Who really killed Ford Timelord?

One of my favourite blog pieces of 2019 was the final one, detailing the remarkable history of the KLF's famous Ford Timelord police car. After a year of extensive research and separating myth from fact the conclusion was that the car was most definitely dead, having been banger raced at Swaffham in June 1991 by Paul Bickers after an eventful few years in the hands of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. That seemed to be that and the case was finally closed after so many years of rumours, but now there have been fascinating further developments that shed some very different light on the situation and mean it may not be as straightforward as everyone thought...

Did Paul Bickers really kill Ford Timelord?

Not Taxed for on road use?

A DVLA enigma

The DVLA's online vehicle enquiry service is an incredibly useful tool for car enthusiasts, but every now and again something strange and undocumented will pop up. A handful of vehicles appear without one of the three standard tax statuses of Taxed, SORN or Untaxed, but instead 'Not taxed for on road use' with a green background. These are usually on static display in museums or private collections and haven't changed keeper or been used on the road for many years: XMO 412H, the World Cup Rally Maxi at Gaydon, is one example, and the Stondon museum also had several such vehicles. A number of airport vehicles kept within the private confines of the airport and not used on public roads also have this status.

What does that tax status mean? According to the DVLA it shouldn't exist!

Vehicles with this status do appear on third-party sites such as Cazana that only include those taxed or SORNed in recent years, but the various government websites don't even acknowledge the existence of this mysterious fourth status anywhere, and it has puzzled myself and other enthusiasts for some years so I'd like to know what purpose it serves and why certain vehicles are recorded in this way.

A model Model 70!

The annual London Toy Fair takes place in January and is traditionally the venue for Oxford Diecast's announcement of new models for the year. As usual, there is a large and diverse crop with something for almost everyone, but one real surprise in the 1/76 Oxford Automobile range of special interest to me. Regular readers will know of my interest in invalid carriages but I never thought these rather esoteric vehicles would ever be modelled by any of the mainstream diecast manufacturers. I'm delighted to be proved wrong though!

Corgi's 2020 vision

A Happy New Year and Happy New Decade to all my readers. As has become customary, I'm starting 2020 with a review of Corgi's recently-announced bus models for this year, which were revealed on Monday. There are at least some OOC buses among the 118 announcements so that is an improvement over 2019's tally of zero, but they are once again an uninspiring crop so I won't be buying any of them, and needless to say there are still no new castings.

Who killed Ford Timelord?

It all started with a simple question: what happened to Ford Timelord? I knew nothing at all about that car or its owner but I do love a good mystery and was soon captivated by its incredible story. For those who don't know, Ford Timelord was the name of the 1968 Ford Galaxie police car (WGU 18G) owned by Jimmy Cauty, one half of the anarchic musical or artistic duo variously known as the KLF, the JAMs and the Timelords alongside Bill Drummond. The car rose to fame through their hit single 'Doctorin' the Tardis' and featured heavily in the pair's work for three eventful years but then disappeared without trace.

An icon and a very cool car but what became of it?

Rumours abound as to its fate: some say it was banger raced, some that it was destroyed by the KLF in the name of art, and others that it still exists in a storage compound somewhere waiting for the day that Drummond and Cauty resurrect it, but nobody knew for sure. As with everything KLF-related, the car's history is enigmatic and misinformation is plentiful, but after a year of many members hunting high and low and reaching out to people involved with the band, the Autoshite forum community have finally reached a definitive answer so read on to find out more about the exciting life and death of this iconic car.

Unsung heroes: Jaguar X-type

More than a Mondeo?

It's been more than a year since my last unsung hero, but the series makes its long-overdue return with the most modern choice so far. With Jaguar experiencing a renaissance at the hands of its current Indian owners, the cars built under Ford's ownership are often derided or forgotten, especially the subject of today's piece that is commonly regarded as a low point in the marque's history. Ford-era Jaguars get a bad press, none more so than the X-type thanks to its controversial platform-sharing with the Mondeo that dooms it to be forever classed as not a real Jaguar in the eyes of many. Is that really fair though, or is it so overshadowed by the Mondeo comparisons that it deserves a second chance?

Just a Mondeo pretending to be a Jag, or something more?
(Image: Amazon.com)

Put it in H!

One of my all-time favourite scenes in The Simpsons occurs in the 1992 episode Mr. Plow, when Homer looks for a new car at the 'Place of Automobiles' run by an eastern European chap called Crazy Vaclav. The latter tries to sell him a strange little three-wheeler lettered in Cyrillic and made in a country that no longer exists, telling him in a stereotypical Slavic accent it will do 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene.

What exactly is this machine supposed to be though? Many of the cars in the series are based to some degree on real vehicles, and having become very well acquainted with the AC or Invacar Model 70 invalid carriage it occurred to me just how much Crazy Vaclav's 'put it in H' car looks like a Model 70. This uniquely British model is a very off-the-wall choice for an American show, but the likeness is too great to be a coincidence so here's my take on its backstory.

A strange little car from a country that no longer exists

Happy birthday R8

2019 has been a good year for milestones in the British Leyland enthusiast community. Most famously of course the Mini is celebrating 60 years, I've already paid tribute to 50 years of the Maxi, and the Land Rover Discovery appeared 30 years ago. Also celebrating its 30th birthday is a lesser-appreciated but very significant car in the company's history, the R8 Rover 200-series, which made its debut on 11th October 1989. It became one of the UK's best-selling cars of the 1990s and even won a Car of the Year award, thus proving once and for all that the Rover Group was indeed capable of building good cars. For that, its coming of age as a classic is well-deserved.

30 years young, five of the oldest survivors gathered

Motoring Misfits: Cheetah Cars

Listing the world's worst cars has always been a fun and often controversial topic, but I'm growing tired of the same old subjects being repeated ad infinitum and instead I nominate some of my own choices that are so bad their very existence is almost unknown. I'm not going to fall into the usual clichés like the Edsel, Austin Allegro and Alfa Romeo Arna that appear on everyone else's lists, as those cars all had some merit and can be defended by enthusiastic supporters.

To find something truly awful, one has to look beyond the mass-producers to the weird and wonderful world of cottage industry kit car manufacturers. Many of these are extremely obscure, but thanks to a book I have recently purchased, the fascinating Filby Files Vol. 2 - Classic Kit Cars by Chris Rees and Peter Filby, a whole new world of bizarre and rubbish contraptions has been revealed to me and some of them make the Allegro look like a model of perfection.

The G van solution

Yesterday I was disappointed to find out that Oxford Diecast's supposedly OO scale Citroen H van was in fact HO and far too small to fit in my collection, and suggested OO modellers should avoid buying this model. I'm pleased to now report that I've found a potential solution for those who have already bought one and may be regretting it that possibly allows its use on an OO layout after all, as long as you're not hung up on historical accuracy.

H for HO

What scale is Oxford Diecast's Citroen H van supposed to be?

Here's a brief word of warning to my model-making friends - don't always believe the scale a model is claimed to be! You're probably all familiar with Oxford Diecast's large and ever-growing range of mostly excellent 1/76 OO scale models, but I've discovered to my cost that one recent addition is not actually anywhere near this scale at all...

Invacar involvement part 2: the return of TP

It's now been over a year since I had the privilege of driving TWC, the famous HubNut Invacar. You might think that would have been my last encounter with such a rare car but you'd be wrong and I'm proud to have been involved in an awful lot that has happened on the Invacar front in the last 12 months. When I first wrote about them way back in 2015 and expressed a vague hope that one day I might happen to see one, I never would have believed how things would turn out: I have seen no fewer than three other Invacars at close quarters over the last couple of months and spent so much time around them that they're almost becoming unremarkable. Here's the story behind the first of them...

No, it's not TWC but another Model 70!

An Unexceptional weekend

It's already been a month since the unique spectacle of Hagerty's Festival of the Unexceptional so it's about time I did a proper report on the event to supplement my top ten choices from the concours and classic parking. After three years at Whittlebury and two at Stowe, the FOTU moved to another nearby National Trust property this time: Claydon House, between Buckingham and Winslow. Tickets for the classic parking area quickly sold out and a high-quality selection of cars were entered for consideration in the Concours de l'Ordinaire, so once again it promised to be an amazing event and certainly delivered on that promise. Without further ado, here's my round up of the weekend's activities...

What other show would give prizes to cars like these?

FOTU 2019: Classic Parking Top Ten

Last time I looked at the cars in the Concours de l'Ordinaire, which may be the centrepiece of the Festival of the Unexceptional but the classic parking area is even more of a treasure trove and an incredible show in its own right. With several hundred cars here and things that would make you go 'wow' at any other show almost seeming unremarkable in this company it was even more difficult to choose only ten favourites, but here are my final selections...  

FOTU 2019: Concours Top Ten

Regular readers will know by now that the Festival of the Unexceptional is undoubtedly my favourite event of the year and there is nothing else that compares to its celebration of the mundane everyday transport of yesterday. A couple of weeks ago it returned for a sixth year at another new venue, still near Buckingham but now at Claydon House, and the 50-odd hand-picked cars in the Concours de l'Ordinaire maintained the usual high standards. New this year in addition was an Anniversary Class for vehicles celebrating significant milestones that was also included in the judging. After a lot of difficult deliberation I've finally managed to select my top ten cars from the judged classes... 

Motoring Misfits: Nissan Cherry Europe

It's odd how cars made in particular countries seem to share certain characteristics. Italian cars for instance are known for sportiness and good handling at the expense of reliability, whereas those from Japan are exactly the opposite, very well built but usually very dull. Combining the best bits from these two nations should therefore have created the perfect blend of Italian flair with Japanese quality, but what resulted was instead the worst of both worlds. The Alfa Romeo Arna is a motoring misfit in its own right, but it has a lesser-known twin that is even more so, a Nissan built by Alfa Romeo and rebadged back into a Nissan. How did such a bizarre state of affairs come into being?

A Nissan that's really an Alfa that's really a Nissan 

The Silver Aero

One aspect of the classic car scene I love is the element of surprise from discovering cars I'd never seen before. That's especially true when something very rare and well-known turns up in a low-key location where you really wouldn't expect to see such a thing. Yardley Gobion is one such place that isn't famous for anything at all, a pleasant village in the border country between Milton Keynes and Northampton where nothing of any great significance has ever happened. The annual Festival of Transport is a typical village show, a hundred or so cars in a field with some stalls and kids' activities, attended mainly by locals and hardly one of the season's premier events, which makes the presence of this unique car all the more remarkable...

What's that appearing in the gateway? Surely it can't be...

Life changes...

Hello to all my readers. Once again it's been a very long time since my last blog but there is a good reason for the silence. This is just a quick post to explain the changes I've decided to make in my life and how they should allow me more time for blogging in the future.

Maxi model repaint

It should come as no surprise that as soon as Oxford Diecast released their model of the Austin Maxi I embarked on a repaint to represent my actual car. Read on to discover the trials and tribulations of what should have been a simple repaint project, and see if the finished product looks anything like the real thing...

Smaller wheels make a big difference, but will it look like the real one?

Maxi model review

Oxford Diecast 76MX001 - 1/76 scale Austin Maxi in Tara Green

Regular readers may remember that almost a year ago I expressed my delight that Oxford Diecast had announced a model of the Austin Maxi. It was due for release in the fourth quarter of 2018 so I predicted I would have one in my collection by the end of the year, but Christmas came and went and nothing further was heard about it.

There's a good reason for that: the model has suffered a long delay and has only just been released last week, shortly after the real Maxi's 50th birthday. I was hoping to do this review sooner as I placed my order last Wednesday but a system glitch at the supplier meant I had to wait another week for it to arrive, so at long last and much later than expected I finally have an Oxford Diecast Maxi in my hands for a review. Was it worth the wait?

Not a bad representation of the Maxi