Vintage Cars

[AbbaDatDeHat]

As did the rest of us who cherished the marque.

Wasn’t sure if your post was said tongue in cheek, Robert.
But…in a couple years that MG Cyperstar will (should) get lost in a parking lot!
B

 

[GHT]

Original 1947 poster.

 

[GHT]

Wasn’t sure if your post was said tongue in cheek, Robert.
But…in a couple years that MG Cyperstar will (should) get lost in a parking lot!
B

You might think that this photo is "contrived." Believe me, it's not!

 

[Gary in NC]

View attachment 644926

TC0699, 0670, 0682, 0683, 0684, 0685, 0686 rolling out of the factory on their way to police service.

View attachment 644925

MGTC0341, 0342, 0343, 0344, 0355, 0346 being delivered for police service.

TC's were police cars? Wow - I can't even imagine that, but I like it

 

[GHT]

TC's were police cars? Wow - I can't even imagine that, but I like it

Restored TC. An original police car. https://www.classicandsportscar.com...finest-private-collection-classic-police-cars
Ernie Jupp served as an officer with the Metropolitan Police from 1970 until 1994, and his collection reflects both his time in service and the development of the patrol car in the UK.

The oldest car of Jupp's fleet is the 1947 MG TC above, that he acquired in 2010.

 

[GHT]

Ocassionally we are asked to bring the MG along to an event that's not car orientated. Like a wedding reception or church charity bazaar. A text back with the message: "Dressed the part?" Gets an immediate: "Yes please."

On one such ocassion we were well turned out but the MG should really have had a scrub up. I said to Tina: "Look there's enough time to take it to the hand wash fellows," which is what I did. The old MG gets treated like royalty by those fellows, they really do pull all the stops out in making sure that the car gleams.

Today, looking up the car wash website to check their opening hours, I came across our car in their gallery:
https://www.pristinecarspa.co.uk/gallery?lightbox=dataItem-m0mn8ua15
Fame! I wonder if I can claim any royalties?

 

[Zombie_61]

Ocassionally we are asked to bring the MG along to an event that's not car orientated. Like a wedding reception or church charity bazaar. A text back with the message: "Dressed the part?" Gets an immediate: "Yes please."...Today, looking up the car wash website to check their opening hours, I came across our car in their gallery:
https://www.pristinecarspa.co.uk/gallery?lightbox=dataItem-m0mn8ua15
Fame! I wonder if I can claim any royalties?

I'd guess MG has that right all sewed up, but she's a beauty and you should be happy and proud to own her. The car, that is; I'm guessing your wife would object to someone saying you own her.

 

[GHT]

Searching for something else, I came across this 1935 Mercedes Benz, it was called 540 Roadster. Perhaps it was the style of the period but it was reminiscent of another 1930's car, that of the MG WA Drophead.

 

[Zombie_61]

View attachment 694745
You might think that this photo is "contrived." Believe me, it's not!

That reminded me of some of the trucks I've seen while driving here on the west coast of the U.S., but then I saw the "MG" badge and realized it's probably a smaller version. A little research showed it was being sold only in Thailand, so, yeah, not currently sized to compete with the American "full size" market. Nothing wrong with that, at least they know who their customer base is and provide a usable vehicle to suit their needs.

 

[GHT]

The Duesenberg was more a work of art than a practical car. Much as I would like to own one, the practicalities of such a car on this side of the pond, leave it where it's best left, in my fantasies.
You could spend a whole day polishing those chrome spoked wheels then one trip out and they are filthy again!

 

[Fading Fast]

View attachment 734156 View attachment 734155
The Duesenberg was more a work of art than a practical car. Much as I would like to own one, the practicalities of such a car on this side of the pond, leave it where it's best left, in my fantasies.
You could spend a whole day polishing those chrome spoked wheels then one trip out and they are filthy again!

Which is exactly why the people who could afford them had "staff." We average people were buying Fords and Chevys.

Still, you're spot on - they are works of art.

 

[GHT]

View attachment 694745
You might think that this photo is "contrived." Believe me, it's not!

Now this is definitely contrived, can you imagine the insurance quotation?

 

[Edward]

Looking good Scotty. Those wheels bring back a reminisce. When I was in the market for a classic car I hankered after one of those little MG sports cars that you always see a Spitfire pilot driving in war movies.

View attachment 616316

Now my lady wasn't against the idea, however she did point out that her being asthmatic, airborne pollen and open top cars weren't exactly a sensible mix.

View attachment 616317

The solution, a hard top version. That's how we come to enjoy having a classic MG.
The reason that your wheels brought back that reminisce is the wheels on both of the above MG's. How I loved the little car's wire wheels. That is until one day, at some classic show somewhere, I saw a car with wire wheels that had suffered from that day's weather. The car owner told me that it took the best part of two hours to get wire wheels looking pristine, then just one drive later and they are filthy again. Do you know, the wheels on my car don't look too bad after all. Ten minutes with soap, water and the hosepipe and they are good to go.

Top one's a T series, isn't it? Nice, certainly, though as you note much less practical. There's a lot to be said for a hardtop that doesn't let the rain in, and that you can lock and leave while you go for lunch without having to keep an eye on it at all times.

As to the wheels... I think the real answer to the problems ofc chrome is stainless steel and a power hose.... though tbh I typically prefer the standard wheels. Growing up around the pre-war car scene, I came to the view that too many people chased after all the bells and whistles of the high end options, when often the cars that people actually drove back in the day and that look more 'real' were the "standard" appointments. And as often as not they were standard not only because they were less expensive, but because they were far more practical and not everybody would have wanted one with the "upgrades"... Alas, that scene is very much dying out now, my Dad tells me. With my mother's condition he no longer has the time for the garage and doesn't get out much - it's not like the days when a run in the Austin 10 (or whichever car he had at the time) was a regular family outing. Apparently, though, it just hasn't kept up with the generations. Mix of factors. There was an element of snobbery I remember even in the 80s of people who wanted to exclude from runs cars that were new when they started to learn to drive in the 60s, though the real killer, way over and above the 'fun' of double-declutching, has been nostalgia. The scene in the Six Counties was never about anything other than the cars (one guy who turned up dressed period for his car I remember being openly mocked for it), so tended to be dominated by nostalgia for cars that people remembered parents and grandparents driving, or sometimes that they learned to drive in . A few years ago my dad had a Ford Pop sidevalve (the old sit up and beg, pre the 100E that put a party dress on the same underpinnings) becuase he learned to drive in one of those. Now that the mainstream of the car scene is all young fellas my age (er...youngish. Forties and early fifties....), the fashionable stuff is XR2s, TR7s, and I've even seen a bit of a fashion for MkV Cortinas. Legend has it there are fans of the Sierra Cosworth. Eeps. I worry about what will happen to a lot of beautiful, pre-1960 cars as my parents' generation passes and there isn't a new generation of buyers for them.

Greater age of course has had a few advantages for these cars. Back in the eighties there were those who considered it a hanging offence to have anything other than the original engine block in there. Now at least some cars that would otherwise have been chopped for spares will survive because there's more room for 'replacements' in the dwindling hobby.

^^^^^
My GT6 had wire wheels when I bought it. I was happy to swap them out for stamped steel wheels. The bolts that held the splined hubs were an exact fit for the replacements, so it was an easy swap. I sold the wire wheels and splined hubs and knockoffs to a guy restoring his car.

Oh, or anything post-960 I'm totally Rostyles FTW when it comes to wheels. (I think they called them the Magnum 500 in the US?)

My cars, those that have had names, because not all of them have told me their names if they had them, have been males.

For those of with with English as a first language (and therefore not linguistically predestined to ascribe masculine and feminine pronouns to certain objects), it does fascinate me how the characteristics of different things (and what things) we perceive with that sort of animism. We did have names for some of our family cars growing up, usually male. My guitars I always named; I had acoustics called Nancy and Marilyn. Two Marilyns, actually - the first Monroe, the second Whirlwind (a First Nation character in northern Exposure). My electrics were mostly male, until my Telecaster. Not all of them have a name - back to your concept of them "telling", with which I identify. Thinking about the things that give me that impression, it really puts me in mind of how arbitrary so many of our cultural perceptions can be . Interesting line of thought.

My daughter posted this to Instagram and I thought how cool is it that of all the cars at this past weekend’s Birthplace of Route 66 Festival my SIL would fall for a car that has been familiar to me for over 50 years. It belonged to a childhood friend’s Dad and now, with his Dad’s passing, is his to cherish and show. A lovely 1938 Plymouth.

View attachment 632971

Lovely motor. I wish they'd make cars that looked like that now. The PT Cruiser I suppose nodded in that direction, though I'd like to see the vintage style taken further. The Hindustan in India was something of a step further.

What a lovely car, how did I miss it? Shame on me.

View attachment 643018 View attachment 643016
One of the indicators on my MG went missing recently. Missing is a euphemistic word for stolen. Getting a replacement hasn't been easy. I thought that they were a: "One size fits all makes." It appears not. But the MG Car Club came to the rescue and now the car has two "trafficators" once more.

I was always fascinated by those. Dad had them in the Austin 10, but preferred to use hand signals as he figured that most modern drivers wouldn't know to look for them.

View attachment 664122
This is the new MG sports car.
Known as MG Cyberstar. The
UK price is around £60K.
What will it cost as a classic in
50 years from now?

Will any of them last that long? TBH, with most cars since the 90s being largely impossible to work on for all but marque-specific experts (and increasingly so much of them software driven), I'm not sure we'll see many of these cars existing as hobby indulgences at all, certainly in vastly lesser quantities than, say, a Minor 1000 in the 90s.

As did the rest of us who cherished the marque.

Oh, I think that horse bolted long ago...

View attachment 761729
Now this is definitely contrived, can you imagine the insurance quotation?

I was about to say if that were any uglier, it'd be a modern day Ferrari, but....

I never quite got these. It's like the Porsche SUVs..... ugly, ugly, ugly - they should stay in their lane. It eventually dawned on me that they're not aimed at the same market as a "proper" Ferrari. These are for the guys who owned a Ferrari in their youth when they could just about afford one. Now they're married with kids and need a Practical Family Car, and they cant afford to keep the Ferrari of their youth as well, but still want to think of themselves as a Ferrari driver. It's the poor rich man's equivalent of transitioning from an MGB GT to the MG Metro. Just as crass as the Ford equivalent, but doubtless double the price to buy - and run.

 

[Jon Crow]

Top one's a T series, isn't it? Nice, certainly, though as you note much less practical. There's a lot to be said for a hardtop that doesn't let the rain in, and that you can lock and leave while you go for lunch without having to keep an eye on it at all times.

As to the wheels... I think the real answer to the problems ofc chrome is stainless steel and a power hose.... though tbh I typically prefer the standard wheels. Growing up around the pre-war car scene, I came to the view that too many people chased after all the bells and whistles of the high end options, when often the cars that people actually drove back in the day and that look more 'real' were the "standard" appointments. And as often as not they were standard not only because they were less expensive, but because they were far more practical and not everybody would have wanted one with the "upgrades"... Alas, that scene is very much dying out now, my Dad tells me. With my mother's condition he no longer has the time for the garage and doesn't get out much - it's not like the days when a run in the Austin 10 (or whichever car he had at the time) was a regular family outing. Apparently, though, it just hasn't kept up with the generations. Mix of factors. There was an element of snobbery I remember even in the 80s of people who wanted to exclude from runs cars that were new when they started to learn to drive in the 60s, though the real killer, way over and above the 'fun' of double-declutching, has been nostalgia. The scene in the Six Counties was never about anything other than the cars (one guy who turned up dressed period for his car I remember being openly mocked for it), so tended to be dominated by nostalgia for cars that people remembered parents and grandparents driving, or sometimes that they learned to drive in . A few years ago my dad had a Ford Pop sidevalve (the old sit up and beg, pre the 100E that put a party dress on the same underpinnings) becuase he learned to drive in one of those. Now that the mainstream of the car scene is all young fellas my age (er...youngish. Forties and early fifties....), the fashionable stuff is XR2s, TR7s, and I've even seen a bit of a fashion for MkV Cortinas. Legend has it there are fans of the Sierra Cosworth. Eeps. I worry about what will happen to a lot of beautiful, pre-1960 cars as my parents' generation passes and there isn't a new generation of buyers for them.

Greater age of course has had a few advantages for these cars. Back in the eighties there were those who considered it a hanging offence to have anything other than the original engine block in there. Now at least some cars that would otherwise have been chopped for spares will survive because there's more room for 'replacements' in the dwindling hobby.



Oh, or anything post-960 I'm totally Rostyles FTW when it comes to wheels. (I think they called them the Magnum 500 in the US?)



For those of with with English as a first language (and therefore not linguistically predestined to ascribe masculine and feminine pronouns to certain objects), it does fascinate me how the characteristics of different things (and what things) we perceive with that sort of animism. We did have names for some of our family cars growing up, usually male. My guitars I always named; I had acoustics called Nancy and Marilyn. Two Marilyns, actually - the first Monroe, the second Whirlwind (a First Nation character in northern Exposure). My electrics were mostly male, until my Telecaster. Not all of them have a name - back to your concept of them "telling", with which I identify. Thinking about the things that give me that impression, it really puts me in mind of how arbitrary so many of our cultural perceptions can be . Interesting line of thought.



Lovely motor. I wish they'd make cars that looked like that now. The PT Cruiser I suppose nodded in that direction, though I'd like to see the vintage style taken further. The Hindustan in India was something of a step further.



I was always fascinated by those. Dad had them in the Austin 10, but preferred to use hand signals as he figured that most modern drivers wouldn't know to look for them.



Will any of them last that long? TBH, with most cars since the 90s being largely impossible to work on for all but marque-specific experts (and increasingly so much of them software driven), I'm not sure we'll see many of these cars existing as hobby indulgences at all, certainly in vastly lesser quantities than, say, a Minor 1000 in the 90s.




Oh, I think that horse bolted long ago...
View attachment 762063



I was about to say if that were any uglier, it'd be a modern day Ferrari, but....

I never quite got these. It's like the Porsche SUVs..... ugly, ugly, ugly - they should stay in their lane. It eventually dawned on me that they're not aimed at the same market as a "proper" Ferrari. These are for the guys who owned a Ferrari in their youth when they could just about afford one. Now they're married with kids and need a Practical Family Car, and they cant afford to keep the Ferrari of their youth as well, but still want to think of themselves as a Ferrari driver. It's the poor rich man's equivalent of transitioning from an MGB GT to the MG Metro. Just as crass as the Ford equivalent, but doubtless double the price to buy - and run.

And beautiful dashboards with classy clocks, my grandfather had a few classic cars, jaguars, a sunbeam rapier, last a triumph dolomite sprint in canary yellow

 

[Edward]

And beautiful dashboards with classy clocks, my grandfather had a few classic cars, jaguars, a sunbeam rapier, last a triumph dolomite sprint in canary yellow

The Rapier was a nice motor. One of my favourites of all the cars dad had over the years was a Sunbeam Talbot, I *think* a 1950 model if memory serves. Beautiful motor; prewar looks with a decidedly postwar oomph under the hood. We did a few shows in that car across the 90s, and Dad drove my brother and I to the latter's wedding in it in 2002. I think of all of them, that's the one I'd most like to have had now.

 

[GHT]

Edward made a good point about security and hard top cars. This Jaguar was very popular back in the day. They cost a ransom yet the open top was the choice of car thieves due to it's accessibilty. That Jaguar, was the car of choice for both the police and the villains they chased after.

Edward also mentioned today's car's aesthetics " ugly, ugly, ugly" is the term he used. He's not wrong The car's above were those of Sir William Lyons' days when he was the head honcho of Jaguar cars. Nowadays Jaguar cars look like this.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 762091
Edward made a good point about security and hard top cars. This Jaguar was very popular back in the day. They cost a ransom yet the open top was the choice of car thieves due to it's accessibilty. That Jaguar, was the car of choice for both the police and the villains they chased after.

Edward also mentioned today's car's aesthetics " ugly, ugly, ugly" is the term he used. He's not wrong The car's above were those of Sir William Lyons' days when he was the head honcho of Jaguar cars. Nowadays Jaguar cars look like this.
View attachment 762096

Those new Jags intrigue me. I can ort of appreciate the shape as a sci-fi, brutalist, futurist take on what we think of as a Jag, and certainly there's a lot worse out there. Where they lose me is the tech for tech's sake. Granted, I still think of power windows as a frippery, but I really don't care for the total dependency that model has on cameras and tech for reversing. Sure, they're a nice edition I would imagine (parallel parking always gave me the willies; it's the one thing I learned for the test and have never done since. Reversing into or out of a parking space with two cars side by side to you rather than end to end wasn't part of the test in my day.... I've actually never done it, believe it or not), but the idea of having no back window and being utterly dependent on them gives me the willies. Around the time I did my driving test, Dad had a Renault 19 fastback. You could see nothing out of the back window - totally down to the mirror when reversing. Dad used to love driving up the hill of our driveway at the time, then - with people who hadn't experienced it before - reversing back down the hill, apparently not looking where he was going (but obviously using the mirror). Back in my driving days (I have still driven less in the thirty-two odd years since I did my tests than I did in the two weeks before it, and not at all since early 1999), I hated being dependent on powered anything that could be kept manual.

As to Jags, though, obscene fuel consumption aside, the one I always fancied was the original S type. Basically a MkII, but with a slightly longer wheelbase, which by repute made them much better handling when driven in anger, and the most sought after of getaway cars. In London traffic these days, I doubt handling the car at any speed is likely to be much of an issue...

 

[GHT]

Those new Jags intrigue me. I can ort of appreciate the shape as a sci-fi, brutalist, futurist take on what we think of as a Jag, and certainly there's a lot worse out there. Where they lose me is the tech for tech's sake.

Jaguar cars were, once upon a time, the first choice for most police forces around the country. A search for the car that has inherited that mantle for police choice showed that police selection is very much a mixed bag.

The Tesla electric car features on many a police force fleet. Reading the assessment, it would seem that battery life is more than capable of meeting police demands.

Speeders in Dubai have little chance of out-running their police when the cops are in one of these insanely fast police cars.

 

[Harp]

I once owned a '94 XJS Jaguar convertible with an India Six engine that gave fifteen miles to
the gallon of British Petroleum Super Unleaded premium. But I knew what I was getting into when
I bought it, and the ride was worth all cost and Quaker State #4 oil periodical pour.

The book to read is Anton Myrer's The Last Convertible. Harvard, World War II, and the car throughout.

And, Inspector Morse with the late great John Thaw. Seeing Morse stop to buy a cassette of classical music, then returning car unwrapping his purchase before inserting tape to play, and the music or opera filling
inside recess. Absolutely fascinating man and automobile set Oxford.

 

[GHT]

And Morris Garages wept

An MG truck. William Morris would turn in his grave.