There is a huge thread, now over 80 pages (I think that’s 1600 messages) on a board I don’t normally frequent–I’m not really into “mopars”–about roller painting your car for about $50 in supplies, and achieving pretty good results. The pictured car was painted by said method, as was the orange bug in his photobucket album.

Results seem to be mixed, with some success and lots of “uhhh.” The folks not doing well seem to be rushing the process. It is labor intensive, as much so as the laquer jobs of old.

This is one of my favorite photographs–one of the last “works” Austin Healey rally cars on the incredibly wet 1965 RAC (Royal Automobile Club) rally. The car was driven by Timo Mäkinen and Paul Easter; this is a period publicity shot from BMC.

My friend Tom sent me a few photos of one of his cars, a 1931 MG M-Type. This is the only model of pre-war car I’ve actually had a ride in, and I’d really like to eventually find an MG or other sporting car from the period. They’re diminuative but fun and define the word “character.” There is some great information on the “MMM” cars at, wait for it, the MMM Register.

Tom’s car is really lovely, without being over-restored:

My mother’s very first motorized transport, back in Cheshire in the mid-fifties, was a brand new Triumph Terrier. She has many tales of wrapping herself in newspaper in an effort to stay warm, and of pulling into petrol stations only to find her hands were so cold she couldn’t operate the pump or make change! She only had the machine for about a year before selling it and buying a Mini Countryman wagon as her first four-wheeled transport.

P.S. I’d like to find an example of either machine to restore one day, so…

By “slightly” I mean vastly:

Speaking of Anglias, there’s one in the middle of this rather funny video. Bowling for Soup is a favorite band of mine, and this is “The Bitch Song.” They’re from Texas and goddess knows where they found a right-hand-drive Anglia down there.

Rolls Royce cars only appeal to me in their vintage form; I have no real desire to own one any later than the late 50′s. Frankly, I don’t have any great desire to own one at all, they’re just not my style. But I’d readily make an exception for the “shooting brake” in the photo. This is the true definition of an “estate car,” back when estates were actually more than a split-level house on a third of an acre. (This was taken at the same show as the Jowett.)

Chuck weighs in on my mental state, or rather, that I’m mental…what would he think if I told him I wouldn’t mind the car in the photo? I think this is the only marque to herald from “Herriot country.” One of the few cars I can think of named after a celestial body, too. Horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine. And apparently more than half of the production still exists, though it wasn’t really a success in its day.

Behold the Jowett Jupiter. It’s a rather homely device but unlike the Daimler SP-250, it wasn’t beaten until the ugly stick actually broke. (I took the photo at the Vancouver All British Field Meet in 2003, I think.)

One of my earliest memories of a “classic jag” was seeing a white Mk. II Jaguar turning into a gas station (probably on its way to the service bay, har har)…I thought it was the coolest car I’d ever seen. My father dismissed it as “something that would need a lot of work to maintain” and he also seemed to be of the impression that mere mortals couldn’t afford them. (Very smart man, my father.)
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My track record is so bad with “helping” people buy ye olde English cars that I wonder why people even consider having me along. My theory is that they want to buy the car in any case, despite any flaws we find, and know that they will meet no negatives when I weigh in with my studied opinion.
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