Suppose not a classic and not mine either, but thought I'd post this up. A guy came up from Dorset as I recall to buy my Guzzi Daytona, around 2006. Anyway he was a really nice guy and said he had all sorts of projects on the go and one had been going for about 10 years. When I asked what he showed me this picture. It turns out its got a Merlin below the hood, he got 2 ages ago out of Hurricanes and made one good engine from the 2. Then he built the car around it. When he came up he brought a couple of albums of the engine restoration and car build to let me see, absolutely fascinating and tremendous skill. At that point the car had done some airfield runs but he said he was still having clutch trouble (there's a shocker) and the car had not at that time been fully opened up. Wish I had asked him for a ride in it, must be terrifying and a hoot all at the same time
Dear god.....I would so love to hear that fire into life let alone hear it fly past. I remember many years ago our fire engine packed up.along came a spare machine,it was an old wheeled escape as we called them,I think it was an ulster powered by a rolls Royce petrol engine that would have also powered I think spitfires.can anyone correct me ? Anyhow the roar just had to be heard,no brakes though lol.
I scrapped my classic mini cooper a good few years back, although that was a relaunch one from 1990 rather than a 1960`s one. Unfortunately the shell was far to rotten. I wish I hadnt now as shortly after I did, the prices all shot through the roof. Had numerous classic mini`s when I was younger and at one point had a garage full to the brim of parts for them! The only "classic" ive got atm is my 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo which ive had since 1995. I started restoring it exactly 12 months ago to this day nearly. Managed to make fairly decent progress on it until August last year and since then I have just not had any spare time to do any more on it. Quite frustrating as I had hoped to get it back on the road this spring ready for some summer fun.
@idrinkbeer I found this on YouTube, its amazing how long it is when you see it in the video compared with that photo. The guy was a real gentleman. As far as your RR Fire engine I have no clue, RR made a whole raft of engines but it may have had a Meteor engine. This was a Merlin with the Supercharger removed and softened compression ratio as I recall, it also rotated in the opposite direction. It was made as a tank engine and RR had to virtually get down on their hands and knees to get the ministry to accept it, despite the fact they were producing and selling them at cost. That is what I think was in Dodd's original Merlin car too. The Meteor also made use of components that could not be put back into an aero engine but were serviceable and many of the meteors utilized components from crashed Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters etc etc: as the Merlin was used in just about everything that flew front line for the military for a while. I'll get ma anorak
the ulster, so called because of its main usage by the northern Ireland fire brigade , powered by a 6 cylinder rr engine, In the background is a land rover known as an l4p ( landrover 4 wheel drive pump ) I used to drive one of these and they were a pig to drive and pump from, it was handy driving in rough terrain though and one of our old hands remembered driving over a grass bank and almost landing on a courting couple on the other side. the ulster that arrived as a temp with us had the chrome bell but air horns and it took us ages to work out how to pump from it, even then it was an antique.ours had riot screens inside and internal door locks ( to prevent you being dragged out ) and later machines had bullet proof glass. fun fun fun.
well it is not that expensive yet. the more windows they have,the expensiver they are. as mine is a panel it has not to many windows. henk!!!
I was looking at vans on e bay and some are asking 40-60 thousand pounds....as you say lots of windows, though I like the plain van. any pics?
yes I got a fair shock flying in from magheralin and rounding a corner to find a frigging speed bump in the corner and the 30 mph sign moved out into the countryside ...grr
I recently managed to drive a 1963 Alfa guilia spider, i'd class that as a classic car. absolutely beautiful little car. Naturally enough i then started to look to see if i could buy one. Seems £50k up is the starting point so thats me out. Never owned anything remotely this classy though.
until recently my neighbor had one of these one of these. now got a v.low millage one of these. as it turns out i used to service it when it was new. View attachment 50041 View attachment 50042
