I’ll have an update on the shop and the GT in the next few days, I hope, but in the meantime, here’s the poster I designed for this year’s All British Field Meet in Bellevue, Washington.

I agreed to help my friend Steve by building the web site, online databases, various other software pieces and doing the graphic design for the meet. Steve was clueless generous enough to take up the mantle of organizing the show after Arnie Taub passed away–and is doing a bang-up job.

This year the show honors 80 years of the MG Car Club of England, and 50 years of the Jaguar E-Type. By coincidence, I have an E-Type which is 50 years old this November, though at this juncture I’m pretty sure it will not be running by its birthday. I had hopes a few months ago, but my to-do list is so long with things not E-Type that I just don’t think I’ll be able to find enough time to get her back on her feet by then.

You can learn more about this year’s show at abfm.com

Everyone has been posting the excellent youtube clip featuring the overview of the 1967 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, so I thought I’d post this equally excellent walk-through with the legendary Jackie Stewart, circa 1971 or 1972.

My friend Jim has decided to sell off a lot of his model car collection, and I couldn’t resist a few despite not really being a model collector, per se. Having purchased a few “regular” models (ie, the kind you can buy in a store) from his stash, I asked about this one, my favorite: It’s a scratch-built resin model, made by the man himself, in about 1:24 scale.

To my eye the best models are those that are evocative, even if that comes at the expense of being detailed–perhaps they’re evocative because they aren’t detailed. This particular example really captures the spirit of the machine.

I was thrilled when Jim said I could take it–it’s now easily my favorite model.

Had a great time this afternoon with my friend Matt at the combined Flying Heritage and Historic Flight “Round Engine Day” at Paine Field. The main event was a series of fly-bys: FH’s P-47 Thunderbolt and HF’s Tigercat and Bearcat. As a bonus, we got to see quite a few more aircraft in the air: B-25 bomber, North American T-6A, A-1D Skyraider and some Chinese-built Yak clones (at least that’s what I think they were). After the flying, we visited the new Historic Flight “Kilo-6″ museum and came away quite impressed. Lots more photos after the jump.

Before the festivities began, one of the new 787 Dreamliners claimed the runway.

Grumman F8F Bearcat from Historic Flight, taking off.

Grumman F7F Tigercat taking off. These are all seriously large aircraft, you could walk under the nose of this plane.

There were three of these Chinese-built Yak clones flying today.

While we were watching the official show, the Mitchell B-25 “Grumpy” came trundling out to join in the festivities, unexpectedly (at least it was to us).

The Bearcat, Tigercat and Thunderbolt in flight.

Thunderbolt “Tallahassee Lassie.” The P-47 was known as a “cadet killer”–so powerful that it’s very difficult to fly if you haven’t much experience, I gather.

Tigercat with “Grumpy” waiting on taxiway.

B-25 lifting its nose gear during takeoff.

After the flying (seemed!) to be done we went and visiting the new Historic Flight “Kilo-6″ museum. The collection is nowhere near as extensive as the Flying Heritage Museum, but you can walk right up to all of the aircraft and poke around (without touching, of course). This is their Waco UP7F biplane. All of their exhibits and aircraft were immaculate.

This is their P51B Mustang “Impatient Virgin?”–the ladder was placed so you could go up and take a peek in the cockpit.

This is their North American T-6A. It flew earlier in the day and we just caught it landing as we pulled up for the main show.

“Grumpy” was open to visitors. The flight deck was off limits, but I poked my head up into the various access hatches. This is not an aircraft for the claustrophobic. Brave men flew these, I can’t even imagine.

The B-25 was nicely shop-worn.

Cockpit of the Mustang.

As we were leaving, we found this A1-D Skyraider just taking off, so we stopped to watch it do some fly-bys.

We viewed the flights from the west side of the runway and had an enjoyable time. You miss out on the engine start and commentary from the museum staff, but the planes are quite a bit closer and it was not very crowded. In all, a very enjoyable day!

This is my new favorite car, the 1905 Darracq which took the world land speed record at over 125 MPH. What an extraordinary machine, a car distilled down to its essential elements. I read about it in this month’s Octane and have spent the past few minutes watching clips on youtube. Kudos to Mark Walker for driving it on the road and for restoring an already “restored” car to as original a condition as he could get it.

Went over to watch the Flying Heritage Collection’s Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fly on their “Battle of Britain” day last Saturday. It was just spitting (appropriate weather for the occasion), but I took the Triumph anyway, to make short work of the long summer ferry lines (motorcycles are allowed to bypass the queue). This proved to be a soggy decision when the skies opened in earnest on the ride back. (“Bah, I won’t need rain gear” was my thought before departing the house. Oops.)

I opted to not pay for museum admission this time ’round, as I’ve been in a couple of times recently–I was on the other side of the chainlink with the hoi polloi.

The Daytona–parked here by the fueling shed, which would be a suicidal place to park the BSA–is not running well at low speeds. Best guess is a coil pack on the fritz. The bike runs well above 3,000 RPM but is misfiring on a cylinder below that, intermittently (which, oddly enough, doesn’t trigger the “check engine” light). It makes slow speed riding a chore. Hopefully should have it sorted out soon.

What a great pair of airplanes! The Spitfire is a prettier and more capable aircraft, but I find the Hurricane my favorite, for no reason I can articulate. The Collection doesn’t scratch fly days unless the cloud ceiling is below about 1000 feet–though I suppose if it was tanking down or there were high winds, that would also keep the planes inside the hangar.

They ferried the pilots out to the aircraft in this very nice MG YT, which is probably a ’49. I guess MG was ready to introduce the “Y” series just before the war when Hitler put the kibosh on that, so it’s reasonably appropriate. I think we can all agree the wheels are a sign the owner possesses sublime taste.

Had an enjoyable time at the vintage races at Pacific Races on Saturday. I didn’t unsheath my camera all that often but was thrilled with the three vintage Alfas, including the machine Nuvolari drove to victory in the 1935 German Grand Prix, widely considered the greatest drive of all time.

Nuvolari’s GP-Winning Alfa

Maserati 300S

Another P3 Alfa with fabulous patina.

Innes Ireland’s BRP Mk. 2

Racers…well, duh.

Lotus 23

Another Lotus 23.

Porsche 906.

Alfa Romeo TZ and Guilleta.

Cooper Type 57 and Lotus 26R.

Ford GT.

Another Alfa, probably a 2300.

Bentley 6.5 litre in the paddock.

Great period Innocenti Mini with a Mini Marcos peeking out from behind.

Alfa Junior Zagato. (The Alfa club had this large tent set up, or they commandeered it, either way lots of joking about the necessity given what happens when you mix Alfas and water…)

Dino 246 and what I think is a Ferrari 575 of some sort.

I came out of the shop tonight and found that spring has brought out the native songbirds, always nice to see an indigenous species doing well. (That’s one of Jim’s Toyota Seras being eyed by said fauna.)