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Keep up to date with the latest news and events from the world of classic cars.
Exciting New Feature: Podcast Lounge at the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show!
- 5th August, 2024
We’re thrilled to announce a brand-new feature at this year’s Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show: The Podcast Lounge!
TWENTY MOTORING MEMORIES
- 5th August, 2024
While on wedding car duty (look out for another blog soon), I pondered how a 1960 Wolseley 6/99 appeared to modern traffic and my advanced age. Was I really aged only 14 and contemplating my GCE O-Level options when Lancaster Insurance was formed in 1984? And here are 20 aspects of motoring and transport that might be lost on the youth of today:
MEET THE OWNER – MARK DENTON AND HIS JOWETT JAVELIN
- 5th August, 2024
A friend in the village I grew up in had it from 1967 until he passed away 22 years ago. I never thought the car would ever come on the market! I like the lines of the Javelin – they remind me of the Vanguard – and the work of its designer, Gerald Palmer! My car is a Javelin De Luxe, first registered to Jowett’s sales manager, Arthur Joplin.
RARER THAN RARE – THE SINGER HUNTER
- 5th August, 2024
H&H Classic Auction will be selling, on the 24th of July, one of the most unusual saloons for the 1950s. Singer marketed the Hunter as the car “for the connoisseur who likes his spirited motoring in comfort” – and it was the famous Coventry firm’s last independent design.
MEET THE OWNER – CHRIS JAMES AND HIS ROVER 623SLI
- 5th August, 2024
The 623 popped up on FB Marketplace locally in Middlesbrough when I was on holiday in France. I messaged the vendor, and she said someone was going to view it the next day. He did view, but then could not sort insurance on it. She messaged to say her husband was taking it off sale, but I gave her my number should that change. She got in touch just before we returned from holiday to say if I wanted it, I could have it for £450!!.
MEET THE OWNER – CHRIS JAMES AND HIS ROVER 623SLI
- 24th July, 2024
The 623 popped up on FB Marketplace locally in Middlesbrough when I was on holiday in France. I messaged the vendor, and she said someone was going to view it the next day. He did view, but then could not sort insurance on it. She messaged to say her husband was taking it off sale, but I gave her my number should that change.
MEET THE OWNER – MATTY CRISELL AND HIS FIAT 850 SPORT COUPE
- 24th July, 2024
It is in very good condition for a 55-year-old car. The Coupe was imported from California and had been off the road since 1994 with a seized engine, but the only complete panel that needed changing was a sill that I’ve managed to find an original from Italy. The Fiat is now RHD; I found a UK car and switched the necessary parts over.
Meet The Owner – Malcolm Cross and His Austin A90 Westminster
- 24th July, 2024
The classic car world is rife with temptation. Last month, you vowed never to buy another vehicle, but you heard the siren call of classified advertising. And it is very hard to resist Malcolm Cross’s 1955 Austin A90 Westminster.
Meet The Owner – Tony Croft and his Ford Prefect 100E
- 24th July, 2024
Last year Tony acquired a car that now appears to hail from an impossibly remote time: smog, Woodbines and such telephone numbers as WATerloo 2193 (“Press Button A, caller.”). Today, many Britons associate the name “Ford Prefect” with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but 70 years ago Tony Hancock probably dreamed of owning a new 100E parked outside 23 Railway Cuttings.
YES MINISTER – THE GOVERNMENT’S WOLSELEY WEDGES
- 24th July, 2024
For those of us of a certain age, the prospect of a general election evokes images of Rover 3.5-litre P5 saloons arriving outside 10 Downing Street. However, during the 1970s, another official car conveyed junior ministers to Whitehall in a chauffeur-driven style. It was, of course, the Wolseley “Wedge”.
RARER THAN RARE - THE ALFA ROMEO 2600 BERLINA
- 16th July, 2024
I have long been fascinated by large Italian saloons of the 1960s, the sort of cars mainly encountered in the World Car Year Book, The Observer Book of Automobiles, and films starring Alberto Sordi. Nicholas Heywood-Waddington’s 2600 Berlina is not only a highly distinguished vehicle but was also assembled in South Africa. Eight years ago, I had the honour of driving it for Classic Cars magazine.
Meet The Owner – Craig Piercy and his Triumph Toledo
- 16th July, 2024
Craig is a classic car enthusiast aged 29 who one day decided to take a walk on the mild side. Throwing down his copy of Reader’s Digest and his quarter-pound bag of Mum’s and Dad’s Winter Mixture, he donned his tweed jacket, lit his pipe, and strode forth to buy a car suited to the hip young motorist. And what better choice than a 1973 Triumph Toledo?
STYLE ON FOUR WHEELS – THE FORD GRANADA CONSORT
- 3rd July, 2024
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there appeared to be a stream of special edition Granada Mk. 2s. In reality there were four between 1977 and 1981, with Ford promoting the Consort as the car with “2 litre costs. 3 litre features”.
The Citroen CX at 50 by Andrew Roberts
- 2nd July, 2024
I bought my CX in February 2019 from James Walshe. I followed what he had reported in Practical Classics magazine in 2018 in terms of him being involved in rescuing it from an uncertain future and doing some critical work to get it roadworthy.
