MOTOR-BLOG from Coventry

Yep, I’ve seen another one. This one was parked up at my local shops as I was driving past on Friday. Usually when I see these cars they are on the move, so this one was too good an opportunity to pass up. I parked the car, grabbed my camera and bounded over to the car to get some close up pics.

This kinda worked. Rear three quarters - check. Rear shot - check. Then I made my mistake - I went for an interior shot before grabbing a front picture - big mistake. The test driver inside spotted me as I made my move to grab a pic of the interior architecture and promptly drove off.

So there we are - I’ll be doing it differently next time and make sure I get a frontal pic (although it was pretty heavily disguised anyway). So what is it? Well having recently had a Hyundai test car myself, I’d say that it was one of this ever-improving breed - perhaps an i-30. But it also sort of looked like a Mitsubishi.

I’d be interested to know what you think and I am already preparing to stand corrected!

Yes I know it may seem crazy to travel almost 300 miles round trip to go to a classic car show, but hey, that’s what lifes all about isn’t it? I jumped in Susan (with repaired gearbox - see staff car sagas in the upcoming October 08 issue of Practical Classics) and headed on my merry way.

Now I’m not one usually to praise the hellish road that can be the A14, but first thing on a Sunday morning it isn’t all that bad. So with a four speed 1596cc Vitesse at my disposal and a large straight empty path of tarmac ahead of me, I thought I would see what she could do.

Now I’m not recommending that anyone ever breaks the speed limit, but eh, what the hell - no-one was around and it was perfect conditions. Having taken a Triumph Acclaim (manufacturers claimed top speed 92 mph) to over a hundred on the de-restricted autobahns of er, France, I was keen to beat Triumph’s claim of 89 MPH top speed for the Vit 6.

Mission accomplished. I have no idea of how fast I was actually going officer, as Susan’s speedo gives what can be best described as an approximate indication of velocity between two given speeds - i.e. ‘How fast are we going Neil?’ Answer? ‘ Well between 55 and 75 mph according to the speedo.’ You get the picture.

Anyhow, obviously I didn’t maintain such heady speeds for long. This is beacuse of many reasons. Firstly, the rapidly rising temp gauge, secondly, the obvious danger to my personal health and thirdly, speeding tickets and all of that boring legal stuff that the constabulary seem to be so interested in these days.  

So what have I learnt from this experience? Well not much really, except that Triumphs PR men were obviously gentlemen, or blind, or not very good at their jobs. While every other manufacturers at the time my Vitesse was built were giving wildly innaccurate claims about their products (Jaguar, I’m looking at you. 150 mph out of a standard production E-Type? I don’t think so…), those lovely folks at Fletchampstead Highway were being all coy about the performance of their cars.

Oh and one more thing - the 1600cc Triumph straight six sounds great when you get it over 5500 RPM. Grin!

The Boston Classic car show was good too - if you’re around the area for the next one - or if you’re not like me - I can heartily recommend it. Roll on next year…

It was my Birthday last week, so I took a couple of days off work to go camping down in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are so close to us here in Coventry, that I hadn’t thought to go there for a fews days R and R before. Silly isn’t it?

The thought of going away but only driving for around an hour was both a blessing and a curse. I like driving you see, and the journey is an integral part of the holiday experience for me - how would I cope knowing that if I’d left something important behind rather than just doing without, I could comfortably jump in the car and go home to retrieve it?

Well very well as it turns out, despite it feeling a little strange at first. So Helen and I loaded up Susan the Vitesse, and off we went - but not before I’d removed most of the tools and spares that I routinely carry around with me to make room for sleeping bags, a modest tent and a fine selection of tinned comestables. 

Oops. Not a good move as it turns out, as I was soon pulled over on the side of the road between Stow On the Wold and Bourton on the Water with no gears…

It would seem that a battle is going on for supremecy of Henley Road in Coventry - the two opposing forces? The Police armed with hand held speed guns on one side, unwitting motorists who have creeped a few miles an hour over the speed limit on the other…

I myself went through a speed trap there a couple of days ago. I was quite angry about it at the time, as the policeman in question was tucked away behind a telegraph pole and was not  visable - I thought that they had to be seen easily?

Anyhow, nothing came of it as it was just him. I found out today that they have to physically stop you to give you a ticket if they have clocked you using a hand held speed gun - it is not a camera as far as I’m aware, just a speed indication device.

Well anyhow, tonight I went through the same spot and it was like a war zone - police were everywhere, which made the guy with the speed gun pretty obvious I can tell you. I drove through at 23mph, much to the chagrin of the BMW 1 series driver behind me who couldn’t see what was going on in front - partly because he was about four inches off my back bumper…

The Beemer driver was darting to the right at every opportunity trying to pass me, but luckily for him and his driving licence there was a steady stream of traffic coming towards us. There is a part of me that thinks I should have pulled over to let him through though…