East of Eden(bridge)

 Today was the Edenbridge Motor Show and it was pretty good (strictly it was south of Edenbridge) - our hot weather continues even approaching mid-September, so it was a popular day out.

Lots of interesting cars:

This hotrod is actually available to hire:

You don't see many Ultima's and probably see less now that the company has sadly gone under:

Nice colour and check out the size of the exhausts:

Struggled to get this into one shot:

Possibly my fave of the day was this bicycle - zoom in to the details:

I had a reasonable run there and back; very busy but a few clear sections to have some fun. 

I've booked a long weekend to Wales in a couple of weeks, going with all my mates ie. by myself 😀. I was hoping there might be a club at the show today which I could join because it would be nice to do some runs with others but I guess a show is the wrong place; I want a club who drive, not display at shows. Ironically, my previous kit car club are doing more regular runs out (albeit a bit early in the day). One of the reasons I sold my kit car was because of the lack of activity and now, since my Porsche group have almost all sold up, I'm back on my lonesome again. 

Fitted in a quick oil and filter change yesterday, a few months overdue.

Trains and a Phoenix

 Not much happening recently - I try to drive at least once a week and I tend to go to the same old places and same routes, so I don't bore my many 1000s of fans with all that.

This weekend, I had a slightly different route ending up at the Chalet Cafe for breakfast (they do a great omelette). This was Barry with all our friends:

Strange how quiet it was, the weather was pretty good? In fact, the roads were very quiet as well and I had a fun drive. I also popped along to a local model railway society's open day:

When I was about 12, I used to volunteer at a similar place and still have a soft spot for steam engines.

I recently was a bit worried about the tramlining which seemed to be worse than before, so I checked the tyre pressures; the fronts were only 6 psi below what they should be but once pumped up, the tramlining was gone. Amazing how much of a difference a few psi makes and I need to remember this for future.

In other news, my son finally got a payout on his M4 - and he's bought it back off copart and is rebuilding it!! More details in this forum post, if you're interested.

A lot of Motion

 Another weekend, another trip to see cars - what a nerd I am. This weekend was the semi-famous Bicester Motion event, held oop norff (for me) on an ex-WW2 airfield which is now a collection of old hangars and small, shed-like engineering firms.

I'd heard a lot of good things about it, so I thought I'd give it a go. It was a good hour and a half trip if I stuck to the motorway, which I don't like doing, so my A-road version took me 2 hours and it was OK but I don't know this part of the world well enough to find the best roads, so I was stuck on the A-roads which were OK in places but too busy.

The event itself was pretty impressive; a huge number of cars from the 80s onwards (not too much before that), lots of (expensive) food and a live stage which I didn't bother with.

There were several owners clubs there, including Porsche GB:

A MASSIVE display of Caterhams:

A fair percentage of the S2000s in the country:

And a ton of modern Beemers, Ferraris, Mclarens, Mustangs etc:

Several funky oldies:

A recently restored Roller with a 27 litre Meteor engine, good for 850bhp:

Notice anything weird about this Mini?

Yup, 2 steering wheels. The doofus on the Mini stand didn't even know why it was like that - a couple of us looked it up and it might be a film car, where the actor uses one wheel while the stunt driver actually drives from the other one?

A few other beauties:

And my fave of the day - Aston Vantage convertible in Storm Purple; stunning:

I actually only spent 2 hours there, which was just about enough time to see it all. 

My return journey took me even longer as I tried to find some decent B-roads, with only partial success. A fun day out and my head is more burnt than ever.

Since my shock absorber replacements, the ride is really hard and if anything, seems to be getting harder! Admittedly, the roads in Oxfordshire seem worse than Surrey but maybe I should check my tyre pressures, not done that for a while...

Breakfast of Kings

 It's been a busy holiday period, with a wonderful trip to France (again) and a long weekend in Cornwall for my mums 80th birthday,  so little driving until today - the Goodwood breakfast club.

I've been a couple of times in the past and it is always impressive, especially as it is free and today was no exception. Part of the reason I like it is the route down there - lots of B-roads to stretch Barry's legs.

The place was heaving, with a surprisingly large number of fairly dull cars from my childhood in the 80s - Fiestas, Golf's etc. They were all immaculate so people are obviously restoring and garaging these, sorry, very boring cars 😀

But some of the other stuff - wow!!! Double figures for the number of E-types, 3 or 4 DB5s and 4s, bucket loads of Triumph Stags, TR6s, TR4s, even a TR3 I didn't know existed. I tried to be restrained and only take pictures of cars I hadn't seen before but even that meant a lot:

This is a 1950 Cadillac Healey, whatever the hell that is:

An Auto Union ie. early Audi:

Mm, mmm, mmmm - look at those bonnet bulges:

This is a Montevardi 375 - the owner was just driving off and it sounded beautiful:

Possibly my 2 faves of the day:

....and. Stanley steam powered thing - check out the controls in the cabin:

A glorious half day out with a fun drive there and back.