH ONE? The most basic division in the world of Traction Avants is between the cars built in France and those built at Citroën’s plant in Slough. Slough-built cars are mechanically and structurally identical but had some differences to suit British tastes and customs rules. The former were accounted for by leather seats and a wooden dashboard while the latter led to the fitment of Lucas electrical parts and Girling brake components. Slough-built cars can easily be identified by the big chevrons of the Citroën logo being mounted behind the grille rather than in front of it. There is a further division: Traction aficionados prefer the pre-1952 small-boot (‘malle plate’) cars over the later big-boot (‘malle bombe’) versions and this is reflected in the values. By far the most common…

The Abingdon Works Motorsport Celebration (AWMC) is entering its third year in 2022, with this year’s display to be held as part of the BMC & Leyland Show at the British Motor Museum on July 10. AWMC is a celebration of the BMC and BL Works rally and race cars, run by the Mini Cooper Register (MCR) and the Historic Marathon Rally Group (HMRG). This year, MCR’s Warwickshire region is organising a collection of ex-Works, period competition and Works replica Minis to be displayed alongside the various period Marathon cars, including the1964 Spa-Sofia-Liege Austin-Healey 3000, BMO 93B. The Big Healey will be joined by the 1962 Morris Mini Cooper, 977 ARX, which was driven by Rauno Aaltonen and Tony Ambrose on the 1963 Monte Carlo Rally, and the 1967 Mini…

FORD CONSUL (1951-1956) Kicking off our trip back to 1950s suburbia, we have this, the original Ford Consul. Produced from 1951-1956, the Consul went on sale from £700 (or 15 grand in today’s money) and served as a big brother to the smaller Anglia 100E of 1953. Designed by Ford as a curvaceously styled four-door saloon, the Consul did later spawn estate and convertible variants, but only through coachbuilders rather than the official Ford production line. Aesthetically, it was a huge leap forward from the dated ‘40s silhouettes of cars like the Ford Pilot or Anglia E494A. Plus, underneath the car’s fresh look, there was a lot to admire about its engineering too. The Consul featured a monocoque chassis, which was still quite novel at the time, but perhaps most…

MG TA The first of MG’s classic T-type Midget line-up, the TA was first introduced in 1936. Fitted with a 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine and four-speed manual gearbox, this prominent early British sportscar produced around 50bhp and topped out at around 80mph. SINGER ROADSTER Growing out of Singer’s Bantam-based racing cars like the Le Mans, the Roadster was also launched in the late 1930s and was resurrected in the post-war years. Not as overtly sporty as the Morgan and with softer handling, the Roadster boasts a lovely overhead cam engine, better brakes and a decidedly snug rear seat. HILLMAN AERO MINX Despite making production a few years before either of the other two other alternatives mentioned here, the Aero Minx is a rarer car today. The Hillman boasts a stiffer chassis…

Named after a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology, the Chimaera is TVR’s most successful model to date. First produced in 1991, its production span dragged on into the new millennium, before finally being extinguished in 2003 once 6000 of them had been sold. In fact, beyond the nameplate, this car has plenty of its own tales and legends to share. For instance, the Chimaera’s indicator recesses are fabled to have emerged as a design feature only after Peter Wheeler’s dog had bitten a chunk out of the company’s pre-production polystyrene model. Don’t be fooled though; this isn’t a car to be laughed at. With all-round independent suspension and a specially enlarged and tuned Rover V8 under the bonnet, the Chimaera was a capable performance vehicle, with all of the intangibles…

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