Voitures Anciennes

[curtis]

A marvellous history of Hélène Delangle aka Hellé Nice. "The Bugatti Queen".
https://www.amazon.fr/Bugatti-Queen-Mir ... 0743478592

[DominicBest]

I've never visited this museum,

It’s a great museum. It was however unique when it was just the Schlumph collection. It really was something special.
Another great museum where the state took over a private collection is the Kroller Müller art museum in Holland. Again it’s fascinating because it is mainly a private collection, this time the collector was the young wife of a Dutch industrialist. Her skill or luck in choosing pieces from virtually unknown contemporary artists was a real Midas’ touch. The museum is World class despite being in the middle of nowhere in a National Park with paintings, sculptures and drawings from what we now know to be the greats.
https://krollermuller.nl/en

[curtis]

RMCH 2020 GT6 by john curtis, sur Flickr

Soon it will be time for this year's Monte Carlo Historique.
I had promised myself to enter and each year found an excuse not to! Rather expensive as after the entry fee there was the transporting of the car to the start and then friends to follow with the trailer and parts and wheels and tyres. I decided I could do several other rallyes for the same cost.

[curtis]

For example the Rallye Neige et Glace with my Triumph Hérald Coupé.

Triumph Hérald Rallye Neige et Glace by john curtis, sur Flickr

[curtis]

And, also the Rallye Neige et Glace in my Ford Escort MK1 TwinCam
Neige et Glace 2010 Tom Z 026 by john curtis, sur Flickr

[Nomoss]

The previous post reminded me of an experience in St Johns Newfoundland in 1977.
I was posted there for some months to join a new drillship under construction, and decided to buy a car for my stay there.
I bought an almost new Marina, which as an export car for Canada had an Austin badge, for a bargain price, as it was unpopular there.
I visited a garage specialising in British cars who were offering sets of winter tyres complete with free rims.
While I was there I noticed several twin cam engines by the far wall, and found these were routinely being removed from Escorts as the garage regarded them as "pieces of sh*t, not worth working on", and were replacing them with some locally available engine.

Incidentally, After about a year I shipped the Marina to England, where I removed the anti pollution components and fitted the UK carb and manifolds.
In 1980 we drove it to Mallorca, where it was used until about 1988, when we swapped it, still on Canadian plates, for a Spanish registered Mini.
Previously we had used it in the UK as overseas residents, and in Spain at that time we were able to pay a fee of a percentage of the official valuation in order to keep the foreign registration, which was cheaper and easier than importing it
In spite of having a bad reputation in the UK, the Marina was one of the most reliable cars we had in that era, and covered well over 100,000 miles, making several return trips to the UK and touring all over Spain.

BM Marina Halifax Jan 78.jpg

[curtis]

Interesting comments re the Lotus Twin cam engines being "routinely removed from Escorts.
Find that a bit hard to believe as there were only a handful (900 odd) Escort Twincams made so it would seem unlikely that they would be regularly arriving in that garage.
Apart from the original design difficulty regarding the water pump removal the engines were superb.

[Nomoss]

Interesting comments re the Lotus Twin cam engines being "routinely removed from Escorts.
Find that a bit hard to believe as there were only a handful (900 odd) Escort Twincams made so it would seem unlikely that they would be regularly arriving in that garage.
Apart from the original design difficulty regarding the water pump removal the engines were superb.

I saw at least 3 or 4 engines. They were quite distinctive, which is why I noticed them and asked, and am only repeating what I was told.

The garage was widely known for servicing British cars.

[Hotrodder]

Re: Morris Marina-
A spray painter I knew mentioned he was trying to get rid of a Marina and I asked why. He was having trouble making ends meet and wasn't happy with the mpg he was getting from it. It was the 1.8 TC model so I made him a silly offer and he accepted. I didn't realise the TC stood for twin carb, not twin cam but I was still delighted. He had spent a lot of money rebuilding the carbs and getting it running as perfect as it could be. I popped the engine and entire drive train into my Marina 1.3 van and loved it. It went like stink in the light van and I sold the car on with the 1.3 lump for almost what I paid for it. Win win.

[Nomoss]

In the winter of 1997 the Marina performed beautifully in the snow on its snow tyres. I found I could control it very well on the ice and it would climb the steep streets up from the harbour if I avoided first gear and was careful on the throttle, while many of the American cars with automatic transmission were spinning their wheels.
However the petrol consumption fell to around 10 mpg, which the garage where I bought it said was normal in such cold weather, telling me that some similar cars got only 6-8 mpg.
I soon found that there was an automatic mixture control on the Stromberg carb., controlled by a bimetallic spring, which never shifted from maximum rich in the very cold weather that year.
I unwound the spring somewhat, which greatly improved the consumption. Starting was more difficult, but could be improved by partly blocking the air intake for a short time.
After I removed the Stromberg, air pump, etc. I fitted the standard 1.8 twin carbs and manifolds.
I never changed the low compression cylinder head, but this was an advantage when returning from a trip to Brittany in 1978, to get another year's stay for the car, when there was a fuel crisis.
We couldn't find any petrol stations open on the way to the ferry, so added the paraffin from our camping stove and spare can to what was left in the tank. The engine was hot and ran fine on this, and even started and ran long enough to disembark and reach a petrol station in Plymouth.