My final mag 2018 kaylee

BHP rake

orse

ower

March 2018 ÂŁ2.30 Issue 12 For the driver, for the passenger, for the race.

INSIDE Southern Swap Meet We ask the Fortune Tesla what’s in-store Are you Car Show ready?

Car Diaries

Contents page Southern Swap Meet

Pages 6 and 7 We braved the rain and ventured out into Essex to take a look at the southern Swap Meet for you.

Letter from the Editor With both swap meets under our belts and Easter weekend in sight, for most the season has begun. The April Fools Run will be our first serious event and after the winter we’ve all been through I’m sure it is more than welcome.

I know that it shouldn’t be long now before we are all sat in a field, in Old Warden for example, eating our burgers and batting away the summer insects, soaking in the smell of petrol and suncream. In this month’s issue we take a look through the car diaries and shine a light on some of the hard work people been doing over the long cold winter. We take a look into the highly controversial and topical issue of the future of custom and classic cars in an electric car future where diesel and petrol cars are ‘banned’. Then finally we try and help to get people car show ready.

Event lisitings

Page 8 Find out what Car shows are on. Where to be and when. Be there or be square.

The future of classic cars

Pages 9 With the ban on petrol and diesel cars looming we take a moment to think about how this could effect classic cars.

How the Ban on grid girls changes the future for F1 Page 10 Hints and tips to read before you hand over any money.

MOT change legislation

Page 10 An update on how the new MOT legislation chnage could effect you.

7 things to think about before buying a classic car Page 11 Hints and tips to read before you hand over any money.

Next week...

Page 11 See what's instore for next week's issue

Car Diaries

Pages 4 and 5 A look at some of the finished projects and masterpeices from around the country.

4 hjhughr 5jnhjnh 5kjngfjng

Car Diaries Every week we take a look at some of the finished projects from around the country.This week, we look to Hillingdon for three beautiful cars that are the products of hard work.

Model: 1972 mk1 escort 1300 L.base

Owner: Mark Wellington from Hillingdon Engine: Currently running a 20lt 16v twin cam Vauxhall red top engine on twin 45s.carbereters.

Extra: Type 9, 5 speed gearbox. Lsd. Fully adjustable suspension.

Quirks: Due to the vauxhall engine, Mark has the stick ‘Fraud’ made up in the bonnet in the style of the ‘Ford’ logo.

Mark had previously restored another escort as photographed above. He used this as inspiration for the build of the new escort.

“I purchased the car in 2010 for £300. With the intention of building it for a fella in Ireland. But I decided to keep it for myself as a project.”

Model: 1956 Chevy 210 Wagon

Owner: Gary Howard from Hillingdon Engine: Currently running a 350 Chevy CI 5.7 litre Build: Gary has spent many years of time and effort on this car. He has put a full red and white leather interior in. A digital dash, chrome tilt steering column with power steering. These make for a really smooth nice drive.

Power brakes, big ally rad to help things cool, a four barrel carbretter and a stay less exauhst.

The wheels are Budnick 8x17 front and 10x18 back.

"I had a yellow truck before and I wanted something new and different or rare, that's why I chose this. There's only a handful of these in the country."

Model: 1948 Ford Coup

Owner: Andy Gardener Engine: Currently running a V8 Flathead Extra: currently has the original 6V electric system but Andy plans to change this to an updated 12V This car was originally used by American salesman in the 50’s due to its large boot. This meant they could fit all of their stock in the back and fold down one of the two seats to make a bed if needed.

The car was majorly restored in America where Andy bought this for the equivalent of £13,000 including shipping fees. After some more restoration Andy plans to sell this at the Brooklands festival of speed.

“It just struck me as something different, I usually buy and import American cars to sell, and I like the ones that you don’t see a lot over here”.

Signs hosting hilarious phrases as far as the eye can see.

A number plate to top all number plates. The sale of this is an exciting opportunity for all Ford Pop owners.

The noise that stole the show, this yellow truck was boasting a V8 engine.

The more entrepreneurial of the crowd chose to use their body for marketing purposes.

For sale to good home, blue Chevrolet pick-up truck.

Half the crowd were clever enough to bring trailers and trolleys for their purchases.

Another beauty up for sale, despite missing window’s sold for a hefty amount.

These filthy discs could someday become perfect for somebody’s project.

NSRA Southern Swapmeet Essex For many down south the start of the season kicked off this month.

We looked through the piles of metal to find you the highlights

E

very year the southern swap-meet marks the start of the season for car enthusiasts in the south.

With forecast heavy rain there was a worry that in the open outdoors setting of the Essex Raceway Arena few people would brave the elements.

However, the rain had come and gone within the first half hour and people were left to enjoy their morning, whether this be for part-searching, catching up with old friends or to just enjoy an old fashioned ‘mooch’ around the mud.

The mud and cold weather made for an interesting terrain for everyone’s trolleys and more regrettably, their trainers.

There was a laugh in a crowd when a man stepped in a muddy puddle and turned to his friends and joked “Essex swap meet…more like Essex swamp meet.” The man was spot on.

The three sections, which have looked virtually the same for many years were split although had no real difference between them and probably took the average person 2 and a bit hours to cover stall to stall- although if the wind caught you that could be cut down by about half.

As most who go to either the southern or northern swapmeets’ will know, these meets are not the typical car shows with shiny motors, ice-cream vans and the occasional parts stall – you have to wait till at least April for those.

These meets are specifically for parts and a catch-up. The overall aim is to help you prepare for shows like those mentioned and ‘ease you in’.

Metal parts covered the ground for as far as the eye can see and everyone was looking for a specific part they’ve

needed for months which they hope, happened to be hiding in someone in Kent’s garage and available for less than a fiver- that’s the dream anyway.

On offer were things like polish and special car cleaning cloths which are always iluminous yellow for some reason. Toolkits, NRSA merchandise and memberships, mechanical equipment, screws of all shapes and sizes and parts you didn’t know existed, some shiny and new and some covered in grease.

The variety of products on sale appears to be increasing year on year. Now, more than before, fun stuff like the humorous signs that people usually have in their man caves and garages have slowly crept into the lines of stall holders.

But not only those, around 5 separate large stalls selling the Dinky, Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars that have become collectables were spread around the ground which seems to be a growing number. It seemed as though all stall were selling and doing well so there is clearly a demand for this sort of thing.

Perhaps just a similar interest for the majority age group in attendance.

The few cars that were on show were up for sale and the almost all of those were listed as ‘projects’ rather than finished masterpieces. However, the

rumbles of an exception to this could be heard across from one ground to the next. The stand out was a bright yellow Landrover Explorer which had just been finished this February and boasted a 4.9L Fuel Injection. The owner from Royston in Hertfordshire had been working on this for just two years as a retirement project to stop himself “seizing up at home watching too much Loose Women and Judge Rinder”. After turning up to him blue, chose yellow and black after his grandson described the noise of the engine as like an “angry bumble bee”, which he liked. The truck was up for sale and snapped up by lunchtime for an undisclosed amount.

Most years there’s something small but special that attracts everyone and creates a beautiful buzz that travels through the crowd and this year was no different. Something that certainly attracted attention and buzz was the return to sale of the number plate registration and rights ‘V6 POP’. Up for sale at £3,500 ONO the number late is no doubt a dream for any Ford Pop owner.

Every year this event is cold and windy, you can almost guarantee a spot of rain and consequently muddy shoes, but the atmosphere is amazing. It doesn’t compete with shows like Peterborough nationals in the way of impressive shows, high tech engineering and shiny cars.

However, it does have a few burger vans, some diamonds in the rough, often a needle in a haystack and a chance to catch-up with your ‘car-show mates’ after what has been a long and cold winter over a cup of watery tea. Here’s to the rest of the season and a long, hot summer.

Car show dates April

April 1

May

May 5

June 2-3

Saturday night special Santa Pod Raceway. www.RWYB.com

Classic & Performance Car Spectacular.

Tatton Park, Chesire WA166QN www.RWYB.com

May 5-6

AprilFools Run. Orwell to Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

Info: The Knucklebusters car club Facebook page April 4 Hot Rod Night.

Ace Café London www.acecafe.com April 7 RunWhatYouBrung Santa Pod Raceway www.RWYB.com April 13-15 AACUK Spring Nationals.

Stoke prior Sports and Social Club.

Bromsgrove B60 4AL April 20-22 AACI Open Nationals Billing Aquadrome Northants.www.aaci-int.com

VHRA Vintage nationals Santa Pod Raceway www.RWYB.com

April 28 Chevy Special Ace Café London www.acecafe.com

June 3 Classic Ford Show Santa Pod Raceway www.classicfordshow.co.uk

May 11-13 NSRA Nostalgia Nationals Santa Pod Raceway www.nsra.org.uk May 13 Total Retro Show Westmorland County Showground, Cumbria. www.totalretroshow.co.uk May 19-20 The Doorslammers Santa Pod Raceway. www.nsra.org.uk May 24 Pro Peak Performance Test & tune day Santa Pod Raceway www.RWYB.com

June 9-10 American Speedfest Brands Hatch Race Circuit, Kent www.speedfest.co.uk June 15-17 Steel City Cruisers’ Rod Run Hooton Lodge, Kilnhurst Road, Rotherham S664TE Email sccrodun@btinternet.com June 15-17 AACI Open Nationals.

Billing Aquadrome Northants.www.aaci-int.com June 16-17 Bristol Classic Car Show Bath and West Showground Somerset, BA46QN www.RWYB.com

April 22 Kent’s ALL For Ford Show Aylesford Priory ME20 7XB www.kentsalfordshow.co.uk

June

May 26-27 National Hot Rod & Custom Carshow Peterborough Showground www.hotrodandcustomshow.co.uk

June 22-24 AACUK Summer Nationals Hatton Country World, Warwick. CV35 8XA www.american-auto-club.co.uk

Fortune Tesla, Fortune Tesla, Tell me what will be of my classic car?

Photography credit: frankieleon

T

he smell of petrol and the feeling of the impressive rumble from an engine through your chest is often the experience most associated with attending car shows. Perhaps this is why thousands flock every year to the larger shows and even hundreds to the smaller ones.

But could this be soon to change?

Hot topic in the news recently has been the development of the electric car and the projection for them to replace current petrol and diesel cars. Worrying many people is where this leaves the classic cars we all know and love.

Some people believe this is just another of those crazy plans that will never work, much like the projection of the future from the ‘Back to the Future’ film series.

They assumed by now we’d all be driving around in flying cars and now that seems so silly. But back then it was a dead cert.

So will it happen? At the moment the answer is almost certainly yes. The Government have officially set out plans and decisions and the peer pressure from other countries doing the same like China and France will only increase.

The government plan is to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040.

The idea behind it is that these fuels are unsustainable- which we have been told for the last 50 years- but also because the rising levels of nitrogen oxide genuinely pose a major risk to public health. However, there’s no detail as to the boundaries and how this will impact and be in place come 2040.

Some experts and studies have suggested that, eventually, petrol and diesel cars will be banned completely from the roads if not by law but by public pressure. It may become unfashionable or outrageous to be driving these sorts of cars and knowingly destroying the planet.

So as well as the worry for cars we use now from the XJ Jaguar to the Ford Mondeo, many people are worried for their prized possessions and collections.

Classic cars such as the Chevrolet Bel Air or the 78 Camaro could transition from impressive symbols of status and hobbies to contraband and taboo.

Some people are more worried about money than public opinion. The thousands of pounds people put into their classic cars at the moment could soon be for nothing. It may be seen as a waste in years to come to throw £50,000 on restoring your Ford Pop to then be told that you can’t even drive it when the year 2040 rolls around. This may seem a little drastic but this could well be the case.

Some people are worried about the hobby that they love changing. Car enthusiasts often just love the cruise around the roads in a beautiful car and seeing the heads turn as the exhaust pulses and interrupts people’s conversations.

Although many classic car owners only drive to cars shows and back with the occasional over the ¼ of a mile at Santa Pod and home again. But as soon as you tell those that they can’t do just that they suddenly want to drive to Tesco and back in their Ford Capri.

We asked Mike Brewer, Car trader turned motoring journalist best known

for presenting his hit show Wheeler Dealers and being son of Roger Wilks, former owner of the Pinball Wizard. He feels positive about the future.

“Over the next 20 years the classic car world will be going through several changes. Prices will start to come down on the higher-end million pound supercars but the mid-ground cars (like the ones we can afford) will continue to rise around 10% a year.”

“The reason is that classic cars from certain generations are getting harder to find and almost everyone has been restored so demand will raise the prices.

Even car makers are getting in on the act with almost all the top brands now buying older classic cars and doing full end factory rebuilds and selling the cars for 10 to 20 times their original costs. So the classic and custom market is in good shape for the future. I can’t wait to be standing at a car show in 20 years’ time looking at the electric E-Type Jaguar or Aston Martin. It’s going to happen.”

Right now, nobody seems certain where this will leave classic cars and in the grand scheme, it’s still a long way off.

Maybe we just need to wait and see what happens.

How the end of grid girls marks a new era of F1 The swinging sixties represented more than just pop art and something else. One of the most recognisable movements of this era was the empowerment of women, and their journey from out of the shadows and into positions of power. But it wasn’t the rolled-up sleeve look of the wartime era, this time. Perhaps most importantly, women were not only moving into positions of power, they were doing so in a chic and glamorous manner. This era and this movement can perhaps then be symbolised by the grid girl.

It was the sixties when a Japanese model and popstar, Rosa Ogawa, gained worldwide prominence when she was responsible for simply holding up signs around motorsport events, particularly Formula 1. A simple duty, but one which attracted the attention of advertisers and promoters, and soon enough, grid girls were taking the world by storm.

The 70’s and 80’s saw a transcendence from girls holding signs to the grid girls taking centre stage. With clothing becoming thinner and tighter, these women found their prominence in an industry completely dominated and witnessed by men. Surprisingly, women in tight fitting and revealing clothes were a huge success in a sport with thousands and millions of men spectating. Who’d have thought?

Despite their growing popularity, it wasn’t until the late 90’s and the beginning of

Photogrtaphy Credit: jo3hug

the millennium that grid girls became synonymous with the sport. Big name models, such as Katie Price and Melinda Messenger, were able to launch successful and prolific careers with their history as grid girls as a platform, largely down to their airtime. Commercially, formula 1 is one of the most marketable industries in the world, and with grid girls featuring so heavily as part of this TV fixture, it is no wonder that these girls and their faces became so recognisable.

But where are we now?

With over 50 years of Formula 1 behind them and a number of significant movements empowering these women, not to mention the incredibly fruitful platform for a modelling career, grid girls are to be no more.

Why? And why now?

Over the last few months, women have been at the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. Corruption in Hollywood sparked outrage with women and for the phrase ‘Times Up’ to be echoed around the world, and not just from women.

Suddenly, women have gone from being strong and empowered in a male dominated sport to being vulnerable and under the spotlight. But this movement has not grown out of women being under the spotlight, it is the actions of one of their own bosses, similar to the scandal disgracing Hollywood.

The women will feel no threat at all, and if anything, will feel more empowered than ever before with the ‘#MeToo’ and ‘Times Up’ movements gaining significant traction day by day. But the girls are not the ones with a reputation to protect, and with a spotlight bigger than ever, Formula 1 is seemingly distancing itself from any link to sexualisation and objectifying of women.

Although no clarification of this reasoning, it seems to be the most clear and obvious reason for the ditching of one off the traditional features of the sport. Although it may be a sad time for the sport, and arguably a sad time for women, the end of grid girls marks a new era for for Formula 1. A safer era, for their reputation, that is.

Changes in MOT legislation This May, the government will change their MOT test criteria meaning not all cars will need one. Vehicles classed as ‘vehicles of historical interest’ will not be required to take the MOT test. Vehicles of interests are defined as cars which are 40 years and older which includes around 293,000 cars.

This may sound like positive news if you are a classic car owner, however the impact that this poses can’t be glossed over. Potentially this could place unsafe and un-roadworthy cars on the road, putting users in danger.

There are two arguments for this legislation change. The first is that people who have classic cars use them for short journeys infrequently and that they currently only account for a tiny percentage of accidents. The second is that the current MOT tests and criteria are difficult for classic cars to pass and is unsuited for them.

There are some very complicated parts of this legislation and the most relevant part to classic car and hot rod owners that the lines are blurred when a vehicle, over 40 years has also had a ‘substantial change’.

This means that if a car that qualifies has undergone ‘substantial change’ it may still need the MOT. If a car has undergone substantial modifications since 1988 then these will be taken into account. There is a detailed document which explains whether or not a change qualifies.

The full guidance is available online via www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/668274/vehicles-of-interestsubstantial-change-guidance.pdf

7 things to think about before buying a classic car Buying a classic car can be a big task and seem scary.

We've put together some things for you to think about first.

1

Documentation

Often, cars are more valuable with specific documentation. If the car has a particularly impressive racing history, background or owner this can add value and excitement to the car. The rare occasions are used here as lessons to be learned from. The pied piper, a Mustang 69 fastback was a hero of its day. Famous in the drag racing circuit for winning many prestigious awards and races the cars’ value sky rocketed. However, one winter the car vanished. Not like a murder mystery or who-dunnit, it just stopped appearing at meets and shows. During the mid-noughties there was an ad in the papers for a really nice Mustang up for sale for only £1500, which was cheap for this time. (you see where this is going).. A few months later this car was in Custom Car Magazine. Turns out it was the famous Pied Piper held up in someone’s barn and they had no idea. The car was valued at around £50,000 mainly due to its history.

2

Capability to restore

5

Room

This is room physically – do you have room to Before you pay out heaps of money on a car and store a whole car and on top, any tools or parts project do some research around the car and the you may need.You’re looking for a garage or parts you might need. Is it rare? Is there a specialist storage facility, sometimes you may need to pay to in the country? Where could you get parts from? rent these- which you should take into account.

All of these things will be relevant and will affect your restoraalternativley you may have a garage or somewhere. But will you tion or building work.You don’t want to shed out thousands to be happy with giving up this space? find out you can’t replace parts.

3

Value

Research, make sure you are paying the right amount for the car. See if this is something that is projected to be increasing or decreasing in value in the future. See how much things are worth. If you are thinking about money then it’s no good restoring a Vauxhall Viva at £10,000 if it’s only worth £3,000 mint in condition.

4

Rust

Some people say if you see rust, then you should run away. Fair enough, this is a red flag, but could also be a minor issue which just needs some tlc.

A pain yes, but could be a small price to pay. Again research or ask an expert if you’re doomed.

6

This car will probably cost you lots of money. Both in the buying of the car and any amendments you want to do. Are you going to want to pay lots of money? Can you afford to? Will the other people in your life or family resent this? Sell value vs the money you have put into it.

7

Next week...

The April Fool's Run. Car diaries in York.

The opening of Santa Pod's new lane.

Money

The taxi service in London using 1950's America as inspiration

Time

Car show season last around march till October and some car clubs continue through the winter.

Obviously you can choose how deep in you go and how much time you spend but if you get the bug this could take over your summer.