Given that I already have three weekends' worth of photos to dump and more to come over the next few weekends, I thought I'd better crack on even though everyone else is still probably working through their Gathering hangover. Soooooo...
Goodwood Thoroughbred Sunday. Nope, not a diatribe on the relative merit of Arabian racehorses, but the Breakfast Club for cars in production before 1966. No idea why that date particularly, seems slightly arbitrary but there you go. I guess it's slightly redolent of the Golden Age of Goodwood circuit racing. Anyway, as always, the boundaries of what gets in and what doesn't are slightly blurred... as much as anything, if the marshals think your car's cool and there's some space left then they let you in. Top Bombing!
If you've never been to a Breakfast Club, then you really should, assuming you have any interest in cool cars. And if not, why not? Go and have a long stern word with yourself and come back when you've seen the error of your ways. Go on, everyone's waiting for you. Better? Good. Right, as I was saying, the Breakfast Club is a great concept where you turn up, park for free, get in for free, pay hugely exorbitant prices for a bacon sarnie and mooch about some extremely rare, fascinating and amazoid cars for free. Then by midday everything's vamoosed and you're free to enter the hell of domestic Sunday servitude to the wife by spending the rest of your day following her round B&Q pretending to give a **** which lampshade she buys. So what's not to like? Let's have a look, shall we? In totally random order...
It seems that every Breakfast Club has a marque that ends up defining the day, and on this occasion it was Healeys. And Alvises ahhh... Alvisses. Ahem. Anyway, there were seemingly hundreds of Healeys and they all look a bit the same so lets concentrate on the other numerous marque... Alviss...errrm Alvii... ahhh. Dunno. Them ones with the red triangle on them. Another sadly departed British marque, if anything speaks over the years of a time when the coachbuilt Brit thoroughbred was the envy of the Western world, the Alvis is surely it. For the gentleman who found a Roller too common and a Bentley too vulgar...
This, by way of opener, is I believe a short-chassis 4.3 with a slightly camp mascot. Great curves. The car, not the gaylord mascot. I do love Alvis because they give me a chance to indulge my perverted fascination with the heraldry and emblemry of mascots and badges. Mind, Yyu have to respect any car whose toolkit includes a mallet. For the wheel hubs, not for belabouring the chattering classes out of the way as you sweep majestically up to the Club for luncheon with the Duke
Alvisses... um Alvii often feature funky bonnet ornaments, such as on this 1933 Special. In the day, the gentleman motorist would often commission their own to express their style and taste; Rolls only brought out the Spirit of Ecstasy to prevent people from desecrating their company image with tawdry or inappropriate additions. Alvis were more laid back about such things, clearly although I'm not actually 100% certain what this one is, some kind of Arthur Rackham-style frog/fairy/dragonfly hybrid. Maybe
This sportster features plumbing that is little short of a work of art
This absolutely beautiful TA14 features a more traditional Alvis mascot, the upright hare. The car itself has such wonderful curves it's hard to imagine why anyone would rather have impact zones and airbags over sweeping fenders and running boards
This TE represents the end of an age; the final hurrah for the grand old marque before being subsumed under the crushing behemoth of Leyland like a rhino in a tarpit and becoming little more than a military vehicle company. Sad times
Oh well. Lets have some Fezzas to cheer ourselves up then, shall we? There are usually a fair smattering of classic Ferraris at these dos, which is just as well cos they're the only ones I like. Modern ones are nasty. On the day, there were only a couple but they made up with quality for the lack of quantity. Have a 250 Lusso by way of proof
and a 275 GTB
and a 458 Italia... wait, how did that sneak in?
To be fair, I'm extremely democratic about what I like in a car. I tend to like more or less anything irrespective of make, model, country of origin, time period, whatever... so long as I like it, it's fine sorta thing. So I don't mind seeing moderns at a supposedly classic event and I don't mind seeing J cars at a supposed great marques bash and so on. That's why I found the sight of a convoy of modern Astons just as entertaining as anything else on the day
One of the problems with the Breakfast Club is that by its very nature its often hard to get any worthwhile photos of stuff. The cars are parked along both sides of the track - which is very narrow anyway - and this means that with the popularity there tend to be hundreds of people in the way of any pic you might try to take. Staying till the bitter end means things have thinned out a bit but the downside of this is that a lot of the cars have cleared off by ten so you're feeding on scraps. However, on some occasions this pays off, such as stumbling across this excellent Tojeiro. A chassis engineer who was responsible for much of the winningness in the Ecurie Ecosse team D-Types and such, John Tojeiro went on to build his own cars using proprietary engines from Jaguar, Buick, Bristol and Coventry Climax. His greatest contribution to the mythos of motoring was penning the chassis that went into the AC Ace.. which went on to be the car that a certain Texan chicken farmer saw the potential in and convinced Ford to wedge a flabby great V8 into. The Cobra has entered legend and poor ol' Toj is almost forgotten except by the cognoscenti. So here, lest we forget...
and since we're on the subject(ish) of racing Jags, no thread would be complete without a nice C-Type. Like the aforementioned Cobra, this is the one place where you don't automatically assume that a C-Type is a replica. If you're going to see a real one anywhere, it's likely to be in Lord March's back yard. It also illustrates how you need the patience and lightning reflexes of a mongoose to get even a half-way clear pic of anything parked on the main straight where thedrones... errrm, I mean general public are at their most bucolic...errrm.. thickest
In fact, as well as Healeys and Alviii, "proper" Jags were very much in profusion. Much to my boy's pleasure, as he'd brought along some of the old I-Spy books I eBayed in for him. I was disgusted that the book had XK120 with a photo of an XK150 next to it (he didn't care, of course) but fortunately there were examples of every flavour of XK so we could tick it off with clear conscience. 120s;
(beautiful colour on this gunmetal 120, really showed off the voluptuous curves)
140... with Jaguar starting to gloat about their Le Mans glories in colourful cloisonné... oh, the hubris!
...and 150, with its slightly more awkward but much more accommodating beltline and so much gloating that it barely even fits in the badge anymore
And here's The Boy, catching up on filling in his I-Spy books. Get 'em while they're young, I say. I love the informal, relaxed vibe of the Breakfast Clubs; here you can sit on the lawn beside one of the most evocative circuits in British racing and eat Beechdean ice cream (as pictured down the side of GT racing Astons, no less) while watching the iconic cars potter past on their way home. And fill in your I-Spy book. And even the li'l un isn't bored and fractious. Winning
E-Types are something I've whinged about before... I've blethered about awful pram wheels and tragic offset fails plenty of times, and while I'm growing to like them better as I get older, nothing will ever convince me that the appalling roofline of the 2+2 is ever acceptable... BUT the Eagle does unarguably make them something completely altogether utterly totally different. In a good way. Deep-dish wheels, Superlight-style smoothing, rivetted hardcore race-look panels... Mmmm, hard
And to be fair, even though that might be some kind of ultimate, there were plenty of other, "lesser" versions to pick from
Oh go on then, might as well get it over with. Here, have a Healey. Just the one, though
off for a fag, more to come in a bit
Goodwood Thoroughbred Sunday. Nope, not a diatribe on the relative merit of Arabian racehorses, but the Breakfast Club for cars in production before 1966. No idea why that date particularly, seems slightly arbitrary but there you go. I guess it's slightly redolent of the Golden Age of Goodwood circuit racing. Anyway, as always, the boundaries of what gets in and what doesn't are slightly blurred... as much as anything, if the marshals think your car's cool and there's some space left then they let you in. Top Bombing!
If you've never been to a Breakfast Club, then you really should, assuming you have any interest in cool cars. And if not, why not? Go and have a long stern word with yourself and come back when you've seen the error of your ways. Go on, everyone's waiting for you. Better? Good. Right, as I was saying, the Breakfast Club is a great concept where you turn up, park for free, get in for free, pay hugely exorbitant prices for a bacon sarnie and mooch about some extremely rare, fascinating and amazoid cars for free. Then by midday everything's vamoosed and you're free to enter the hell of domestic Sunday servitude to the wife by spending the rest of your day following her round B&Q pretending to give a **** which lampshade she buys. So what's not to like? Let's have a look, shall we? In totally random order...
It seems that every Breakfast Club has a marque that ends up defining the day, and on this occasion it was Healeys. And Alvises ahhh... Alvisses. Ahem. Anyway, there were seemingly hundreds of Healeys and they all look a bit the same so lets concentrate on the other numerous marque... Alviss...errrm Alvii... ahhh. Dunno. Them ones with the red triangle on them. Another sadly departed British marque, if anything speaks over the years of a time when the coachbuilt Brit thoroughbred was the envy of the Western world, the Alvis is surely it. For the gentleman who found a Roller too common and a Bentley too vulgar...
This, by way of opener, is I believe a short-chassis 4.3 with a slightly camp mascot. Great curves. The car, not the gaylord mascot. I do love Alvis because they give me a chance to indulge my perverted fascination with the heraldry and emblemry of mascots and badges. Mind, Yyu have to respect any car whose toolkit includes a mallet. For the wheel hubs, not for belabouring the chattering classes out of the way as you sweep majestically up to the Club for luncheon with the Duke
Alvisses... um Alvii often feature funky bonnet ornaments, such as on this 1933 Special. In the day, the gentleman motorist would often commission their own to express their style and taste; Rolls only brought out the Spirit of Ecstasy to prevent people from desecrating their company image with tawdry or inappropriate additions. Alvis were more laid back about such things, clearly although I'm not actually 100% certain what this one is, some kind of Arthur Rackham-style frog/fairy/dragonfly hybrid. Maybe
This sportster features plumbing that is little short of a work of art
This absolutely beautiful TA14 features a more traditional Alvis mascot, the upright hare. The car itself has such wonderful curves it's hard to imagine why anyone would rather have impact zones and airbags over sweeping fenders and running boards
This TE represents the end of an age; the final hurrah for the grand old marque before being subsumed under the crushing behemoth of Leyland like a rhino in a tarpit and becoming little more than a military vehicle company. Sad times
Oh well. Lets have some Fezzas to cheer ourselves up then, shall we? There are usually a fair smattering of classic Ferraris at these dos, which is just as well cos they're the only ones I like. Modern ones are nasty. On the day, there were only a couple but they made up with quality for the lack of quantity. Have a 250 Lusso by way of proof
and a 275 GTB
and a 458 Italia... wait, how did that sneak in?
To be fair, I'm extremely democratic about what I like in a car. I tend to like more or less anything irrespective of make, model, country of origin, time period, whatever... so long as I like it, it's fine sorta thing. So I don't mind seeing moderns at a supposedly classic event and I don't mind seeing J cars at a supposed great marques bash and so on. That's why I found the sight of a convoy of modern Astons just as entertaining as anything else on the day
One of the problems with the Breakfast Club is that by its very nature its often hard to get any worthwhile photos of stuff. The cars are parked along both sides of the track - which is very narrow anyway - and this means that with the popularity there tend to be hundreds of people in the way of any pic you might try to take. Staying till the bitter end means things have thinned out a bit but the downside of this is that a lot of the cars have cleared off by ten so you're feeding on scraps. However, on some occasions this pays off, such as stumbling across this excellent Tojeiro. A chassis engineer who was responsible for much of the winningness in the Ecurie Ecosse team D-Types and such, John Tojeiro went on to build his own cars using proprietary engines from Jaguar, Buick, Bristol and Coventry Climax. His greatest contribution to the mythos of motoring was penning the chassis that went into the AC Ace.. which went on to be the car that a certain Texan chicken farmer saw the potential in and convinced Ford to wedge a flabby great V8 into. The Cobra has entered legend and poor ol' Toj is almost forgotten except by the cognoscenti. So here, lest we forget...
and since we're on the subject(ish) of racing Jags, no thread would be complete without a nice C-Type. Like the aforementioned Cobra, this is the one place where you don't automatically assume that a C-Type is a replica. If you're going to see a real one anywhere, it's likely to be in Lord March's back yard. It also illustrates how you need the patience and lightning reflexes of a mongoose to get even a half-way clear pic of anything parked on the main straight where the
In fact, as well as Healeys and Alviii, "proper" Jags were very much in profusion. Much to my boy's pleasure, as he'd brought along some of the old I-Spy books I eBayed in for him. I was disgusted that the book had XK120 with a photo of an XK150 next to it (he didn't care, of course) but fortunately there were examples of every flavour of XK so we could tick it off with clear conscience. 120s;
(beautiful colour on this gunmetal 120, really showed off the voluptuous curves)
140... with Jaguar starting to gloat about their Le Mans glories in colourful cloisonné... oh, the hubris!
...and 150, with its slightly more awkward but much more accommodating beltline and so much gloating that it barely even fits in the badge anymore
And here's The Boy, catching up on filling in his I-Spy books. Get 'em while they're young, I say. I love the informal, relaxed vibe of the Breakfast Clubs; here you can sit on the lawn beside one of the most evocative circuits in British racing and eat Beechdean ice cream (as pictured down the side of GT racing Astons, no less) while watching the iconic cars potter past on their way home. And fill in your I-Spy book. And even the li'l un isn't bored and fractious. Winning
E-Types are something I've whinged about before... I've blethered about awful pram wheels and tragic offset fails plenty of times, and while I'm growing to like them better as I get older, nothing will ever convince me that the appalling roofline of the 2+2 is ever acceptable... BUT the Eagle does unarguably make them something completely altogether utterly totally different. In a good way. Deep-dish wheels, Superlight-style smoothing, rivetted hardcore race-look panels... Mmmm, hard
And to be fair, even though that might be some kind of ultimate, there were plenty of other, "lesser" versions to pick from
Oh go on then, might as well get it over with. Here, have a Healey. Just the one, though
off for a fag, more to come in a bit