This is a very cool idea: The Old Car Manual Project. It’s an online collection of scanned brochures and manuals for outdated cars and trucks. From their about page: “First and foremost, the Old Car Manual Project is a library: a central place where anyone can come to get the information they need.”

I believe Riley to be one of the more interesting marques of the pre-war period and some cars are especially lovely. Witness the Sprite, current from ’36 through ’38. An example:

You can see this and many Rileys at Rob’s Riley Pictures.

Just a quick note to say I spent an inordinate amount of time reading and enjoying the restoration story of one of GM’s “Futurliners.” They’re pretty ungainly looking, but it’s a great story and there are a million photos.

What a great way to have something fun to do in retirement…get together with friends once or twice a week and restore a piece of motoring history.

This is just about one of my favorite motoring photographs–it shows Raymond Mays, an excellent British driver before Hitler’s War, reacting to his car’s loss of a wheel on a hill climb. Mays later went on to found BRM, a manufacturer of race cars designed to bring the Grand Prix championship to the English. He was also, in the euphemism of the day, a “lifelong bachelor,” quite talented in the dramatic arts.

Bourne was the home of Mays and there is a most interesting site about the town and its history: Bourne, Lincolnshire, England in Words and Pictures by Rex Needle.

Mesa show celebrates American fondness for British sports cars

I’m possibly the only person in the world bothered that this article, ostensibly about British cars, is headed by a photo of a rather nasty kit car, about as British as schnitzel. I guess there is no accounting for taste.