Fleet Carnival Cars (Maser 2nd in class shocker)

Mark A told me about this car show on the Friday before it was due to happen, as I had no idea it was even on. It turned out to be a great day, and I am just getting over my "Red Panda" sunburnt look today I think. Despite the small turnout (possibly due to the promotion of the event or lack thereof) there was a wide range of classics from Jaguars to Chevy's. Lots of interesting stuff amongst the participants, too, including an old Berliet seen here that looked and sounded very impressive:



I don't have many pictures at the moment, though there are a number of people who did take pics that I hope to be able to get hold of. A half-decent camera is on the list of "nice to have's" at the moment. This lovely Austin 7 caught the eye - these little cars always get lots of attention, they're like old Minis, Beetles, Minors and Fiat 500s, they all just seem to make you smile.



The Westfield caught Gareth's eye, very nice it was too, next to an absolutely mint, 13,000 mile from new 1972 Mini automatic:



Fantastic Porsche 911 Turbo won a prize ...



... as did the Maserati! I failed to take any pics of it and certainly wasn't expecting a certificate. 2nd in the 'Other Foreign' class was totally unexpected and perhaps left the owner of the mint Renault Caravelle soft top who only took home a Highly Commended a touch miffed, but I'm not going to complain, and I'll certainly be going back next year.

Good to see Gareth, Mark H, Mark D and some of the Bovington clan there too enjoying the weather!

I'm going to put a bit of elbow grease in for the Elvetham Heath show this coming weekend and see if I can get another honourable mention, though I suspect it will be a bit trickier :)

Petrolhead Nirvana at the Ace - July 09

So yet again I'm slack for months. Urgh, this blogging thing. Anyway there's tons of stuff to be updated on here.

I stumbled across Petrolhead Nirvana the other day, and it sounded a riot. I noticed they had a meet at the Ace Cafe coming up and so I pootled on over there this Monday just gone. Great bunch of petrolheads they are too, and I can see this is going to be a regular meet for me from now on. I had the mixed blessing of getting an easy parking spot, hiding at the back:

Of course the car park soon filled up with motors of all shapes and sizes from MX5's to a Murcielago, so I was going to be in it for the long haul:

No problem there though :) The fabulous weather obviously resulted in a great turn out and what a diverse range of machinery there was too. Lotus and the local Lotus dealer both turned up with black Evoras for everyone to have a sit in and drool over. It's probably not the greatest time to be introducing a new high-end sports car, especially at over £60k, but I'm sure it's going to sell well, given it's awesome writeups in the major motoring press and looking as good as this:

Ahh, memories ...

I saw one of these pulling out of the basement car park at work yesterday:

It's a Maserati Quattroporte IV. I was very tempted to get one of these instead of the Ghibli, because it's far more practical, but in the end decided that it was too ugly. Having now seen one in the flesh up close, I have to say it looks a lot better in real life than it does in photos.

Cheap, crappy digital cameras seem to be able to get things all out of proportion.

Anyway, perhaps it was for the best, I have enough trouble with the Ghibli's ground clearance, imagine that plus an extra foot or so in the wheelbase and that's just asking for trouble.

Also on the way back home, I followed a Ferrari 360. I can honestly understand owning a GT car like the Ghibli, or a luxury sedan like the QP over here in Australia. Distances are huge, comfort is a big factor. But the Ferarri? C'mon. The speed limit is 60mph, and the standard of the roads is pretty awful. I can't imagine that it would be a pleasant experience to drive a supercar in Melbourne. Especially given that over here, every hoon's first car is a V8 that's older than they are, and they're all going to want to try it on at the lights.

Selling a car privately sucks these days

As you know, I'm currently trying to sell my VW Bora. I've done the usual things, like advertising in Autotrader magazine and on their website, putting cards up in the supermarket and sticking posters in the window of the car itself.

It's about the cheapest 2.0 for miles around. But all I have had is calls from agencies - or "Vehicle Matching Services" - who want to rip me off to the tune of £50-£100 a time, and two people who have been rude enough to try to bargain with me over the price on the telephone without coming round to see the car.

The Agencies and Vehicle Matching Services are all about getting your registration fee in, and then they give you back a percentage of that fee if they sell the car. But, of course, if you sell the car privately, you don't ever get that money back, and if they don't sell the car, they don't have to give you your money back either. Forgive me, but I'm struggling to find any motivation for them to do any work here. It sounds like a great little scam if you ask me.

As for the two individuals who've called me, well, I'm more than prepared to do a deal on the car. But, if you expect me to bargain with you, at least be prepared to put in the effort to come and have a look at it beforehand.

If I'm buying a car, and I'm going to make an offer, I look at the car and use any deficiencies that I can see as a bargaining tool. "That paintwork's a bit scratched" or "Looks like it needs four new tyres" or "Has the cam belt been changed recently?" or "These seats are a bit worn", that kind of thing. If you've not even been to look at the car, on what basis are you suggesting I should drop the price? For all you know at this point, it could still be in showroom condition.

Argh.

But I'm left with little recourse but to drop the price anyway, and hope that someone genuine will call up now and not waste my time.

Failing that, it'll go to the auction, which really will be giving it away :(

What's happening?

Sorry I've not posted in a while. A lot's been going on in the last few weeks.

Firstly, and most importantly, my Working Holiday visa for Australia has been approved, so I'm starting to work out what I'm going to be doing for the next year. Lots to think about; I've been planning to take the Maserati with me and have some fun in that, but it looks like there's been a bit of a "Haynes Manual Moment" (you know, where it's only 3 steps to do a task but when you look closer: Step 2. Just remove the engine and then ...) in that I overlooked some of the pre-requisites for personal imports. Apparently, I may need to have owned the car for 12 months prior to import. Still working on that to see if it's out of the question though. If it is, then the car will have to go into storage. :(

The fan problem I mentioned turned out to be far more involved than I had imagined - basically the header tank in the car developed a tiny hairline crack, which resulted in coolant squirting out under high pressure after a long run. It was squirting onto the fusebox, and shorting out the fans that way. Sadly it took 2 weeks to locate the correct type of header tank (how difficult can that be, really...).

I was glad to get the car back, and headed off to make the most of a very nice day by going to Portsmouth, and having a wander around Gunwharf Quays and the Royal Dockyard. Very nice day, spoilt only by the fact that now the aircon doesn't work.

Just to really top things off, I left the car outside the day before taking it back in for the aircon to be looked at because there was building work going on in the garage forecourt and some $%^&* reversed into it and drove off without leaving a note. Damage is pretty minor, but it's a proper kick in the balls. Quotes have ranged from £600 (St George's Coachworks in Doman Road) up to £2700 from Bodytechnics (through Maranello in Egham). That was quite funny, apparently they think it will take them a total of 13 hours to remove and refit the bumper, grille and door trim. A whole 8 hours of paint prep too. Though, of course, "we are one of only two Ferarri approved body shops in the country". Riiiight - that's not a license to print money, then, is it ...

Anyway, no news from Fiorano on the aircon, I'm getting tired of them and I'm probably going somewhere else to get the aircon sorted.

The alarm has played up a bit still, but at the moment it's reset itself to factory defaults and isn't auto-arming, so I'm happy with that. If it goes wrong again I'm going to rip it out and fit a cobra system; even the local Clifford dealers have told me that they're crap and that I should bin it. Refreshing honesty I guess. :)

If anyone knows someone looking for a cheap, reliable motor, though, I'm getting ready to sell my VW Bora. It's a 2000 (W) 2.0 SE in Anthracite Grey, 5-speed manual, full service history, 94500 miles on the clock with a recent-ish belt change (at 72k). Electric Windows all round, alloys, 6-disc CD changer, 4 new tyres, rain-sensing wipers, trip computer, air-con, more airbags than you can shake a stick at, ABS and the rarest of accessories these days, a full-size spare wheel. It's been reliable over the 4 years I've owned it and it regularly returns over 35mpg (even up to 400 miles on a tank on longer runs), which is the first time I've ever owned a car that lived up to the manufacturers' figures.

Pics:

Finally, Some Pictures :)

Right, here's some pictures!

This is what I've been doing in my afternoons this week, turning the back of the garage into somewhere to keep the car:










Many thanks to those who've helped so far (including Gareth here).

Now for some pictures of the car:





It needs a bit of a wash at the moment, but hey, I bought it to use it. Speaking of which, my first experience of Italian electrics - the "bulb out" warning light came on for a while yesterday. I think it's just dodgy contacts though, as it's not been on since.

While I think of it, I've just wasted about 30 minutes rolling around laughing at this site. It's devoted to lolcats, which are basically pictures of cats with amusing captions. The captions are written in dumbed-down internet-chatroom-speak, but in most of them, it's pretty easy to get the joke, and some of them are awesome.

Oh I almost forgot. While we were levelling off the hole today we found what we thought was a brick. After snapping the handle of the pickaxe, turns out it was actually metal. And at least three feet long, and looked like a rail. As in, railway rail. Must go with all the railway sleepers the builders left under the rest of the garden I guess, but it can bloody well stay there because I'm not digging up half the street to find out how long it is.