On Sunday 17th June, I went to Billing Aquadrome to enjoy another event hosted by the American Automobile Club International (AACI). This outing was the sixth such event (previous reviews below) in two years and once again, I had a fine time - the sun was shining, the cars were gleaming and I was smiling. 
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As usual, and regardless of the day’s label, I was on my own. The rest of my side of the Baldwin family stayed at home – expressing their love by allowing me to do my own thing without interference/hassle. My dad, though without my company, was surrounded by others that love him, so he was okay too.

I wandered around with my camera and spent a few happy hours enjoying the motors. As seems to happen every time, I saw some cool cars, like the Pontiac Catalina or Plymouth Scamp for example, that I had never come across before.

This post’s primary purpose is to share some of the photos (just scroll down if you’d prefer to get to them without delay) but, as is typical of me, I’ll share some other observations/reflections too. 
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I am becoming more and more convinced that vintage American cars are bigger, bolder, brasher and just better than their British counterparts.  From a purely gratuitous viewing perspective anyway (I am discounting fuel economy, environmental pollution, handling etc.), the Yanks beat the Brits hands down. To illustrate, compare the Ford Zephyr Zodiac MKII below to the Chevy Bel Air. Enough said!

A few cars at the show were people magnets; for example, the spotless black Dodge Charger Daytona pictured below had people around it all the time. He had so many folks wanting to speak to him that the owner must have had a sore throat by the end of the day. 

On the subject of owners, one thing that I noticed was that many of the vehicles’ primary carers were in their sixties or seventies. That doesn’t surprise me really and here’s why. I am a child of the seventies and the cars I like the most, and would want to own, are from the tail end of the sixties or the seventies. If for a moment, I/we/you accept that I am representative of other classic car folk, it could be anticipated that someone born in the fifties would like vehicles from that decade and the tail end of the forties. It’s a nostalgia thing!

That age observation led my train of thought down another route (route 66 if you like, that’s American and old too) – I hope that the exhibitors in their retirement years have made provisions to ensure that their vehicles continue to be loved by their families when they can’t take care of them themselves anymore.  Though a number of vehicles had “for sale” signs in the windows, so I might be touching a nerve here.

Maybe it was just because it was Father’s Day that I reflected on this sensitive subject. My lad for example looked at my photos with a “so what” attitude. He is 15 and couldn’t be less interested in 70s motors. There was me feeling renewed excitement when I flicked through my post event shots, my son, only enduring the experience because it was Father’s Day, was bored after five photos. 

If I actually owned one of the vehicles (like the gorgeous Ford Torino below), I know that I couldn’t rely on Mrs B. or the kids to care for it once I needed care myself.

But that’s a depressing thought, so I am going to stop and park it.

What I am not going to stop though is going to this club’s get togethers. The next one is in my diary, it’s at Billing again on the 9th September. Maybe I’ll see you there.  Thanks to all those at the AACI for putting on another great show.

Click on any image below to enlarge. High resolution images available, if you'd like one, just get in touch.

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AACI - https://www.aac-int.com/

Other Relevant Posts:
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/car-show-and-car-sos
https://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-late-summer-open-nationals-2017
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-summer-open-nationals-2017
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/24424-the-aaci-summer-nationals-and-fathers-day
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/aaci-late-summer-open-nationals

Did you read my Wheel to Wheel Action post from 18th June? Well, if you did (and even if you didn’t), here’s a quick follow-up with some action shots from the Company-Car-In-Action off road course. Both photos feature the Renault Koleos Initiale with yours truly behind the wheel.

The hill shot looks pretty tame because the steepness of the incline I was climbing isn’t too obvious from the picture. Believe me though, it was steep.
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The water shot, well that is a real corker. The photographer caught the Koleos’ entrance to the water run just perfectly. Love it.

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From October through Christmas last year, I was very keen to get my hands on the special limited edition “Hallowed” beer brewed by Robinsons in conjunction with Iron Maiden.

The challenge about the beer, aside from it being limited, was that it was only available in Morrisons stores. I must have visited half a dozen different Morrisons supermarket branches and had my family and friends on the lookout for it in others, before I had to concede defeat.
 
All was not lost though thanks to my buddy Hughesy because, whilst en route to a Desert Storm gig in Oxford on 25th November, I at least got to try a bottle that he brought down for me from Cheshire.

Today whilst mooching around Rugby (the female Baldwins were shopping and I was killing time), I wandered into B&M and found the hallowed ale on the shelf in the booze section.  There were ten bottles on display … I bought all ten. The label at the end of the shelf stated “new line, price awaited” but I took them to the checkout thinking “I don’t really care what they cost”.

All ten bottles came to £10.90.

Ten for ten … bargain!

So, by way of a wrap, in my best Len Goodman voice “It’s a ten for B&M”

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​Everyday when I get into the office, there is a moment when I think about McDonalds. Not a sausage and egg McMuffin meal, which I would forgive you for thinking, but instead the recent Mayo Chicken TV advert.

In that ad, there is a fella on the train plugging in all his rechargeable electrical kit so as to benefit from the train company’s electricity rather than pay for his own. The key message is something along the lines of “like getting value for money, you’ll like the 99p mayo chicken burger”. If you haven’t seen the ad, you can find it on YouTube.

Anyway, I get to my desk, open my satchel, take out my laptop and charging cable and then go through this rigmarole:

1. Plug PC charger into four-gang-multi-socket on desk
2. Plug the other end of the charger into the HP laptop
3. Plug the network cable into the HP
4. Plug in the 15 pin monitor cable from my second screen into the HP
5. Plug my USB headset into the HP
6. Plug my USB mouse/keyboard sender unit into the laptop
7. Turn the USB mouse on
8. Unravel my mobile phone charger cable
9. Insert USB phone cable into separate charging plug
10. Plug phone charging plug into four-gang-multi-socket on desk
11. Plug other end of phone charging cable into mobile phone
12. Place mobile phone on desk.
13. Turn laptop on and wait for it to boot up.

Like the TV ad, there is a clunk/click type soundtrack to all this action. The TV ad is only about 20 seconds long and I kid you not, it takes me about the same amount of time (and quite possibly more) to get my workstation into operating mode.

Since the burger advert aired, every morning I wonder if anyone else in the office is thinking the same thing as me as they watch me getting my shit together. I have a wry smile on my face as I go through the routine, so for any of my colleagues that read this post … now they’ll know why.

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Lots to write about today on the subject of motoring. The weekend before last saw me enjoy the Daventry motorcycle festival, last Wednesday saw me attend Company Car In Action (CCIA) at Millbrook Proving Ground and yesterday I went to an AACI event at Billing Aquadrome (I had a great time too, though I’ll have to write about that experience in a later post).

So, if you are ready, buckle up and let’s get this journey underway!


​Motorbikes
The annual motorcycle festival in Daventry took place on Saturday 9th June. I have written about this event on a number of occasions (previous reviews below) and it followed the format established in previous years.

The ride-in arrived like a noisy swarm of insects at 10am and the bikes eventually settled around the town centre.

To me, it appeared that the festival attracted a greater number of businesses into the town than in prior years, the concessions covered a lot of the space that bikes were parked in last year. I couldn’t make my mind up if the number of bikes on display had gone down or whether they had just been displaced to other parts of the centre. I suspect the latter.

As in previous years, I wandered around for a couple of happy hours taking photos and I share some of my favourites below. The town centre was packed with visitors and once again I reflected that it is probably Daventry’s busiest (and from my perspective, the best) day of the year.

My thanks go to the organisers and Daventry District Council for being supportive.

Cars
Company Car In Action is an event organised by Bauer Media, the publishers of “Fleet News”, on an annual basis and held at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire.
 
I went to this year’s event and had a good/interesting time. Among other vehicles, I drove a Volvo V90, a Renault Koleos and a Toyota Mirai.

Volvo V90
As a driver/advocate of estate cars, the V90 was on my radar for a test drive. Upon barrelling up to the Volvo stand, I asked if a) they had and b) I could drive a V90? The answer to both questions was “yes”. “Happy Days” thought I. There was a caveat though, and I kid you not … the V90 was a fully liveried panda car.

It was out on a test run when I arrived at the stand and when the car came back, it was unmissable and completely at odds with the rest of the, decidedly more understated, vehicles on display.

I am not a shrinking violet and so I was game for a laugh. But as soon as I got in the driver’s seat, I was advised that I’d be sent home if I started playing with the blues and twos. Still I didn’t need the extra attention grabbers, I was well and truly obvious already.

After I completed the hill circuit and the high-speed bowl, I asked one of the Volvo representatives to take my photo because I didn’t think anybody would believe me when I said I’d driven a police car.
 
Renault Koleos
The next CCIA experience that I will share is about driving the new Renault Koleos Initiale off road. The vehicle was nicely equipped overall, but I especially liked the air-conditioned seats, it was a hot day and they added some real value.

I was accompanied by a Scot who allowed me to take the Renault all over the off-road test site including through deep water and over some seriously steep, rutted and uneven terrain. I knew I was going to be in for a treat because of all the instructors, his vehicle was the dirtiest. I was advised that the colour of the car was “Amethyst” but I am blowed if I could tell through all the muck.

I spent more than twenty minutes having a great time. At one point, the official photographers were even taking photos of me putting the Koleos through its paces. If I get to see the shots, I’ll share them with you.

For a standard vehicle on standard road tyres, what you can do with the Koleos is remarkable.

From the ridiculously good fun to the oddball – the hydrogen fuel celled Toyota Mirai.

Toyota Mirai
I wrote about my interest in this car in August last year so when the opportunity to drive one presented itself, I was keen to take it.

I’ll be frank, the car is quirky looking (if not plain ugly) inside and out, but the technology is fascinating and the potential significant, even when the car world is fixated on electric.

I can report that the Mirai was a perfectly good car to drive and that I’d like to have spent more time testing it out. It was a proper size (not like the Renault Zoe I test drove), it didn’t have the range challenges of some electric alternatives, it was quiet, its performance was fine.
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I was accompanied throughout my test-drive by a Toyota representative and I challenged her on the availability of the hydrogen gas necessary to power it and the hefty price tag for the car - because when it comes to what to spend your £60,000+ pounds on, you might well opt for a Tesla instead.

The feedback was that the Mirai is really still an experimental, though advanced, proof of concept but that it will ultimately do for hydrogen what the Prius did for hybrids. Toyota has invested millions and what it needs is more people to be familiar with what hydrogen power can offer and the fleet industry to give it a fair go. I think that Toyota’s challenge to the relentless march towards electrification is a positive one and I hope that it will be successful.

I am optimistic. If the price was halved, I’d have one as my company car. The challenge for Toyota is how to achieve a scale of production that can enable savings to be used to reduce the price tag. Still, a manufacturer like Toyota has to have better odds of being successful than much of the rest of the motor manufacturing industry.

From the Mirai to a Gremlin
Toyota served up another delight in the form of a sporty Yaris GRMN. I was lucky enough to be taken out on a couple of hot laps of Millbrook's handling circuit with a professional driver (crash helmets required).

Whilst squealing and sliding around, I asked my pro-driver if “he raced for a living”? The answer was an emphatic “yes”, it turned out I was being chauffeured by Martin Donnelly an ex F1 driver. I felt honoured.

As should have Fernando Alonso, a recent Toyota racing driver, for his latest gift.

From Gremlin to Grumpy
I am not an Alonso fan and I get bored stiff listening to people, singing his praises and blowing smoke up his arse.  I don’t think he’s one of the best drivers in F1, in fact I think that he’s one of the more divisive.

I read an article the other day on Planet F1 where he was quoted as saying “I will not be happy if I have many trophies at home and people think that I don’t deserve them. That would be even harder.”

Is his inference that someone better, like Lewis Hamilton or Michael Schumacher for example, doesn’t/didn’t deserve theirs?

Alonso was part of the team that won at Le Mans … not a surprise bearing in mind Toyota were the only works team in the LMP1 class and, unless the car broke down, a win for the team was a guarantee. Alonso was in effect gifted the second jewel on his triple crown quest.

I don’t doubt that Alonso added value to the Toyota team and the kudos of the 24-hour event, but come on, no Audi, no Porsche … no real competition at all. Is he a great because he was part of the team that won this race? In my opinion “no”.

From Le Mans to Billing
This one is done but keep an eye out for my next post, the American Automobile Club International meet at Billing Aquadrome on Father’s Day. It was fine fun and I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts and photos as soon as I’ve had time to do the write-up.

Bye for now.

​Click on any image to enlarge. Higher resolution images available, just get in touch if you'd like one.

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Other Relevant Links
ICE ban 2040 – more questions than answers 02/08/17 
https://www.companycarinaction.co.uk
https://www.aac-int.com/
https://www.planetf1.com/news/alonso-insists-he-wants-to-deserve-his-legacy/

Previous Daventry Motorcycle Festival articles
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012​
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My car is at the menders this week, thanks (well no thanks really) to some ignorant bastard scraping it in Asda’s car park in Rugby over the Early May Bank Holiday. I state ignorant bastard not because scrapes aren’t common enough occurrences in car parks everywhere, but because the git drove off without reporting it.

Of course, that left me to report it to the store security, the police and my employers.

And of course, when you report that your car has been damaged in a carpark by an unknown culprit, you can feel others thinking “yeah right!” You feel guilty even though you are totally innocent.

Last time I did something similar, Tesco’s in Daventry about a decade ago, I left my business card and a note of apology. The chap whose car I caught was genuinely grateful that I’d been honest and when we talked, he wasn’t cross at all that I’d damaged his car. “Just one of those things” was his sentiment and I kid you not, he spent more time thanking me than complaining.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to moan and groan about my car but rather to talk about some moments of joy from the stand in replacement. My temporary loan car is a BMW 520D Touring M Sport and, to be frank, even though it’s an automatic, it’s a nicer car than my much-loved Passat estate.
 
I don’t care about the 20-inch alloys, the parking cameras, the quieter, more insulated ride, the fatter steering wheel, the fact the CD player shows a colour picture of cover of the album playing (though that is cool), the split boot function, the glass can be opened separately from the rest of the electric tailgate (though that is cool too), the fact the CD slot is centrally located as opposed to in the glovebox (VW really cocked it up in that respect); what I like the most about the BMW is that it has a panoramic sunroof.

I haven’t had a sunroof in a car for decades, not since the advent of standard fit air conditioning. I have benefitted from company cars for about the last 20 years and none of them has had one.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, top of my hit list of desires for a car, aside from a five-speed box and a decent radio cassette player, was a sunroof. My 1988 1.4L Ford Escort had a sunroof and I loved it (the car and the roof).

The 67 plate Beemer has an electric sunroof and as soon as I’d figured out how to Bluetooth my phone, I was working out how to operate it. Once the cloth-covered screen is back, the light that the roof lets in is terrific. And when the glass is opened, the fresh air is rather satisfying.

On my way down the M1 this morning the roof was open and, even though I was most probably being poisoned by the fumes, deafened by the sonic booms and ruining my fuel economy, I was happy.

If you have a choice of aircon or a sunroof, you’d be mad to go for the sunroof, but if you can have both ... happy days!

Well five of them anyway.

I’ve only got the 520 until Friday so there are just a few days left to make up for twenty years of absence. I just hope it doesn’t rain.

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This morning started in a more chaotic way than normal. I arrived in my kitchen and looked out of the French doors at one of my cats, Tiger, for that is her name. She seemed to be concentrating on something and the something turned out to be a fledgling thrush, which thankfully hadn’t been mauled to death.
 
I rushed out of the house, shooed the cat away and then went to find something to help me catch the bird, because it wouldn’t have survived another two minutes on the patio. I know that some would challenge getting involved, but my view was that either the bird died there and then, or I gave it a fighting chance of survival. I preferred the later.

Armed with a few big sheets of kitchen roll, I grabbed the thrush and transferred it to the shed roof. 

Phew thought I, the bird is safe.

As I walked away from the shed, blow me, I spotted two more fledglings by the fence and rushed to move them too. By this time one of our other cats, Pixie, was in the garden too and keenly interested in the hunt.

During the chaos, the fledglings’ parents were creating a right cacophony and flying around to distract the cats.  

With three thrushes successfully moved to the shed roof I thought that was that …

But “that” wasn’t because the birds jumped/flew off the roof and back into the garden …

… and the pantomime began all over again. I could hear the Benny Hill theme tune in my mind as I went back
through the previous loop but this time with two cats on the prowl.

With three thrushes successfully moved to the shed roof for the second time I thought that was that …

But “that” wasn’t because the birds jumped/flew off the roof and back into the garden …

… and the pantomime began all over again again.

I kid you not, I went through the capture and release rigmarole four times.

And then I had to leave the house for work. 

Despite my best efforts, the omens were not good, I drove to work expecting to find some corpses by the back door when I got home in the evening.

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I was in Daventry today when I saw something that made me smile from ear to ear and start mentally composing this blog post. Regular readers will know that cars, especially old ones, are one my interests. There are posts covering all sorts of things from car reviews to car events, car themed TV shows to driving observations.
 
One car topic that I’ve never written about (at least I don’t think so anyway) is private number plates.

I’ll be honest, I am in two minds about them. Most of the time they are painfully naff, you will have seen the kind of thing I mean:
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• Letters crammed together to make them look like a letter the owner really wanted
• Screw covers in random places to make the wrong letters look like the right ones
• Numbers that are like letters but the wrong way round - 3 and E for example
• Poor efforts to spell a name, sometimes so bad that the lower part of the plate’s small print has the owner’s actual name to compensate 

Private plates are a bit showy, they can be stupidly expensive, lots of people that have them are tossers and, perhaps bizarrely, some people will spend a lot of money on a plate and then attach it to a crappy old car (you’d think the cash would have been better spent on having a better, more reliable motor).

In the eighties, I worked with a bank manager that really wanted a private plate, his childhood nickname had been Kipper, so he desperately wanted K1PER. That was gone so he was thinking on buying K1FER and adding a strategically positioned black screw cap. I thought he was as sad as that plate would have been. K1FER wasn’t cheap either, the equivalent of 3-6 months of my salary at the time. I have no idea if he ever bought it. 

​I haven’t got a total downer on private plates though. Sometimes they are good. In fact, sometimes they are brilliant.

I am much more favourably disposed to plates that are relevant to the vehicle they are on, PUG on a Peugeot, BUG on a Beetle, HOG on a Harley, JAG on a Jag, X5 on a BMW X5 (though “X5 SAD” isn’t so clever when the owner changes their car to something else).
 
Every so often I see a plate that I think is either clever, funny or both. Some examples; years ago I saw a fella driving a Peugeot 106 with the plate P1GSY, I thought that Pigsy was right for the car and the bloke.

In Daventry, there’s a driver with the plate AR51COW, it’s appeared on a few different Audis over the years. Arsy Cow, now that is funny and I’ve always wondered if the owner lives up to the billing.
   
I saw a car on the M6 with the plate M3RDE which, allowing for the 3 being an E, is the word “shit” in French - that’s funny enough for me excuse the 3E thing.

I have seen clever plates where the number/letter combination only makes sense in your rear-view mirror. That’s the kind of plate I’d like for myself - N41RDA for example (it’s not available, I checked). N14RDA would do as well bearing in mind it’s the most common way my name is misspelt.

Getting to the point (finally) of this post - today I saw a plate that, for me, falls into the brilliant category. I was following a black Ford Fiesta past Daventry Country Park when I noticed the plate FAB717S. After a split second I twigged that was "FAB TITS" and couldn’t help laughing. I didn’t get to see the driver, though she was female. I have no idea if her knockers were as fabulous as her number plate, but she made me smile like the Cheshire Cat. Regardless of the size of her assets, I bet that she has enormous self confidence to have that plate on her motor. 

Another observation, the plate dates back to 1978, which means it’s got a seventies vibe and I like it even more. 

If I ever meet the owner, I’ll interview her and write up another post for this site.

If the number plate was for sale, it wouldn’t be right on my car, but crikey I’d love to buy it for Mrs B. 

She wouldn’t find it funny though, neither would she have the confidence to ride with it.

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