Historic British Hot rod for sale...

Wow. A real old school winner here:  Fotofantasy.  If you are old enough (or have a big stack of 70s Custom Car mags) then you'll probably know all about this car.  Its one of the big name show rods of the 1970s.  To see it described as a "ratrod" now is kind of an insult.  I'd love to see this restored back to how it was back in its hay-day.

How the mighty have fallen. But at least it survived.

For those of you feeling like a punt, the auction is here...

Laser technology to replace spark plugs?

You'll never need to set the gaps or file the contacts again if this tech recently developed in Japan takes off.

There is an article on this in The Register

The good old internal combustion engine just refuses to lay down and die even in the face of such well hyped technology as electric motors and hydrogen fuel cells.  Heck we've even hooked electric motors to internal combustion engines to create hybrids and some folks have successfully run petrol engines on hydrogen based fuels or even pure hydrogen.

Looking how far the good old IC motor has come since say the days of the Ford flatheads of the early 1950s I wonder where we will be with them in another half century or so, because I'm prepared to bet they are still with us then.

And I struggle with the electronics in an 1980s Pontiac.

12 year old girl is champ race car driver

I was amazed to see drag racing coverage in The Metro, albeit a very small article, but its worth reproducing here.  You can see the original here.

Anyway 12 year old lass by the name of Paige Wheeler (kind of appropriate, huh) has won the European Junior Drag Racing Championship.Paige has been racing for a year and beat competitors up to age 18.

Junior Dragsters

She now goes on to take part in the NHRA Junior Championship in the USA.  It would be pretty awesome to have a NHRA prize brought back to the UK.

Autobahns to be limited, Texas to make 55 into 85

Everything is bigger in Texas and if legislators have their way that will apply to the speed limit too.  America's fastest speed limit is in Texas currently at 80mph but deep in the heart of Texas those good old boys are looking at increasing the speed limit on state roads to 85mph.  The infamous "double nickle" 55 limit of the 1970s is dead and burried.  This comes as road deaths have been sitting at a historical low and cynics may point out that automobile fuel consumption is at a all time high. Texas is an oil state, so...

Either way the Germans are in contrast debating introducing speed limits on the free range of the autobahn for a whole bunch of reasons related to safety, congestion and environmental pressure groups.

The start of summer

Well, its only *just* spring so premature to be talking about summer already but I must admit I regard the year as being two seasons long:  Closed season and show season.  Some say that the first swallows are the first signs of spring but I say the first sign of the warm season is the start of the car show season. Not so much the big, well promoted,professionally organised shows (several of which take place indoors anyway) but the grass roots events held on weekday evenings at pubs and such places.

My first of these was the Trent Group of the Triumph TR Owner's club which took place Thursday evening at Stanton By Dale.  This is a real traditional British car club meet up.  Proper classic sports cars, enthusiastic owners, a traditional English pub, a nice pint and hearty fare on offer for those who missed their supper to be there.

To me these friendly, low key events is what this "scene" is (or should be) about. No fads, no name dropping, no one upmanship and internet bitching, just a bunch of guys who dig cars rolling up and chilling out.

Find your local events, enjoy and support them.  That's the life.