Unsung heroes: CVE Omni

Travel on any modern low-floor bus and you'll soon notice a fundamental design problem. With the engine mounted at the rear, a flat floor is impossible and while the front half may be nice and low there's always an awkward arrangement of steps or ramps up to the back seats. Wouldn't it make far more sense to put the engine at the front and drive the front wheels so it's completely out of the way of the passenger compartment? Such a vehicle did exist almost thirty years ago and had the potential to revolutionise the minibus industry but sadly turned out to be a bit of a flop that has disappeared into obscurity, so I've nominated it as my final unsung hero of the year.

H389 KPY is the sole surviving Omni in PSV service
(By Pimlico Badger - EMPHAST H389KPY, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25343829)

The mysterious MilMod

I hope my readers had a good Christmas and got the gifts they wanted. I'm a difficult person to buy for so the majority of my presents were model kits from myself to add to my ever-growing stash, including a couple that are particularly unusual and not at all well documented. I thought it was worth writing something to shed a little more light on the mysterious little-known firm of MilMod, whose approach to kit production is rather individual to say the least. 

The model kit market in 1/76 scale just hasn't been the same since the demise of BW Models on proprietor Barry Wright's well-deserved retirement a few years ago. The moulds for the huge range were sold in batches to various other firms and while some former BW kits have reappeared, others have yet to emerge and their fate currently remains unknown. Thanks to a bit of detective work, some have now been traced to MilMod, with several already available and others scheduled for release next year. I had never heard of MilMod before and they seem to keep a very low profile, so who are they and what are their kits like?

Cedric's Scandinavian adventure

Here's a first for this blog, as I've been asked by someone else to write about their experiences with classic cars. This is such an epic adventure that there was no way I could say no when my friend James asked me to feature his Scandinavian road trip bringing home a rare Nissan he had just bought in Finland of all places. He spent a whole week on the road just doing his own thing, clocking up the miles and living his dream, so read on to find out how this adventure of a lifetime came about...

What a thing of beauty! I bet many of you have never seen one of these.

The Renaultvation continues

It's been a few months since the excitement of finding the Renault 6 hidden in Bob's garage and bringing it to its new home. A lot has happened since then and the car now looks very different from the dusty and forgotten relic we first clapped eyes on, although there is still a long way to go before it sees the road again. There has been a lot of frustration and the term 'because French' has been coined to describe its wilful idiosyncrasies that cause so much swearing and head-scratching, but an overwhelming outpouring of love and support from everyone who has come into contact with the car has kept us going.

It's come a long way from here. Still doesn't run though.

It quickly became the subject of the most popular thread ever on the Autoshite forum with over a hundred likes, and everyone is keen to see it recommissioned. The generosity of forum members is incredible, gladly offering advice and donating rare parts and literature to the cause for no more than the cost of postage, and massive thanks go to everyone who has contributed to the rescue of this rare car. Here's how things have progressed so far...

We're hoping it'll end up like this once more

Unsung heroes: Eagle Premier

This month the unsung heroes series returns to the USA with an especially bizarre choice that non-American readers will probably never have heard of and even Americans are likely to have forgotten. The Eagle Premier is a product of the 1980s, a dark time in US automotive history that created some frankly terrible cars, and if remembered at all is often cited as a perfect example of these with its unreliability and dull-as-ditchwater styling - a site called TheStreet.com even declared it the worst car of all time. I feel that is completely unfair: while the Premier may seem pretty boring it was actually very competent and quite innovative by American standards and I can think of cars that are far, far worse. Read on for the fascinating story behind this Franco-American crossbreed and how it should have shaken up the US motor industry. 

The perfect combination of American and European? It looks a bit like an Audi if you squint
(Image: allpar.com)

More Bobmobiles

Work on the Renault 6 continues at a steady pace and there will be an update soon. In the meantime, an envelope arrived a few weeks ago from Barry, who had been sorting Bob's photos and found some not just of our Renault but of various other cars he owned over the years. Looking at what he drove provides an interesting insight into his character: he seems to have been a Ford man originally before getting into Renaults, then towards the end of his life he had a couple of Vauxhalls. Even though he never married and spent his whole life living alone so he didn't really need two cars, there were times he owned more than one, and of course the R6 sat unused in the garage for more than 20 years while other cars came and went.

Retro Review: Ford Simulator

Although I work in the IT industry I've never really been one for games. I'd describe myself as a very casual gamer who maybe spends a couple of hours a month gaming, and I'm an impatient sort who wants to make quick progress so I tend to stick to simple fast-paced games. As a car enthusiast, naturally it is driving games that appeal most to me and nowadays there is no shortage of ultra-realistic games and simulators to suit all tastes. I grew up in the simpler time of the late eighties and early nineties though, and here I look back at a very odd, obscure and crude program (I hesitate to even call it a game) from 30 years ago that played a part in shaping my childhood.

What kind of super-realistic simulation awaits when I press the space bar?

Dream cars: NSU Ro80

You may have noticed a trend among my previous dream cars: they all have V8 engines, and let's be honest, what true petrolhead doesn't love a V8? This one is different though as it has an engine that sounds almost like a rude word and has no cylinders at all in the usual sense. Alas, that very same engine proved to be its Achilles' heel and caused its manufacturer to go bust less than 12 months after winning a well-deserved Car of the Year award.

Yes, today's dream is the NSU Ro80, a car so packed with innovations it was just too advanced for its own good and pushed the small company that made it over the brink into extinction just a decade after its launch. The Ro80 is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, something you'd find hard to believe looking at its fresh modern styling and the technology underneath, and I have long been among its admirers as it's just so radical and different from what anyone else was making at the time.

Would you believe this is a 50-year old car?
(By Spurzem - Lothar Spurzem - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8042301)

Magnum opus

The Renault Magnum in showland

If I was to ask you to name a typical British fairground lorry, chances are you'd say the classic duo of ERF and Foden, although with those marques gone for over a decade, nowadays Volvo, Scania and DAF are all making considerable inroads into showland at their expense. One manufacturer you probably wouldn't think of is Renault, and there are only a handful of this company's products to be found on the fairs and circuses of Britain.

The Renault Magnum however is one of my personal favourite types as it looks like nothing else on the road with its enormous boxy flat-floored cab and styling that must have been quite space-age at launch in 1991. My love for the Magnum no doubt comes from living in an area where my local fairs are frequently graced by at least one example, so this piece focuses on the Magnums I have photographed on the travelling scene in recent years.

A trio of fairground Magnums in one place, a very rare sight in this country

Unsung heroes: Suzuki Jimny

It has been quite some time since I wrote anything for this blog due to other things going on - I have plenty of new posts drafted in my head but just haven't had the time to write them down. Today the unsung heroes series makes its overdue return with an especially unusual and largely overlooked choice. Here is a car that wasn't even remotely advanced when it first appeared, yet has now been produced for two whole decades with no major changes. In this modern world of fickle consumers demanding new models every few years, that is really quite a remarkable achievement but has gone virtually unnoticed and totally uncelebrated. I'm talking about the Suzuki Jimny - many of you have almost certainly forgotten this ever existed so it may amaze you that at the time of writing UK customers can still buy a brand new one in basically the same form as the 1997 original!

The Jimny was nothing special back in 1997
(By Mytho88 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

BL's alternative reality - part 3

Here is the third and final part of my alternative reality that could have seen British Leyland become the pride of Britain with a popular, desirable and well-built range of cars and a world-renowned image, far from the reality of a long-extinct but still tarnished brand and its infamous lineup of failed products. Part 2 took us through the 1980s as the group consolidated the reputation established in the previous decade, so here we take up the story from the 1990s through to the present day with British Leyland still very much alive and well as a dominant force in the global motor industry. Sadly I have no Photoshop skills, otherwise I would create renderings of these cars to illustrate this article as I can picture them in my mind, but read on anyway to see how I envision BL looking today.

BL's alternative reality - part 2

Into the eighties...

This piece is another 'might have been' scenario concerning the British motor industry, which follows on from one published back in February and is best read in conjunction with it for the background to what happens here. That article proposed an alternative 1970s British Leyland range based around the Maxi and Allegro, so this one discusses what might have happened when the group moved into the 1980s as a successful and market-leading British-run company, a far cry from the tattered and troubled reality.

British Leyland, a world-famous brand entering the eighties in excellent shape

The letters game

Whatever happened to proper trim levels?

Today I want to talk about something that has quietly and almost imperceptibly disappeared from modern motoring. Not so long ago your social standing would be made obvious to the world by the trim level of your car, those little letters on the bootlid that told everyone how well-equipped or otherwise it was. A lot of people may take them for granted and not give them a second thought, but these trim levels had far more importance than their stature might suggest - they said a great deal about the person behind the wheel and, particularly in the company car world, your success in life would be judged by your peers on what badge you had. Nowadays though, these traditional hierarchies have all but disappeared in favour of meaningless names, and I for one miss the days of designations like L and GLX, whose simplicity belied the connotations attached to them.

Dream cars: Chevrolet Firenza Can Am

Vauxhall Viva meets muscle car

Today the dream cars series makes a long-overdue return with a surprise new entry. This car is pretty obscure and I have known of its existence for little more than two weeks, but even in that short time I have already developed a strong desire to own one. It is another product of the fascinating but little-known South African motor industry, although this one is far more exciting and desirable than the dull old Sao Penza I have previously featured. It's a true muscle car in the American tradition but with the benefit of right-hand drive and a more manageable size, so what's not to like? It all started with a chance encounter at the recent Earls Barton Classic Car Meet, an event pretty much guaranteed to turn up something out of the ordinary...

No ordinary Firenza - there's a ridiculously big engine under the bonnet

A year of Maxi-ing

Time flies when you're having fun, and the weekend just gone marked the first anniversary of buying the Maxi. It's hard to believe a whole year has passed so quickly, so what has happened to the car in that time? It may have been overshadowed in recent weeks by the unexpected arrival of the Renault 6, but the Maxi hasn't been forgotten. To be honest, there really isn't much to report as it just keeps on doing its thing without a fuss.

The Festival of the Unexceptional was its first outing with the new wheeltrims

The Renault 6: a potted history

By now you should know all about how we found and rescued Bob's Renault 6, but it occurred to me that many of my readers might not know what a Renault 6 actually is. It was never an especially popular car when new and is now an uncommon sight even in its native France. There are only about 20 left in the UK, many of which are fairly recent imports, so it's fair to assume a lot of you will have never seen one or even heard of it. We had no intention of ever owning one and knew very little about them, so some research was called for. What exactly is a Renault 6 and what purpose did it serve?

An odd little car and a very rare sight even in France

Renault 6 rescue: part deux

I told you last time how we discovered my late friend Bob's Renault 6 that had been hidden away for 23 years, but where I left the story the car was still in his garage and no attempt had been made to move it. We went there purely to buy some model buses and had no idea we were going to find a car, so we were totally unprepared and had no tools with us on that first occasion. Here we pick up the action just over a week later, back in Rugby with the trusty Zafira packed to the rafters with tools to deal with any eventuality, including a six-foot scaffold pole for applying some brute force should that prove necessary. Transport had been arranged, thanks to Chris of Field of Dreams fame, so our aim was to get the car rolling so it could be moved out of the garage ready for the journey to its new home.

What have we let ourselves in for and will it come out of there?

Renault 6 rescue

A genuine garage find...

Isn't it every car enthusiast's dream to open up a long-forgotten garage and find a rare classic hidden inside? That dream still comes true surprisingly often and some amazing barn finds have been discovered in recent years, but I never thought it would happen to me. We were quite happy with the Maxi and weren't looking for another classic, and certainly had no intention of buying a Renault 6 but then this one unexpectedly found us and had to be saved. Read on for the story of its discovery after more than two decades hidden away in storage...

Unsung heroes: Triumph TR7

British Leyland have far more than their fair share of unsung heroes, being the car company everyone loves to hate, and today's subject is the second Triumph-badged car to feature in this series. The Triumph TR7 is practically guaranteed to feature in all those lists of the world's worst cars that keep appearing, especially those compiled by Americans, who really seem to hate it with a passion. That's quite ironic really as it was designed specifically to appeal to the US market and the Americans mostly have themselves to blame for the way it turned out. Was it really that bad though? Yes, it suffered its share of issues and its story is one of missed opportunities and unrealised potential, but it's a surprisingly contradictory yet true fact that the TR7 is somehow both the least loved and simultaneously also the most successful member of the TR series.

Is it really fair to class this as one of the world's worst cars?

An Unexceptional new venue

My favourite event of the year has just been and gone again: Hagerty's Festival of the Unexceptional returned for a fourth year at a new and even more upmarket venue. I thought Whittlebury Park was posh, but the Festival's new home was on another level, the grandiose and world-famous National Trust house and gardens at Stowe, surroundings that were a hugely marked contrast to the down-to-earth cars. I was promoted from spectator to exhibitor too - no longer do I have to suffer the indignity of attending in a modern car as the Maxi fits in perfectly at this event and arriving early allowed it to secure a front row spot in the classic parking, where it drew a lot of attention.

What a fantastic view! What goodies can you spot here?

Photobucket's commercial suicide

A return to the subject of tech after a few months of vehicle-related posts. You will no doubt have noticed a recent major change to the Photobucket photo hosting website as the consequences are far-reaching and have single-handedly destroyed a large part of the internet through what I fear is a commercially-suicidal decision. For years Photobucket have offered free third-party hosting and thousands of people have taken advantage of this to host photos for use on forums, auctions and blogs, but they have now got greedy and decided to start charging an annual subscription of $399.99 for the privilege of displaying Photobucket-hosted images on other sites. Needless to say, there has been a huge backlash and the company is losing custom at a rapid rate, so the popular nickname of 'Photofuckit' is fully justified as angry customers give up and move elsewhere.

The most hated image on the internet right now. It's everywhere and has replaced countless photos.

Back in the Field of Dreams

The weekend just gone marked the first anniversary of the muddy spectacle that was Shitefest 2016, and it was appropriately celebrated by being back in Chris and Claire's Field of Dreams. This year's official Shitefest took place at the beginning of the month at the Bubble Car Museum in Lincolnshire, but Chris decided to hold another open day in the field for visiting Autoshite members. So it was that another small group of shiters convened on Sunday for more tinkering, visiting cars this time including a beautiful Fiat X1/9 and a smart K-reg Astra diesel estate.

Unsung heroes: Volvo F86

So far this series has mainly profiled cars, plus a couple of buses and a taxi, but I have never yet looked at the unsung heroes of the trucking world. Today that changes as I pay tribute to a pioneer that made a huge impact on the British haulage industry but lives in the shadow of its more glamorous sister model. Spend just a few minutes watching the traffic on any trunk road and chances are the majority of the many trucks that pass by will be Volvos, such is the marque's dominance nowadays. It all started from humble beginnings half a century ago when a small Scottish dealership called Ailsa Trucks imported their first Volvo F86.

Where it all began - the very first F86 in the UK

The Quest continues

More about Quest 80

I haven't had much time for blogging lately as the show season is now in full swing. Last Sunday I was back at Gaydon for the truck show, but I'm not going to do a full review this time as it was the same deal as the last two years. My star of the show last year was B.R. Whorton's near-unique Quest 80 tipper, and this time they went one better and had both of them in attendance. That meant what is probably the world's entire population of Quest lorries were in one place, and a chat with the gentleman looking after them for the weekend revealed some more information so I can add extra detail to my original piece about Quest 80.

Every Quest lorry in existence in one photo

Unsung heroes: Metrocab

Along with the red Routemaster bus, the other instantly recognisable symbol of London and British public transport is the black cab. I can practically guarantee what you're now thinking of will inevitably be the Austin FX4 or Carbodies Fairway as it later became, a classic design that roamed the streets of the capital and many other areas in huge numbers for decades.

The FX4 wasn't the only bespoke taxi designed specifically to meet London's peculiar requirements though; its main rival may be much less famous and doesn't have the same quintessentially British image but carved out a formidable reputation among cabbies and gave many years of reliable service so I have nominated it as this month's unsung hero. I'm talking about the Metrocab, a vehicle that was an excellent taxi in own right but is very much overshadowed by the iconic nature of the FX4 so it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

Looks like the offspring of a Granada and a Range Rover but much more modern than the FX4
(By Mic from Reading - Berkshire, United Kingdom - Reading, Berkshire - UK, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38713195)

Willington Classic Car Show

The late May bank holiday weekend can be a busy time for classic car owners, with no shortage of events throughout the country. My friend Mervyn organises a biannual show in his home village of Willington, near Bedford, so this was my destination yesterday. It is an informal event with no admission charge and no pre-booking, except for commercial vehicles to ensure space is available, so cars came and went throughout the afternoon and there was always something new to see. He estimated there was a record attendance this time of over 200 vehicles, and it was a very pleasant way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.

 

Dream cars: Rover SD1 estate

BL's greatest missed opportunity? 

I like estate cars. I don't really know why but I just have a fascination with them and often find them more attractive than the saloon or hatchback on which they're based, with a few exceptions of course. I also like the Rover SD1 for its radical Ferrari-inspired styling, so combine the two and it's highly likely that the result will be greatly appealing to me. British Leyland's troubled history is littered with cancelled projects that might have been great but never saw the light of day for whatever reason, the advanced mid-engined Rover P6BS and Capri-rivalling Triumph Lynx among others. Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of all is the proposed SD1 estate, which would have been a formidable rival to the big Volvos, Mercedes and Ford Granada and ranks highly on my list of dream cars.

How I wish I could own one of these...

The end of Little Chef

You may remember my popular piece on the decline of Little Chef written last year. Sadly it seems the optimism I expressed then was misplaced and things have changed completely in just a few short months: now Little Chef is not long for this world and is doomed to extinction just short of its 60th birthday. Stopping for my customary post-hospital lunch at Weston on the Green, I was disappointed to find notices on the counter saying they would be closing in just a few days' time to become a Starbucks, and talking to the staff revealed it wasn't just this branch but the entire chain that is closing down for good. Many of you might say good riddance to it, but I feel despite all its troubles Little Chef still had potential in the right hands to establish a place in today's world, and I for one will miss it. I guess I'll have to find somewhere else to eat after my hospital appointments in Oxford as its replacement doesn't serve what I call 'proper' food.

Unsung heroes: Chevrolet Corvair

Unsafe at any speed?

Today's unsung hero is the first American car in the series and another controversial choice. The Chevrolet Corvair is often cited as one of the worst cars of all time and ranked alongside such other disasters as the Edsel and the AMC Pacer, but was it really that bad? Yes, its reputation was ruined (unfairly as it turned out) by a best-selling book that condemned it as an inherently dangerous car, but the Corvair was actually very revolutionary for an automotive industry that had become set in its ways and reluctant to innovate, and inadvertently created a whole new market sector that was keenly exploited by other manufacturers. I think it deserves a reappraisal and here I present the case for the defence...

Is it really fair to call this one of the world's worst cars?
(By Charles01 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27794784)

Scrambling for Drive It Day

Bicester Heritage is somewhere every classic car fan really must visit. Based on the former RAF Bicester site, this unique place is a mecca for vehicle enthusiasts and aims to be the UK's first business park dedicated to classic motoring, hosting car clubs, workshops, dealers, storage facilities, driving experiences and much more. Sunday 23rd April was the national Drive It Day and one of Bicester Heritage's three annual 'Sunday Scramble' open days held in January, April and October, and being just a few miles from home it was a nice little run for the Maxi. It had been a couple of years since I last visited, and both the site and the event have grown massively since then. It has been suggested that more than 4000 tickets were sold and the majority seemed to be for exhibitors so there must have been well over a thousand cars on display.

When did you last see a Vauxhall Viceroy? This bland-looking saloon was one of the rarest cars there.

A trucking good Easter

For most people, Easter Sunday is a time of rest and relaxation. Not for me though as I headed to Jacks Hill Cafe near Towcester for their annual Vintage Truck Gathering. Having never been before, I was expecting a small event featuring a couple of dozen vehicles, but was amazed to discover around a hundred trucks in attendance, covering all eras from pre-war to the early 21st century, along with a lot of motorbikes and a handful of classic cars and light commercials. The event started at 9am and I arrived around 11 to find cars parked all along the verges and the place teeming with people and vehicles.

Trucks everywhere as a Ford Transcontinental squeezes out

Tiddly Truck is alive!

...plus more Citroening

The weekend I recently spent with Chris and Claire wasn't all about the Oltcit, but seeing that was a reward for a successful day's work in the field of dreams. You'll probably remember the Tiddly Truck and our failure to get it running on the two previous occasions, but we weren't prepared to give up on it so the main purpose of our visit was to have another go at this. I can report some good news: it may have taken three attempts and a lot of tinkering, but it is now alive and moving under its own power at last!

This is how we left the Tiddly Truck last time. Getting closer but still not running.

Oltcit oddball

I have previously mentioned my friend Chris's love of all things Citroen, and this weekend I was able to get up close and personal with what to me is the star of his collection, something so unusual in the UK I doubt many readers have ever heard of it, yet alone seen one in the flesh. Alongside several Visas, he also has a rare example of what the Visa could have been: the Oltcit, also known as the Citroen Axel. Those names probably mean nothing to you, but the Oltcit is significant as the last pure Citroen design devoid of any Peugeot influence. It wasn't even built in France though - read on to find out more about the peculiar story of this curious little car.

It could only be a Citroen design, but not one you'll recognise

Driven to disaster: the Andrea Moda story

A new Formula 1 season has just begun, and to be quite honest I won't be bothering to follow it as I have long since lost interest in this now very clinical and costly sport. Instead, I'm looking back 25 years to a time when there were so many drivers competing that a pre-qualifying session was necessary just to trim down the numbers in qualifying proper, and all sorts of hopeless outfits wasted their time and money getting nowhere. Against some very stiff competition, the particular team I'm looking at are widely regarded as the worst ever to grace the sport. Life may have had the worst car, but did at least manage to turn up at every meeting with it in working order, something this team had difficulty with, although unlike Life they did actually once start a race. I'm talking about Andrea Moda, an outfit so staggeringly inept they have the dubious distinction of ending up getting banned after less than a season for bringing the sport into disrepute.

Andrea Moda really didn't belong in F1

From Unexceptional beginnings

Hagerty Insurance's annual Festival of the Unexceptional has already become one of my unmissable highlights of the car show season in its short existence, and I reported on the 2015 and 2016 events at the time. Its history goes back one more year though, as the very first Festival took place in 2014 before I started this blog, so here I'm going to look back at that inaugural 'Concours de l'Ordinaire'. Held at Whittlebury Park on Saturday 26th July 2014, the same weekend as the nearby Silverstone Classic, it appears to have originated from a realisation that there are so many shows for valuable and exotic classic cars but nothing for the bread-and-butter cars of yesterday that in many cases are actually now much rarer than the exotica.

A rare and exotic classic car. And a Porsche.

Unsung heroes: Nissan March Super Turbo

For the month of March, what could be more appropriate than a car called March? Everyone must know the Nissan Micra (or March as it's named in Japan) and it's definitely not an obscure car, but I must admit to being totally unaware of this particular version and have my friend Matt to thank for telling me about it. As soon as he mentioned what was under the bonnet, something you really wouldn't expect from such a car, I knew it was worthy of inclusion in the unsung heroes series, so here's the story.

It may look like a barried up Micra but there's something very unusual under the bonnet (image: Nissan)

The Volkswagen Group may be making headlines with their twincharged TSI engine range featuring both a turbocharger and a supercharger and claiming this to be a 21st century innovation, but this technology's first use in a production car was actually three decades ago in a limited-run and largely unknown high-performance version of the Nissan March. Here in the UK the Micra has an unglamorous reputation as the car of choice for pensioners, driving instructors and pizza delivery boys, so the Super Turbo will make you look at it in a more exciting way, but sadly it was sold only on the Japanese domestic market and is virtually unheard of in Europe.

Modelling the holy grey grille

Bringing the Hornby Sierra up to scratch

I haven't written about model vehicles on this blog for some time, so here's the story of a recent project that has kept me busy for a few hours and turned a piece of rubbish that most people wouldn't give a second glance into an accurate scale model. I work exclusively in 1/76 scale, the same as OO gauge model railways, which is well-served for bus and lorry models but not so much for cars until recently, and the subject of this piece may be nostalgic for those who modelled modern-image railways in the 1990s.

The old plastic Ford Sierra made by Hornby was just about all you could get at the time but doesn't seem to have much potential to make a decent model from first impressions and is now all but ignored as it is so inferior to the model cars now available. Don't write it off completely though: with a bit of hard work, as I have proved here, it can be transformed into something that wouldn't look out of place alongside the new generation of diecast cars. The car I have chosen to model is well-known in certain circles and its fascinating story has already been told here, so read on to find out how I replicated it in this small scale... 

A Hornby Sierra that actually looks like a Sierra, and the all-important grey grille is in place

Unsung heroes: Bedford JJL

Most of the unsung heroes I have featured so far are cars, but the very first one was a bus and today I return to that theme. It's fair to say the Dennis Dart is one of the major success stories of the bus industry, bridging the gap between minibuses and full-size single-deckers and creating a whole new class of vehicle, but a similar bus could have appeared on the market over a decade before the Dart's 1989 launch. This was the Bedford JJL, an innovative rear-engined purpose-built minibus that was first revealed in prototype form back in 1976 but never reached production, and in many ways was a Dart before its time.

Bedford's biggest missed opportunity or the right product at the wrong time?

Making more of the Maxi

British Leyland's alternative reality

 

As a fan and owner of the Austin Maxi, I have spent some time thinking about why it didn't achieve the success it deserved. BL didn't really know what to do with the Maxi and basically pushed it to the sidelines, but with a different attitude it could easily have formed the very heart of the range and spawned many more variants. One of the biggest reasons I came up with for its failure was the simultaneous existence of both the Maxi 1750 and the 1800 Landcrab, which seemed to be a pointless duplication that did nothing other than create internal competition, as the latter was basically the same car but with an older engine and without the benefit of the fifth gear or hatchback. This realisation provided the starting point for an entire train of thought that could have changed the course of British Leyland's history for the better!

The Maxi could have been so much more than this dumpy unloved hatchback

Had the Maxi been used as a direct replacement for the Landcrab, the Princess would then become redundant and extending this thought a little opens up the possibility of its place being taken by a whole series of Maxi-based cars using all of the E-series engine variations that existed in reality, from 1500 right up to 2600cc. The existence of these additional Maxis would then cause other models to develop in a more logical way to fit around them, rationalising the range and providing full market coverage that was equivalent to Ford, with the Allegro and Escort, Maxi and Cortina, and SD1 and Granada pairings all being direct competitors. Here's how things might have turned out in this alternative reality... 

Dream cars: Panther Six

Four wheels good, six wheels better?

How many wheels should a car have? Most of you would agree that four is the right number but there have always been those people who think differently. There was never a more extreme expression of this idea than the absurd six-wheeled Panther Six, the closest thing ever made to a real-life version of Lady Penelope's FAB1 and something that wouldn't look at all out of place in a Gerry Anderson show. Normally I like subtlety and understatement in my favourite cars and don't go for showy types, but I can't help admiring the Panther Six for its sheer audacity: it is unashamedly vulgar and designed purely to attract attention, and is a magnificent monument to 1970s excess so I would find a place for one in my dream garage.

What do you do when four wheels just aren't enough? (Panther press photo via AROnline)

Public transport, the Equality Act and the Supreme Court

A bad combination?

 

I have previously discussed my feelings towards the Equality Act as it applies to buses on this blog, and a recent development has reinforced my concerns about the appropriateness of the rules when it comes to achieving proper and justified equality. It relates to the shared bay on modern low-floor buses that can be used both by wheelchair users and those with babies in pushchairs and reached all the way to the Supreme Court. While not making it a legal requirement to give wheelchair users priority use of this bay, the court's guidance strongly implies they have a greater right to it than any other group by indicating that bus drivers must do more to persuade other users to vacate it than simply asking them, for instance by rephrasing their request as a mandatory requirement or refusing to drive on until they have complied.

As long as this remains a shared space that multiple groups have equal entitlement in law to use I can see no possible way to resolve a dispute such as this in a fair manner that doesn't discriminate against either party, so true equality cannot therefore be achieved and the result of this case seems inappropriate and poorly thought out with insufficient clarity and not enough legal substance. While bus operators claim to welcome the new guidance, in reality they have no choice as any public criticism of it would itself cause them to be labelled as prejudiced against the disabled, but as an observer outside the industry I have a number of serious misgivings: it sets a dangerous precedent that implies the disabled are entitled to greater rights than others and is likely to have far-reaching consequences to wider society, not just within the bus industry. 

Unsung heroes: Jensen FF

Four-wheel-drive isn't just for off-roaders anymore and its use in road cars is now commonplace.
Everybody knows this idea began in 1980 with the Audi Quattro, which was the world's first four-wheel-drive performance car and is hailed as one of the biggest revolutions in automotive history, right? Wrong! That honour actually belongs to something rather less famous that was introduced some fourteen years earlier by a small-scale British manufacturer and is both an unsung hero and a dream car to me.

I'm talking about the Jensen FF, which was not only the first four-wheel-drive production road car but also the first to be fitted with anti-lock brakes and traction control, and introduced all this technology more than fifty years ago. If it was so impressively innovative, why isn't the FF better known and more revered in the annals of history? Read on to find out why this remarkable car just didn't make the impact it deserved and left Audi to lap up the applause over a decade later...

An all-wheel-drive performance car 14 years before the Quattro

Dream cars: MG ZT 385

One genre of car that fascinates me is the 'sleeper' or 'Q car'. I just love the concept of a subtle and understated performance car that looks for all the world like an ordinary bread-and-butter model and doesn't shout about its power but can give other drivers quite a shock. A great example of such a sleeper is the V8-engined MG ZT 260 and I certainly wouldn't mind owning one of those, but since we're talking ultimate dream cars and don't have to be realistic, I'll go for the full-on but sadly stillborn supercharged ZT 385 to put in my fantasy garage instead.

It looks nothing special but appearances can be deceptive

New year, new model buses?

It's the beginning of a new year and a good time to look at what may be in store for 1/76 scale model bus collectors such as myself in the near future. Apart from the noble exception of Oxford Diecast, 2016 was a disappointing year for diecasts, with Northcord and Britbus virtually invisible, Corgi suffering financial problems and the near-loss of EFE. I bought no more than two or three new diecast releases during the entire year and the majority of my new additions were resin kits from the growing band of cottage industry producers who have a very different business model but seem far more willing to invest in new products. So far it looks like 2017 won't be much better, with Brexit having had an adverse effect on production costs in China, but I'm still hoping I might be proved wrong and something exciting will unexpectedly appear.