Vintage Bentley and Lee Francis are definitely old money, the accents less-so. I speak like that, with a touch of northern, and my clan were always skint. If I really tried I could manage the price of an Austin 7, and dig out my old Barbour jacket.

He was taking the piss, gently. It was a reference to the amount of oil it was burning.

A brunette with grey eyes. Swoon.

They aren't all old money. A lot of those cars are Austin 7s, the UK equivalent of a Model T. The Austin 7 put much of Europe on wheels, and was also built and sold under license by BMW and Datsun for example.

Nice. It looks like mine's cleaner twin, except the steering wheel is on the wrong side ;) Is that a Dutch registration?

Agree. I've had two 105s, a GTV and a Giulia TI. They served as consecutive daily drivers from 1989 to 2004. I never had any breakdowns or significant issues with either.

Thankee Mane. I was a Brit teen biker in the 1960s, I'm over 60 and biking is in my blood. I still ride, oh yes. Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha killed the British bike industry, thank God. Shit bikes, crap electrics, oil leaks, bits vibrating off, call for power and get a melted piston.

The entire site is worth a read. Honda was the genius who built a giant from nothing in impoverished post-war Japan. Honda got to put his name on the product. <b>Fujisawa</b> was the money-man, sales-man and genuine partner. It took two.

"It's such a huge and influential part of motorcycling history...."

Probably at Motegi. That's where the museum is and that RC166 is kept. As well as the tracks, Motegi has a huge carpark-thingy with a track painted out on it. Last time I was there, there were heaps of ricers taking part in a hooners meet. Lots of burning rubber and tyre smoke. It looks very much like the location.

Ha! First post says it all. My lady and I regularly fly from Narita airport. Its a 6 hour drive from where we live, and the flights are invariably mid morning. So, we leave home at 9pm, park up at midnight at an expressway service station for about 6 hours kip, and complete the journey in the morning. We're in our 60s…

I've never much cared for German cars in general, but I really hate air cooled VWs.

This is how the Japan Post does it.

Thanks. No, I'm no longer a resident. I'll bear that in mind next time I'm there.

Nice one Kat! I'm on a normal licence (plus motorcycle). I was busted at 20kph+ over the speed limit a few years ago. Bugger. Then, much sucking of teeth. Licence had expired about 6 months previously. Double bugger. For the unititiated, the expiry date shown on Kat's licence is 31/11/06. The 31 is the Japanese…

The pan is to collect oil. The oil is scavenged from the pan and pumped via the oil cooler (under the wing) to the oil tank which sits above and behind the engine and in front of the fire wall. If you watch any cheesy WWII flix, when the Spit gets hit the windscreen goes black with oil from the burst oil tank before…

It wasn't quite "Even RR realised.. the engine situation wasn't tenable.. ". RR designed and built the early Merlins as a private venture in the mid-1930s. They had no idea whether it would be a succesful engine or not and no way of foretelling what the likely volumes were to be. It made perfect sense for the early…

The Merlin has a dry sump.

I've seen Gerry Marshall race many times at my (then) local track, Mallory Park. He was a real crowd pleaser. Even if his car wasn't on the pace, he was. Always plenty of sideways and tyre smoke. Vauxhall (GM) weren't interested in competition, but Bill Blydenstein (early in the video) was a tuner who gave them some…

All Alfas since the 105 series was introduced in the early 1960s have had all-disc brakes. No special tools needed as they are self adjusting, except the parking brakes on the inboard discs (Alfasud front, Alfetta rear) which were a pain.