A Very British Car Show

"tapzz" (tapzz) 09/01/2016 at 10:10 • Filed to: Car Show, Austin, Rolls-royce, Lotus, Riley, Lagonda, Lea-Francis, Alvis

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The Strathmore Vintage Vehicle Club’s Extravaganza featured rather a lot of metal, wood and leather that may not be familiar in the Colonies, but it also featured some bloody typical British rain.

So what does one do at such an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ? Well, you playfully race your edwardian wood and brass contraption against your chums’ spiffing Rolls Royce Twenty and Lagonda 2 Litre in the driving rain, on a sodden field.

Though you can join in the fun with much more humble machinery too.

So many Austin 7s, though

Still, the rain is quite photogenic on fancy,

not so fancy (bonus points for the person who spots the incongruity),

and very fancy mascots indeed.

And ones that started at the top, and have come down a bit since.

Not that everything was British

or even European

Or particularly old

My favourites? One is the oddness of the Lea-Francis 14hp saloon

And I’m beginning to get a liking for proper Rileys. They were not-cheap, but attainable ‘sports saloons’ back in the day. Like a British BMW.

But when you see them now, they’re invariable old, scruffy and well-used ‘oily rags’. Unlike many ‘30s machines, they don’t get babied or trailered- they trailer you.

So was the rain a problem? Yes. To those with a bit of heft.

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BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > tapzz 09/01/2016 at 10:19

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That Dodge Dart could very well be European, or a bit at least.

I suspect it might have been built at Nekaf in the Netherlands, which built/assembled various Chrysler models, such as the Dodge Dart and the Plymouth Valiant in the early sixties. I checked the license plate, and it has spent its whole life in the Netherlands, confirming the possibility of that story.

tapzz > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer 09/01/2016 at 10:30

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The license plate did look either old school Dutch or Portuguese to me, but I didn’t know anyone assembled Mopars in the Netherlands at that point- thanks!

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > tapzz 09/01/2016 at 10:55

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You’re welcome!

Nekaf started out as the ‘Nederlandse Kaiser-Frazer Automobiel Fabrieken’ in 1948, as a way for Kaiser-Frazer to sell cars in Europe at lower costs. Also they built a Dutch variant of the Jeep called the Nekaf Jeep. Next to those they also built cars for Simca and Hillman. Later the factory became part of Chrysler Benelux after a bankruptcy, when it mostly built Mopar and Simca cars, next to some Saabs, before closing down in 1971.