Lets run through this. A company born from Nazi Germany’s theft of Ledwinka’s design. Ferdinand Porsche as the chief thief. The DNA runs deep through Germany. VW lying again. Germany lying again.

There are some great products that no-one in the west has heard about. In Japan, as in much of Asia, there is a generation of ancient ladies, bent 90 degrees forward, crippled from an early life of planting and harvesting rice by hand. Enter the Honda reaper and binder. Harvest your crop in the tiniest rice field…

I’ve watched Mike Hailwood race and win on the RC 166. Back in the day when the IoM TT was part of the World Championship series, Mallory Park used to hold a post-TT race weekend. All the teams and the top clubmen/privateers used to turn out for that. Many, like Hailwood, would race in the 250, 350 and 500cc events.

CP. Biking’s a personal thing. I’m 63 and been riding from 16. For me, it’s about power to weight, and nimbleness: finding the line, and making it work. Also, being out there, feeling the difference between sun and shade, smelling the difference between damp and dry.

Sweeeeet. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. I really miss my 105 Alfas, but life moves on.

Jaguar XK150 Coupe

Thanks. I wasn’t quite sure. On reflection, the problem was less the owners, than late-year buyers putting off purchasing until the new year letter came out. I bet it played hell with the salesmen’s Christmas bonuses. “Sorry children, you’ll have to wait until February for your presents. Here’s a cardboard Santa…

That’s a 1963 registration. UK registration numbers went by year from A to F. Some people were peeved that their “new car” was identified as last year by the number, so after F in 1968, they started changing the letter in September(ish) just to make things confusing. Barstewards.

Maybe. I left yurrup in 1988 and things will have changed since then. The last time I drove in France, traffic entering the roundabout (from the right) had priority over traffic leaving, so everything got locked. I realise that Hungary isn’t France (thankfully).

The actual driving is usually OK when you are trundling along. You have to pay attention when you pull out at a T junction or from a petrol station, especially if there’s no traffic about. That’s when its easy to automatically take up position on the wrong side.

The Caucasus mountains in Eurasia are generally regarded as marking the boundary between Europeans and Asians. The Caucasus is a region. The Caucasus Challenge is precisely as borderline racist as “The American Challenge”, or “The Alpine Challenge”.

Happy families bike together

I remember these. Enormous oversized bloatmobiles in a series which rewards small and handy. Someone at MB saw sense.

In other news. Today I did a 5 hour drive, and used less than 1/3 of a tank of fuel. Car is a Subaru Legacy Wagon. Outward it was packed to the roof with stuff, returning was empty.

Pat Moss definitely. Rally legend in her own right, sister of Stirling and wife of Eric Carlsson. Excellent.

Aha. Tokyo not=Japan in precisely the same way that New York not=America. I get around quite a lot, delivering my wife and her kit to various sales venues in many cities. None of them Tokyo and none of them covered in grafitti,

Excellent. You’ve nailed it. Honour or dishonour. It works in this part of Asia.

Telling, isn’t it. When I park my car to go shopping, I leave the key in the ignition. As my wife says: “no-one would be that much stupid to steal it”. Similarly, we never lock our front door. No-one here is ging to break in, and if you lock your door, how are visitors going to enter?

Norton did some fairly clever stuff in their time. The post-war Manx Norton had a cylinder head developed on a flow bench and was the first normally aspirated engine to make 100bhp/litre. Joe Craig was the engineer who built the flow bench and developed the head.

Screwing a (what appears to be a perfectly good) Lancia Beta Monte Carlo as an art installation isn’t just stupid, its fucking dumb. Why didn’t you choose an American car? There’s an infinite choice of shit to choose from.