DATE: 11 SEPTEMBER 2022
An annual event in the Forest of Dean, the Vintage Show usually provides “fun for all the family”, as they say. I go for the cars, tractors, steam engines, etc. There’s the usual stands selling food, garden furniture, ice cream, plants, etc. And all for local charities.
Some tasty steam powered stuff this year, including a steam roller complete with it’s own travelling workman’s trailer and road works signs appropriate to the era – I remember it well……. All beautifully preserved.
I especially liked this Foden steam lorry – oh the smell of fire and steam……..
Then it was off to the various car and commercial vehicle sections. I only took pix of the one’s I had a personal “connection” with, as there were several hundred to choose from ! Here goes !
A Cortina GT, no less. I had one of these when I was a Student Apprentice. Even managed to throw it round the Nurburgring Nordschieife, hopefully with style ! All 20 km of it. Fantastic fun !
Another throwback to camping when I lived at home. We had a black one of these Morris Minor Travellers, with all the kit for four of us !
These Austin Atlantic’s used to be “the thing” at the time, all American and stuff. Beautifully built though with the tan leather interior. Look at that column gear change……
When I lived in Tunbridge Wells, our near neighbour had one of these, kept it in immaculate condition as well. Probably worth a small fortune now.
Another car I had at some time, mine was cream and a lot less tidy than this example. It had vacuum operated windscreen wipers ( which didn’t work all that well when “ accelerating”) and a thermosyphon cooling system, no pump, just hot water rising displacing cold water in the radiator.
Now to the other end of the scale regarding complexity – a Citroen DS… A hydraulic marvel of the time, it still looks relatively up to date, IMHO. So comfortable…
There were plenty of Mini’s, of course, but not one with such a huge supercharger from Vmaxscart– must be fun to drive though, claims to provide 150 bhp +….. OOOOOF !
Now here’s an oddity, an Austin Apache, from South Africa. It seem to be an Austin/Morris 1100 with front and back added – see photo. Never seen one of these before……
This is what I like about old fashioned motoring – a spare set of spark plugs in the engine bay of this MG MGA. Look at the highly sophisticated wiring as well…..
Now a few commercials. If I remember correctly, Tunbridge Wells Council had dustbin lorries based on the same Dennis chassis.
Ah, the ubiquitous Royal mail van. I think the General Post Office had the same type. I like the extinguisher on the outside……
There were plenty of stationery engines as well. This particular Bamford ( later to become JCB ?) is powering an “end over end” butter churn.
At the bootom of the field was this traction engined log saw, a mighty machine in action.
Plenty of bikes, including this rather strange collection of French mopeds. They belonged to a weird display team, complete with helmets and flowing superman type capes. Unfortunately, I missed their actual performance. Shame.
As it said on the poster, they were celebrating 100 years of the Austin 7. Here’s a rather splendid example, to finish off in style.