Hemmings has a great flikr collection with many contributors, dedicated to antique cars in from all aspects and points of view.

One of the contributors ryanchirnomas, posted a great series of vintage licence plate that are all wonderful as licence plates and as photographs.

This

1952 VA Ford Truck

and this

1939 MD Plymouth

Are my personal favorites.

If you intend to be in the NorthWest of the United States in September mark the 7th of September to attend the Kikland Concourse D’Elgance .

I first read about it in Classical Drives, and would love to attend.
Kirkland is a suburb of Seatle on the shores of Lake Washington and the Concours will be hosted in the luxurious grounds of Carillon Point and Woodmark Hotel, Yacht Club and Spa.
This is a celebration of the classic cars motorcycle and wooden boat design.
The concorse is really a contest of elegance and the entries are grouped into classes and judged on their elegance, rarity, quality, presence and last but definately not least - their elegance.

Here are some examples of previous years winners.

2007 Best of Show - 1937 Talbot-Lago T150 CSS Teardrop

Named as the Best of Show, People’s Choice, and French Curves First of Class was the fabulous 1937 Talbot-Lago, T-150-C-SS, Figoni & Falaschi, Teardrop owned by Jack Nethercutt of Sylmar, California.

Best of Show
1937 Bugatti T-57
Owned by The Peterson Museum

For More pictures go here

Gregs Lotus as posted on Ebay

We are all big antique and Classic Car fans, some of us owning them and other admiring them from afar.

I have been following Greg Harveys story with his Lotus for some time now and though I would share to let you into the life of a man with a enveyable car.
Gregg owns a lotus, and living in Egland has to leave it sitting all winter:

 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.

It seems as if this winter finaly made Greg decide to sell the Lotus, not wanting to meet with another huge bill in the for next winter’s long hibernation.
so he put her up for auction on ebay….
If there are any British out there in the Market for a much loved lotus - now is the time to make a move and get to zoom around in her for the rest of the summer.

This is the Jaguar XKSS D-Type and it is my dream car for two reasons:

The first reason is pretty obvious - it is gorgeous! As sleek as they come, incredibly romantic not to mention that it can accelerate from zero to sixty in 4.7 seconds reaching a maximum of 170mph!!!

Automobiles Delux tell us via Coys (the auction house) that since a fire swept through the jaguar factory in 1957,and only 16 cars escaped in perfect condition - obviously making this car a rarity.

Due to this rarity the going price on a car like this would be about 2 million pounds… I am not even going to bother to translate that to dollars or Euro’s - that would be being petty…

Which bring me to the second reason why this is my dream car….. unfortunately - I will have it only in my dreams!

The Trailer Grows Up

By Julian Leggett

ROM the time, only ten years ago, when it was little more than a big wooden box perched precariously between two wheels, the trailer has come a long way.

Just recently, an auto-and-trailer unit was traveling the desert road beside the Salton sea, with the speedometer needle hovering close to seventy. As the driver picked up the telephone to inform his family in the trailer that they were nearing their destination, there was a loud bang. The driver felt a quick tug at the steering wheel, a sudden drag on the car. But nothing else happened. There was no loss of control, no careening. Cautiously he set the brakes and brought the two vehicles to a stop. Investigation revealed that one of the trailer tires had blown out-at seventy miles an hour-yet not even a dish was out of place in the trailer’s cupboard.

Had this happened in the early days, a serious accident might have followed that blowout. But today’s trailer is built for safety and comfort, carefully engineered to withstand the road hazards likely to be encountered at the high speeds demanded by the modern motorist. Factory-constructed models of the 300,000 rolling homes on American highways boast such features as: Quick-acting hydraulic or electric brakes; channel steel underframes; rugged bodies of oak, elm and airplane spruce; steel-clad plywood walls; spun glass or similar insulation; ball-and-socket couplers that practically eliminate the possibility of the trailer breaking away from the tow car; drop-type windows that disappear into the walls instead of swinging outward at eye level to create a night hazard; cookstoves with steel safety shields and asbestos wings for protection against fire and hot grease; electric refrigerators that freeze ice cubes and retain their low food-preserving temperatures for fourteen to eighteen hours between stops; steel rub rail around the trailer at the lower edge of the body to afford protection from contact with trees; safe space and water heaters ; electric lights; disappearing wash basins; soft, folding beds; screw-type ventilators operated from inside the trailer; screened and storm windows and even collapsible rubber bathtubs. Gasoline consumption, in pulling a trailer, approximates only one mile less per gallon than when the tow car travels alone. One reason for this is that the modern trailer is lightweight. The trailer on which the tire blew out at seventy weighed only 1,100 pounds. Years of experimental building showed engineers that lightweight construction is not only the most economical but also the safest. Most motorists have only to close their eyes to picture yesterday’s box-on-wheels swaying dizzily down the road behind the tow car.

I found this in Modern Mechanix where they have printed up the whole article and have pictures of all of its pages, so if you want to read more just go on over.

I am particularly taken with the Illustration work (in the picture I posted and in the others over at Modern Mechanix) - displaying the new trailer with the shiny new car as apposed to the older versions.

How come the old days seem so naive to us, and inviting, and amusing…These magazines - as well as the items displayed in them are now collector items.

What will our grandchildren collect - CDs? disposable cares? 5 year old antique computers? or will they still be collecting our grandparent modern days, skipping us altogether?

I wonder.

This is way off topic but it does have 2 cars in it so I guess it could work here…

Actually I enjoyed it so much I just wanted to share.

Thank you Just Elite for the link