A Very British Car Show

"tapzz" (tapzz) 07/05/2014 at 13:36 • Filed to: britain, rootes, scotland, mini, ford, wolseley, sunbeam talbot

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Or should that be "Scottish"? It was certainly in that fine country, but most of the goods originated from all over the UK, with an emphasis on the products of the Rootes Group, purveyor of brands like Sunbeam-Talbot, Humber, and Hillman.

Like much of the British car industry, Rootes is a long defunct car group. In it's '30s to '60s heyday it was a kind of Chrysler to Austin's and the Nuffield organisation's Ford and GM. Ignoring for a second that the UK had its own Ford, as is evident in this little Anglia 100e

Rootes was, in fact, absorbed into Chrysler Europe in the '70s and when that went belly up in turn, the remnants where absorbed into PSA (Peugeot/Citroën).

The Rootes Run is one of the biggest classic car shows in Scotland, and is always held in the pretty little town of Moffat, where genteel machinery such as this '50s Sunbeam-Talbot 90 feel right at home.

Mind, those cars used to be fearsome Monte Carlo competitors with people like Stirling Moss coming second in one in 1952.

In that regard, the other attraction of Moffat are the miles of very scenic, lightly trafficked and very three dimensional country roads that lead to and from it. The ABS light of my rental car may or may not have winked at me a couple of times. Fortunately, I think I would have been able to outrun at least this Wolseley 14/60 police car.

This Mini Cooper S may have had more of a job outrunning a '50s Wolseley, but would have a heap of fun trying

Moffat's not far from Edinburgh, where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, and, sure enough, there were plenty of Ford Anglia 105es

There's plenty more in the collection on Flickr

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feather-throttle-not-hair > tapzz 07/05/2014 at 14:33

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Pretty pictures. I spent a semester abroad in Scotland back in the day. Beautiful country. I've often fantasized about racing my car up those tiny little one lane roads they have all over the place.

tapzz > feather-throttle-not-hair 07/05/2014 at 15:52

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Indeed, and I think the borders are often overlooked. Most people head to the highlands, but a lot of driving there is on comparatively boring A roads- until you get to the sheep strewn single lane roads. The borders tend to have nice, ancient and empty two laners.