Hard Sell

I have to tell you, I hate trading cars privately. It is a necessary evil, since forecourt dealerships are such a rip-off in this country, but it's not a pleasant business. It is a world full of sharks.

Everyone thinks it is acceptable to haggle the price of a car and you end up in a Catch 22 situation. You put your car up for several hundred pounds more that you actually want, to account for the inevitable, and no one comes to look. So you put it on at a fair price for the car and everyone still tries to knock £1,000 off of the asking price, even though they know it is fair.

Even eBay seems to be mostly populated by time-wasters and tyre kickers. I shan't try to sell a car of any value on eBay again. I think the problem is the classics market isn't really there. Your car ends up "watched" by four dozen dreaming teenagers and a couple of bargain hunters, none of whom can actually afford/are prepared to pay the reserve price of the car. At one point I was fielding daily offers of £6,000 cash for the Lotus. Eventually I stopped replying to these jokers.

Now, I'm no fool and I have done my research. I have valued my car fairly and I know my valuation is based on my own, extensive market research prior to deciding to list my car. When forecourt dealers are asking over £10,000 for a decent car, my £8,500 (or near offer) price is perfectly reasonable. That said, this sort of haggling nonsense continually undermines your confidence in your asking price and makes one of even the strongest resolve start to question if he or she is asking for too much money.

Fortunately I have sat tight and I finally got an email from a lovely chap called Dave the other day, which I will quote:

[Re: Your Car and Classic Ad: Lotus Elan +2S 130/5]

Greg, we have looked at some total dogs this last week.

There was one that looked like the interior had been done by the Scouts adventure group and the paintwork was put on with a lot of cans. We found another JPS that some Philistine had painted gold very amateurishly, and the interior was a bag of rags.

We are looking for a car that we can get in and drive, that will start, won't misfire that has the servo on the brakes still and that doesn't look as if it was last used at a storage for a big dog . From what I have seen, and have found your car on a number of sites, it is in good order and used and that is what we are after.

So do keep in touch, don't sell it for less than you have it up for and as soon as I get the chance we will drive down and see it for ourselves.

Isn't that nice? Just when my confidence was waivering Dave reminded me what I already knew but had almost forgotten. All the Plus 2 cars out there for £5-7,000 are dog rough. All these jokers offering me £6,000 for mine haven't a prayer of finding a car half as clean for the same money - they are simply taking a chance and hoping I'm desperate.

I guess the moral is if you've done your homework and you know your price is fair, hang tight. Selling luxury items is hard. They are expensive and exclusive so by definition the market is small and extremely sensitive to economic conditions. It also often takes a long time to shift luxury goods. Our local classics garage has not rotated any stock for months now. So, confidence restored, I am still hanging in for on and around my asking price and to hell with anyone who offers me a grossly reduced cash settlement.


For reference, the best avenues I have found are a couple of specialist classic car sales sites (this one and this one) who offer free advertisements and a free London-based noticeboard called Gumtree. In combination these websites are now spawning a couple of enquiries a week and finally I have a couple of "viewings" when I get back from Italy.

At The Auction

Well, in spite of my pessimistic post about the British summer (which isn't exactly stunning, but not as bad as it could be) I have actually spent most of the last week driving the Lotus to work. This is an absolute pleasure, which makes it even more painful to see the poor girl listed on eBay.

I have really mixed feelings. In a funny sort of a way, even though I've been trying to sell her for ages, I don't really want to see her go. On the other hand, I know I won't find the time to use her and it will be the usual story come winter of sitting too long, seizing up and expensive repair bill in May.

I wonder if anyone will actually bid?? Last time I put a car on eBay I got nothing but a bunch of time-wasters. We shall see.

Wasn't Summer Nice?

That's all folks. Here in England we had two weeks of beautiful sunshine in May. That was summer. And you know what? The Lotus was out of action throughout, on the ramp in Barry Ely's workshop. *sigh*

I just got her back with another punishing bill for leaving her standing for half of the winter. When will I learn? The story goes like this:

Some time in late January (I think) was the last time the Lotus actually started unassisted. The starter motor was sluggish but just when I was about to give up she fired and ran. We went for a spin and all was well, so I put her away again. When I next came to the garage, probably about two weeks later, the starter motor was so reluctant it was never going to turn the engine over quick enough to start a cold Lotus.

Clearly (or at least partly) a bad earth, but it being winter, me being in a cold garage, miles from the house with no tools and no power all stacked up to mean I wasn't going to fix it there! So I went away and about six weeks later I tried to get the car going with my father. However, by this stage the bad earth was even worse and to compound it, the battery was half dead too, refusing to hold any sensible charge. Even hooked up to a Volvo 940 via some hefty jump leads there was no starting her.

And so there she stayed, again. Until May came around, another six weeks or so later, and I decided to call Barry and have him come and fetch the car on a trailer. The result?

Clutch seized so solid he thought he might have to take the engine out to get at it. Seized brake calipers. Blocked accelerator jets in the carbs. Twelve hours of labour at £45/hour, simply because I'd let her stand too long. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The moral of the story is if something breaks, especially something which prevents you from starting the car, don't leave it until spring! Repair it as soon as it happens. The longer a car like this sits unused, the bigger the bill will be when someone eventually comes to sort it out.

I know this, but a mix of laziness and fear of what might be wrong caused me to ignore it and hope it would go away. It did not.


On the plus side, I have the car back, so in the unlikely event the British summer gets a second wind, I'll have a lot of fun.

Wash Out

April has been remarkably April-like, in spite of dire warnings of climate change, locust plagues, desertification, &c. It has "showered" regularly and constantly all month here in Blighty. So the fact Barry can't come out and fix the Lotus until 17th May is no big drama. I think I'll get the Fiat out later though. It could do with a run and there appears to be a short gap in the ever-present cloud cover!

Onwards. For those who don't know, my daughter was born on 13th April - as a result I have had little time for classic motoring, per se. Rather, with the Lotus out of action, a screaming baby at home and the weather resembling an Indian monsoon (causing a small leak in our bedroom window, via some blocked guttering) I have been reduced to planning my next purchase.

Now, I know I said last time I was definitely, 100%, beyond all doubt getting an MG-F. However my better half pointed out there are no rear seats. "And?" I enquired. It wasn't dignified with a response.

Prior to that you may remember I was set on a mid-1980s Porsche 911, preferably a Targa. That was until I met a chap who told me they are more expensive to run than a high-class "escort" (not the car). "I've got a 1985 911," he wept. "Front wings alone cost more than a new engine in your Lotus." And while he was standing there bemoaning his lot, a thick cloud of oil smoke engulfed us. This is the 911 way of declaring a serious coolant leak requiring a phone call to the AA and another £3,000 repair bill. So that was the end of that idea.

Lotus Sevens? Very tempting. I even toyed with TVR for a little while, until my partner pointed out there are no rear seats in those either. Rats.

Then I came to Jaguars. Now, having a father who's a Jag nut does rather put one off. Not because I have any sort of animosity or teenage angst remaining towards my father. Just simply that it conjures an image of, well, his generation, not mine. He has a rather nice V12 Convertible XJ-S, as regular readers will know, so I started looking around for any Jag other than an XJ-S, naturally.

Since my girlfriend has already vetoed any Jag prior to 1970 (too grandad-like, apparently) my choices were limited, so I was very interested to discover the Jaguar XK-8 is now in my price range for an early model. Here we have a good looking, 4-seater (nearly), comfortable, fast, sports tourer. For £8,000. Bargain! And, to cap it all off, it was love at first sight for herself.

Then I started reading up and discovered the reason: luxury cars always bottom out in the price department after 10 years or so, as worries about electricals and catalysers and the like creep in, but the early XK-8 particularly because it had rather serious engine issues caused by the sulphur content in British petrol at the time. You can buy a 1996 XK-8 for £8,000, but here's the kicker. You have no way of really knowing it you still have an £8,000 engine replacement bill ahead of you. It's Russian Roulette with your wallet.

*sigh*

Back to square one. It was about this time when my father piped up "you should look at a late XJ-S..." Well he would say that. But he had some compelling arguments:

It's every bit the fast, comfortable, sports tourer the XK-8 is - in fact, it's widely recognised as a better handler than the XK-8 coupé, courtesy of the saloon body shape. The late "facelift" models are very well resolved cars, with Jaguar having had nearly 25 years to iron out all the issues. They can go on a classic policy, even though the last ones are only 12 years old. And because they have always been the poor cousin to the E-Type and the later XK-8, they're cheap as chips.

Because I am likely to be doing a lot of driving in Europe, I'm sorely tempted to get a "left hooker", as they say - a left hand drive model. More problems. Search the European market for an XJ-S and they're rarer than hen's teeth. A 20-year-old standard V12 coupé in decent condition will cost you £10,000, which is just madness. About five times over the odds by British right hand drive prices, and it doesn't get any better with Cabrios and Convertibles. So someone like me, looking for a LHD Convertible in Europe, had better have deep pockets. I don't.

On the verge of giving up, I remembered another neat thing about the XJ-S. They sold it by the bucket-load in America. Our friends across the pond loved it. Comfortable, smooth, quick, stylish and not so cumbersome in American "parking lots", which are better designed for a car of those dimensions. (Try parking an XJ-S in a British multi-storey car park - if you get it right first time, I'll cut you a cheque for £1,000 on the spot - that's how confident I am you won't!)

Right now the American economy is in the dumpster. Granted, ours isn't exactly rosey, but with $2 to every £1 and luxury goods off nearly every American's shopping list, I can purchase a nice 4.0, 6-cylinder, LHD, Convertible XJ-S off a dealer's forecourt in the US for about £6,000. I can ship it to Europe for about £2,000 and bingo! I have a nice, 4.0 "facelift" Convertible, LHD XJ-S for £8,000. And the best part is, if I want to sell it I can ask for £25,000 and some rich collector in Monte Carlo won't even blink.

I'll let you know how I get on, but as of the last couple of weeks it seems I may yet end up with the same car as my father. Oh the shame! But I can live with it. They are nice.

Non-Starter

So, with some assistance from my father, I went down to the garage on Monday to try and start the Lotus, to give it a spring airing. Would it start? Would it hell is like. It sat there like a belligerant teenager, daring me to relocate my tools from the garden shed to a council garage 2 miles away, knowing full well I wouldn't. It won.

And this is why the Lotus has to go. I'm not an unrealistic person, and the problem is simple: old sportscars break. Note I say sportscars, not any old classic cars. The Fiat, for example, is also 40 years old and it never breaks. Why? It's about as complex as a 2-year-old's jigsaw puzzle. There's practically nothing to go wrong! (Ignoring corrosion, of course.)

My Lotus, in fairness, is very reliable - for a Lotus. The previous owner described it as "the most reliable Plus 2 I ever had", but that doesn't make it reliable. It makes it as reliable as a 40-year-old Lotus can be. I knew this when I bought it and at the time I had the youth, enthusiasm and time to deal with it. Now I have a baby on the way (it is due on Wednesday!), a garage on the other side of town and nowhere to keep my tools. It just isn't working out.

When I've sold up I already know what I'll get. I'm going to buy an early MG-F. A very clean one, with leather seats and the turbo charger so I can really scare myself. Before you all scoff, these are great little cars. I already know this, because my mother runs the naturally aspirated 1800 version and I borrowed it to go to France in last summer. It's the cheapest genuine, mid-engined sportscar on the market, and it just works.

Sure, it is still a sportscar, therefore it will still cost me a fortune to service and things will still go wrong. But if I leave it in a garage on the other side of town, when I go to take it out it will start. If it doesn't, I'm safe in the knowledge there's nothing I can do about it anyway, as it's probably a sensor or a software glitch, so I'm not left with the guilty feeling I should be fixing it myself. It's perfect. Quick, fun, open-topped and reliable. A much better match for the 2008 version of me.


So is this the end for me and classic sportscars? Absolutely not! My next house will have a double garage. It is essential. I am as adament on this as my partner is about a family kitchen. (It may take us a while to find something we both like...) And when I have this house, I will once again being scouring the newspapers and websites for something for the weekend. Something old, that leaks oil, smells like a petrol station and refuses to start in winter. And I'll love it. But most importantly of all, I'll have the time and the space to work on it.

Supercar With A Difference?

For those of you who don't know, I work in software. I build things in bits and bytes - things people need to make their computers do useful things. Not hugely useful, I grant you, but that doesn't really matter. The point is, I spend most of my time working with software products and platforms which are dubbed "open source".

For the uninitiated, the term open source refers to the licensing of a software product. Open source software is free to download and yours to edit, unlike software from, say, Microsoft, which must be purchased (usually for approximately the cost of one arm and one leg... or your grandmother) and you cannot edit or change in any way beyond the means prescribed to you by Microsoft.

The grander scheme is open source software evolves and is developed by the people and businesses which use it on a day-to-day basis. They don't like something? They take it out. Enough people don't like it, it ceases to be an option. Want it to do something it doesn't? Then add it in. If enough people think it's a good addition, it will become standard.

But who decides? Usually a panel, company or individual, known as the "project maintainer", whose role it is to listen to the case from the community at large and decide what the next version of the product will do, in it's default form, when it is released. What will be kept, what will be dropped, what will be changed, all falls on the shoulders of the maintainer. And of course, if your idea is dropped, well, that doesn't really matter. You can still add it to your version.

It's all very idyllic sounding, but you know what the best bit is? It actually works. Not for nothing does the majority of the Internet run on open source-based software. A coincidence, it is not, that half the governments in South America are moving exclusively to open source software. (Though Mr Bush's old friend Chavez has a finger in that pie, I'm sure. Persuading most of an entire continent to ditch one of America's biggest companies is surely one in the eye for Uncle Sam.)

And now the Dutch are following suit. Which means the rest of Europe is probably only about 10 years away, and interestingly my father (who works in local government, of sorts, here in the UK) is already receiving newsletters from on high about the benefits of open source software within industry and government. Remarkably sharp for the British government, who tend to react to change with the grace and poise of a fully laden super-tanker.

But what on Earth has this all got to do with motoring, classic or otherwise? Not a lot... until this morning. My eyebrows touched the ceiling when I opened an email from a small, US-based sportscar company called Iconic Motors, for two reasons:

Firstly, I (little old me) have been invited to the New York Auto Show at 7pm tomorrow, all expenses paid (except flight and hotel - the expensive bits), as their guest. (Someone should point out it wouldn't hurt to give small-time, London-based motoring bloggers a little more than 24 hours notice for a motor show in New York. Clarkson, I am not.) I can only think they are assuming no one is going to come, so they're inviting every amateur motoring journalist in the world to turn up in the hopes a handful do.

Secondly, Iconic make the grand claim of producing the world's first "open source" car:

Iconic’s not just a little company making 100 very special supercars. We’re making supercars a new way: Open Source design, based on Joy's Law:

The best person for your biggest challenge doesn't work for your company.

I've been a computer guy all my life, with Digital Equipment and as an Oracle VAR, etc. Whether you’re a fan of cars or the internet, you'll love this collaboration.

The Iconic Motors Collaborative Design Initiative (CDI) will be a continuing conversation about the best way to conceive, equip and produce cars right here in America, using the very best suppliers: little companies that normally serve the space and aeronautical industry and the people who custom-build race cars.

And we'd love for you to contribute your own ideas! Using DIGG-like polling, we'll float the best ideas to the top - you will, not me. If one of your ideas wins, you'll be rewarded monetarily and recognized publicly.

So there you have it. This must be my perfect car, as I'm a fan of both cars and the Internet. I should be in seventh heaven as Iconic present themselves as the "maintainers" of an open source supercar, to which anyone can contribute and contributions are welcomed. The trouble is, I'm not.

Here's the thing. An open source project is only as good as the quality of the community contributing. Some open source projects attract super-genii by the bucket load and shoot off in to the stratosphere, surpassing anything even the biggest production budget can conjure up. Look at the Apache web server for a case in point - unbeknownst to the gazzillions of Internet users, this piece of software is open source, free and practically runs the Internet. Others attract a bunch of ill-informed and over-opinionated college kids, exist for as long as afforementioned kids have nothing better to do and then fall down like a sack of spuds.

The Iconic looks more like the latter. For a kick off, it looks like the bastard result of a sordid affair between an AC Cobra and a riced-up Vauxhall Corsa, which leads me to the obvious conclusion the project is yet to attract a designer of any calibre, which is pretty serious when you're trying to sell a six-figure "supercar". It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the rest of the car either. What else have they borrowed and subsequently mangled to produce this strange looking contraption?

There are a fistful of interesting performance statistics and design notes at the foot of each page, including "Formula One-Derived Racing Suspension" (I sincerely bloody hope not, or anyone who buys one of these things will have no teeth left by the time they get to the end of the block) but all this means nothing. All I'm looking at is an ugly and expensive Cobra replica. I can think of no reason why I would select this over a more faithful copy of the original AC/Shelby collaboration.

Not a great start, if first impressions last, but where Iconic really fall down is in their entire ethos. They attempt to claim this is somehow a community effort and enthuse people to get involved, but let's think about that for a second. To quote Wikipedia:

Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software, the most important of which is that the source code is openly available.

Oops. That pretty much makes the Iconic Motors Collaborative Design Initiative dead in the water then.

You see, it's easy for me to sit here and pick holes in a few pictures and facts on a marketing website, but if this were a truly open source project, I'd have an Iconic sitting outside my house. I'd trundle outside, right now, with a tub of filler and an angle grinder and get rid of that stupid skirt they've put on it. Then I'd probably plug my laptop in to the engine management system (because, surely, they've provided me with the appropriate callibration software - for free) and start fiddling with the tick-over rate so my girlfriend doesn't stall it every time the lights turn green. I might even fit an ejector seat. That would be fun!

But I can't. They only plan to make 100 pieces and I am extremely unlikely to ever be able to afford one, and since it was apparently designed by a fifteen-year-old boy, I don't want one anyway. And I bet Joe Boffin in Idaho who contributed to the brake design isn't going to get a brand new Iconic for his troubles either. And there's the problem. In fact, Joe Boffin in Idaho probably knew this, so he didn't even bother to even take part. He made his own aeroplane out of a washing machine and a surf board instead, just for the hell of it.

To call this an "open source" car is a total misrepresentation of what open source is about. This is no more open source than Microsoft Windows, because the contributors will never, ever be able to try out their ideas, say "hey, this works guys!" and give it back. They'll be reduced to firing suggestions at a website in the hopes one of them sticks, just like Microsoft customers.

And who'll do that? A bunch of bored teenagers in computer class, that's who. Everyone else knows that firing ideas at the likes of Microsoft is a waste of energy. The only person who will actually be listened to in the R&D process is the guy with the cheque book.

Then there's the other fundamental problem. Open source is all about the people who use something informing it's development. If you're building an expensive supercar, it is utterly flawed to ask a bunch of people who will, in all likelihood, never even sit in a supercar, never mind own one, to help design one. And it would be commercial suicide to actually listen to them. It's a bit like asking a Maasai warrior to design some hiking boots.


So all this rather begs the question, is it really possible to have an open source car? Not in the truest sense, no, but there are other cars which come much closer to the true spirit of open source than the Iconic. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Lotus Seven.

Produced since 1957 and still going strong under the watchful eye of likes of Westfield and Caterham, the Seven is about as open source as you can get. It has always been a kit and you can do as much or as little as you want with it. You can buy a basic, ready-to-roll Seven from Caterham for a shade over £10,000 ($20,000), which is akin to buying Linux from Redhat - you could make it yourself, but you really can't be bothered.

Or you can buy a chassis and some rudimentary bits from Westfield for £2,000 ($4,000) and do the rest yourself, sourcing your own engine and running gear from an old Ford, pulling seats from the back of your mother's sedan and making your own body out of chicken-wire and PVA.

A strong community exists in the form of a number of rabidly enthusiastic owner's clubs who are forever sharing their personal experiences and modifications with great pride. And sometimes, just occassionally, the "maintainers" will use someone's modifications in their own models. And if they don't use your chicken-wire-crafted inspirations? Who cares! You love your Seven just the way it is.

While you'll never get a car for free, the Seven is very affordable, fun, fast, has a real community and allows you to truly build your own car, to your own specifications from a set of core components provided by the product maintainers, the chassis manufacturers and kit builders. If it's open source cars you want, forget the Iconic. Look no further than another Chapman classic.



Well, I'll probably never, ever be invited anywhere again by a small motor company. Damn. If only I'd headed straight for New York, met the CEO and written a glowing review, like Clarkson said I should. I could've been a motoring journalist by this time next week.

Motorway Madness

It occurs to me that few people actually appreciate driving any more. It has become something of a modern chore. We are no longer impressed by the technology of the combustion engine. It's old hat. No one utters an "oooo" or an "ahhh" if you roll up in a new sports car any more. They just think you're a flash git with more money than sense. Few people still admire the car and a growing minority even go so far as to demonise it.

As if to hammer home my point, I'm sitting in a coffee shop opposite an exhibition stand with a brand new Ferrari parked on it. Now, I'm fairly sure that had this been 1963 there would have been a small, clamouring crowd, all trying to get a look at the Italian racing car with the prancing horse on the bonnet. Not today. There are some glances from casually interested business-folk and that's your lot. The car is spurned, passed over for a frothy bastardisation of a "coffee" and a cheap life-style magazine.

It comes down to one single and, in fairness, obvious observation: there are too many of them! Sports cars, family cars, big cars, mad cars, all cars. Just Too Many.

Excluding those of you who live in Nebraska, when was the last time you actually enjoyed driving somewhere? Just getting about has become such a hassle these days, no one actually considers motoring as a pass-time any more. It's simply a means to an end. A necessary evil.

Every morning for the last two weeks I have hopped in my car at around 0900 GMT and headed for the M25, London's ring road and Europe's most notorious car park. Every morning, without fail, I endure a terrifying battle of nose-to-tail duelling for the fast lane, which is a joke, because the "fast" lane is travelling at 50mph if you're lucky, just like every other lane. It also stops abruptly every few minutes or so for no apparent reason.

I'm writing this piece to kill some time in the airport. I'm at London Stansted and, all being well, in about three hours I'll be in Milan. Well actually I'll be in Bergamo, which any Italian will tell you is nowhere near Milan, but Ryanair aren't too hot on geography, so I will have to pile out of the airport, in to a car, and straight in to the customary thirty-mile traffic jam in to Milan proper.

And neither of these two European examples of a global pandemic can hold a candle to the Washington Beltway at 1800 EST on a Friday evening. People set out to get from New Jersey to Maryland with a month's-worth of tinned supplies, just in case. My cousin's husband set out with a hunting rifle once, which landed him in a lot of trouble, but that's a whole other story, and no, he didn't shoot anybody.

In most of England there is no such thing as leisure driving any more. I take the Lotus out on a weekend for a tour of the country lanes and within two corners I have come across someone who believes their Nissan Micra is hard limited to 35mph. There endeth the fun. There is an endless stream of traffic coming the other way and I am now stuck behind said individual all the way to wherever I'm going. And even if I manage to pass them, two corners later I'm behind another one.

I could rant about the standard of driving in this country (it is a fact that you will fail your UK driving test if you pootle along at 35mph on an open, unrestricted A-road, and there seem to be a crazy number of folk who do this and the old bill seem to merrily ignore them) but I don't think people today are any worse at driving than they were forty years ago. I don't think there are any more bad drivers as a percentage either. We just notice them more because when the roads are as jam-packed as they are, these people cause even more chaos.

Which is why I think I will take to driving at night. My motorway journey to the airport at 0430 this morning was positively pleasant. For the first time in I can't remember when, the motorway was busy, but in a good way. There were plenty of people about but I could cruise at 80mph in the outside lane, effortless pull out to glide by the spattering of 18-wheelers on their way to various ports and depots, not once did I have to brake or even alter my speed because, as was the intension when 3-lane roads were invented, there is always a spare lane.

This is how motorways are supposed to be. It's a far cry from an average journey up the M1, which typically goes something like this: you're just free of the horrific mess that is the M25 when you slam in to the two hour queue to get through Bedfordshire. Then you have about thirty miles of being stuck behind a diesel saloon hogging the fast lane before you're queuing again to get through Leicestershire. Nottinghamshire is no better and your joy at being free of Derby will be almost immediately tempered by a seventeen-mile tail-back caused by an over-turned caravan. At this point you decide to stop for the night, because you clearly aren't going to make the Scottish border this side of midnight.

So what has this got to do with classic motoring? As I drove along the motorway this morning, it occurred to me I was getting a real sense of what the brave new world of motorways must have felt like to the middle-class populous who could afford the cars to use them. Cruising from London to Edinburgh at 90mph in a Jaguar E-Type must've been an absolute joy, and there were no speed limits. (Allegedly, the existence of the AC/Shelby Cobra and the numerous attempts to set land-speed records somewhere between Luton and Leicester in the late-1960s is at least partially to blame for the 70mph limit we have nowadays. Plod was not amused.)

I can't help but feel I was born in the wrong era and I've missed all the fun.

There was a window of perhaps twenty-five years when motorways were a quick and efficient way of getting from A to B, but alas that time now seems to be well and irretrievably behind us. Cars are too cheap and it's a shameful report on our public transport network that in spite of the state of our motorway network, the masses still prefer it to our woefully poor and grossly over-priced railways.


One final musing: in this modern world, why is it the privileged few who still seem to be willing and able to splash a decent amount of cash on their motor seem largely to purchase ludicrous 4x4 "sports utility vehicles", as the American's call them? Range Rovers with silly alloy wheels, unusably low-profile tyres and lowered suspension, rendering them utterly useless for any sort of off-road activity.

And though you sit lording it over the masses, I had to laugh when I read a Clarkson article the other day, where he admitted to rather enjoying the driving position of the Range Rover, but offered the following cautionary advice: "all other motorists will hate you on a cellular level".

I'm sorry, Mr or Mrs SUV Driver, but this is true and if you don't believe me you are simply in denial. Ask anyone who does not own an SUV what they think of SUV drivers and I would be hard-pushed to publish the expletives they produce. And no, it's not envy. It's frustrated irritation. You are looked upon as the pond-scum of the road, for a dozen reasons not even remotely relating to the environment which I can't be bothered to reel off again.

Lift Off

I have finally launched my latest effort, Classic Car Source. It's taken an age to get off the ground, but I'm sure you can appreciate how much work I've put in to it.

I actually need a favour from any readers who might like to get involved. I need any classic car enthusiasts who are willing/able to help populate my content library. I'm slowly trawling through it, but it's a lot of research and I will be months just entering the manufacturers and models myself. Sadly my budget is zero/zilch/zippo/nowt, as this is an entirely personal project, but if you do enjoy researching and writing about classics, I'd love to hear from you. Vintage bikers too!

If anyone's interested, you can register and then let me know you're there - then I can give you permission to work on the library.

I really think this could be the classic car resource to end all resources, if I can only get the public interested. I might look in to the possibility of attending some events this year and perhaps making up some business cards or something. Could be worth it.

Speaking of events, I'm just about to book my tickets for the Le Mans Classic this summer. Fantastic. I can't wait. Good company, fine wines, beautiful countryside and lots of really, really nice classic cars. If I still have it, the Lotus is definitely coming with me this time!

Ta da for now.

Merry Christmas

Late, I know, but Season's Greetings and all that jazz.

I was fortunate enough to receive (at long last) a shiny new multimeter from Santa Claus et al this Christmas. I'm in Southwell, Nottinghamshire and the Lotus is tucked up in Epping, but I now cannot wait to return home and begin measuring anything and everything electrical. I have already measured the resistance of my girlfriend, which is, for the record, very, very high.

This handy little electronic device has arrived just in the nick of time too, as the damned Lotus seems to be leaking charge from the battery. Either that or it's not charging properly when running. Either way, my multimeter will effortlessly equip me with the knowledge I require. I hope.

If it's the latter, then Barry Ely has two jobs in the spring (assuming I still own the Lotus, which is still for sale, by the way). New clutch slave cylinder and a new alternator. Fortunately, neither job is particularly expensive and, as I've noted many times before, repairs come with the territory.

(For the record, my father also got a multimeter, as his Jaguar XJ-S Convertible is happily dumping it's entire battery in less than a day. He had the ignominious experience of being jump-started in the office car park by a Fiat Panda, called "Custard" apparently, and you know what I think about naming cars. He too has some investigation to do, so it's not just the Lotus which causes headaches. And you should see the price of his tyres!)

I'm just hoping the weather holds, as I have no plans for Monday, so if it's a nice day I will jump-start the old girl and take her for a good, long run in the sun. I'll probably take the Fiat out too, as she's been neglected recently. The British weather has been so shocking for the last few months, we've barely had a decent day on a weekend. Even Christmas Day was a wash-out. Humbug!

One more thing - it remains a New Year's Resolution of mine to sell the Lotus and buy myself a nice, early 1980s, Porsche 911. This was further exacerbated yesterday evening when, while driving the Rover 600 back from a family dinner in Lincoln, it too feeling as though it had just eaten two pounds of turkey and full accompaniments, one blasted past me on the A46 around Newark. I was left blinking and murmuring...

*poop* *poop*

Have a great New Year. More to come in 2008.

Broken Brakes

My brake light switch stopped working the other day. I tried to purchase a new one from Halfords, whose catalogue assured me they had a brake light switch for a 1974 Lotus Elan, so I ordered it in for collection two days later. Was it correct? Was it hell is like! It was the brake light switch for a modern Elan. Utterly useless to me.

Figures, I suppose. I half expected it to be incorrect, but my well represented lazy gene convinced me to order it anyway, since it beat a trip to Bishops Stortford... and it might be right.

The worst part is, no one at Halfords seems to actually bother to correct the catalogue. They just shrug and send the part back marked as "no longer required". NO! It's not "no longer required"... it's plain "wrong"! There is an option for "wrong" on the computer, but they all ignore it and send it back as "no longer required", so the catalogue managers have no inkling they're sending out the wrong bit. I'm sure it's a part they carry, as it is common to several cars from the 1970s/1980s/probably even early 1990s.

Anyway, I was about to trundle up the road to Bishops Stortford to a motorfactor and get the part there, when someone on LotusElan.net told me they were easy enough to fix. Apparently they get corroded and dirty inside, but if you clip them apart and polish up the contacts they're good as new.

So I popped down to the garage, looked at where the switch was mounted on the back of the pedal box, disconnected the spades and the plastic switch screws straight out. Fantastic. You don't even need tools. I ran a wire between the spades with the ignition on, just to be sure the switch was the faulty part, and the brake lights lit. I took the switch home, dismantled it, could see immediately it needed a clean, so I set to work with some glass paper and ten minutes later it was back together again (as shown in the photo).

Now, those of you familiar with this particular type of switch are probably already saying "Ohhhh!" - yup, it didn't work. Had I actually thought about the mechanism, rather than half-guessing how the switch came apart (I couldn't actually see it properly, on account of the spring sending its various parts in five different directions across the living room floor) then I would've realised I was doing it wrong. But I didn't.

I should note this is also where you need a multimeter, something I am now asking for at Christmas! If I had a multimeter, I could've simply measured resistance across the terminals of the switch and realised what I only discovered when I got down to the garage and fitted the part, without leaving the fireside - namely, the way I had put the switch together meant it was permanently "on". The way I assembled it (as shown) just makes the spring press the contact plate permanently against the contacts, rendering the switch no more useful than a length of wire. Obvious, with the benefit of hindsight.

I walked the ten minute walk, up the hill back to the house, cursing the rain, my stupidity at not taking my precision screwdriver set with me and not actually considering carefully enough how the mechanism needs to work. When I got back to the house and took the switch to pieces again, looking with a more analytical eye everything became clear:

There is a little square peg on the internal end of the push-button of the switch, which is clearly supposed to marry to the little square hole in the brass contact plate of exactly the same size. The correct configuration is with the contact plate the other way around to the way it is in the photo, inside the casing of the switch, and on the other end of the spring with the spring going up between the contacts to rest against the clip-on plastic "top".

The tricky part is when you clip the whole unit back together again. The contact plate needs to pass the contacts, so that when the switch is sealed, the spring pushes the plate back on to the contacts, but not past them - this is a push-to-break switch, not a push-to-make. When you push the button in, the contact plate is forced up towards the clip-off end of the switch, away from the contacts it sits between, breaking the circuit.

When in position, it is permanently "pushed" by the end of the brake pedal lever. The act of pushing brake pedal removes the lever from the end of the switch, allowing it to extend and make the circuit, illuminating the brake lights.

It took me four attempts to put the switch back together so that it functioned correctly. I can't think of any easy way to do it. It's just a case of trying until you suceed through dumb luck! But it does go, eventually, with the correct blend of brute force and ignorance. And my brake lights work once more. Happy days!