Petrolicious has to run out of….. fuel at some stage, right? I mean, how many incredible different vehicle models can they actually get access to before they start repeating themselves?
Hopefully the answer is “plenty more”.
The owner of this car will be familiar to the avid Petroliciousisti. One of his cars was featured in an earlier video and it’s every bit as exotic as this one. I won’t tell you which one it is right now but the video’s at the end of this post.
This video focuses on his Lancia 037 Group B. As he intimates in the story, the 037 is the lesser-known but not lesser-accomplished champion of the Lancia family. It shone ever-so-briefly between the rather insane Stratos and the somewhat more sensible Delta Integrale and in many ways, it was the perfect bridge between the two. It’s achingly beautiful to look at and fast in the way that only Group B cars could be.
Enough from me. Enjoy.
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As promised, here’s the earlier video featuring the same guy.
I’m not sure what he does for a living but he obviously does it well. Not only does he have two of the rarest Lancias ever made, he also has a BMW M1 lurking in the garage, too.
Youtube doesn’t really do time limits. Not unreasonable ones, at least.
So it’s a bit of a worry when the official Formula E Youtube channel puts up a highlights video of the first ever Formula E race and the highlights from the actual race go for just 30 seconds.
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That’s a 2:30 video and the highlights go between 0:30 and 1:00. The rest of it is discussion of what was a spectacular crash at the end of the race. I watched a little bit of the start and it doesn’t surprise me that there wasn’t much to see. The warm-up lap took more than 5 minutes. i don’t think the pace is really quick enough to provide much in the way of highlights at the moment.
Here’s the full final lap, which includes the crash you just saw.
Yes, what you’re about to see is racing. And no, there’s no speed limit. That’s as fast as they go.
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It’s easy to sit here and throw rotten tomatoes at this fledgling motor sport. I’m excited by the idea of electric vehicle racing but as you can see from the video, the reality isn’t living up to the expectation at all right now. They need more speed, more noise and ….. more excitement.
The danger here is that they might have started Formula E too early. People might see what’s being offered right now and lose interest in it forever. It could set the sport back a decade just as it’s finding its feet.
Did you watch it?
Were you excited by what you saw (as opposed to being excited about the idea of electric car racing)?
What could they do to make it better?
And yes, as a Saab person, the presence of Mahindra racing was noted….
UPDATED with more pics, thanks to a friend who’s also visited the collection.
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Happy days!
As the headline suggests, I’ve just transferred payment for the purchase of a Lancia Fulvia! I’ve been wanting one of these cars in the worst possible way, for a few years now.
Fittingly, I’ve ended up with one in the worst possible condition 🙂
This is first photo I saw of the car. I now have a few more below.
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The story….
This Lancia Fulvia was part of a local collection that’s being sold after the owner’s death. There were quite a few interesting cars in the collection, actually. My stepson, Geoff, bought the Fiat X19 parked next to the Fulvia in this photo. We’ll re-commission that one over the next few weeks/months so he can have some fun with it. I nearly threw myself at a Honda S800 convertible (and the Honda S600 Coupe next to it) but I could never walk past the Fulvia.
The good parts:
It’s a genuine Series 1 1.3 Fulvia Rallye, which means it has the aluminium doors, bonnet and boot. It’s the last Lancia before Fiat got involved with the company so it’s quite desirable from that point of view.
It’s a local car! I’ve been looking all over Australia. I’ve even had two Fulvias checked out overseas in the last year or so. To finally find one less that 30 minutes from home is just amazing.
It was cheap (in Fulvia terms), which brings us to “the bad parts”….
The bad parts:
It might simply look dusty in the photo, but this Fulvia needs complete restoration. The engine is seized, for starters. There’s rust in the sills, though thankfully the subframe appears to be solid. It’s painted red but the original colour was dark blue. The interior needs restoration, too.
There’s not a part of this car that doesn’t need fixing or fettling.
So while I’ve got my Fulvia, it’ll be some time before I get to drive it. The first step will be slowly pulling it apart to see just how bad the damage is, before paying some skilled men to fix the structural bits for me. I intend to use Lancia’s superior engineering to my benefit by learning how to pull apart and rebuild a well designed engine.
We pick the Fulvia and the X19 up in just over a week from now. More photos and stories will be posted in due course.
It might be a mess, but it’s my mess and I couldn’t be happier.
More pics. Click to enlarge:
Incorrect Lancia Beta badge here…..
This pic actually makes the interior look decent. It needs plenty, trust me.
That engine’s not going to push this car anywhere…..
Holy cow, we’re getting some beautiful weather! And that means beautiful cars by the bucketload, even on an event like Father’s Day.
Today’s Classics was jam packed and the cars kept rolling in consistently for a good hour or more after I arrived (and there were plenty already there when I turned up). There was a good helping of regular favourites but it’s always exciting to get some new attendees and September 2014 didn’t let anyone down in that respect.
Let’s take a look at some of the attendees with a few favourites at the end.
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This BMW 325 had some nice M enhancement and looked the business…..
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I’d love some time with this clean, gold 911 in a nice setting. Beautiful presentation.
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Parked next door was my mate Ken’s Lotus Esprit turbo. Your first thought might be James Bond (as mine was for a moment) but it’s more Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Bond had the earlier generation Esprit. In fact, this car has exactly the same colour and trim as Gere’s car in Pretty Woman. That’s not why Ken bought it, though. He’s an out-and-out Lotus guy – this is one of three he currently owns. I don’t know his thoughts on Pretty Woman 🙂
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We had bumpered and bumperless Porsche 356’s there today. I love them both. With-bumpers is the classic factory look where bumperless gives it that sporty feel. When I get my Fulvia, it’ll be going bumperless, for sure.
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Inside and outside an Alvis – a car I know nothing about at all.
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And another car I know nothing about. I didn’t find out who owns this so I have no idea of its build or its mechanicals. It looks like fun, though.
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Porsche never made a 928 Convertible but this intake could be referred to as a 928 ‘spider’.
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One day I’ll learn to restore/rebuild a car. The Fulvia will be my first. After that I’d like to take on a Mini. Who does’t love a Mini?
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The RenaultSport Megane is a genuine future classic in my mind and it was great to see this Blood Orange example there today. Want.
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I call this ‘Good Karma’.
Really good karma…..
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For the two-wheeled enthusiasts….. those who appreciate the goodness of a Cagiva (which I’m told is really quite good)
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Herding Cats
There was a nice spattering of Jaguars at today’s event.
E-Types are always a favourite and this E-Type got plenty of eyeballs, which wasn’t surprising given its amazingly shiny condition.
Click to enlarge…..
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This XJS was off to the side so it didn’t quite get the attention it deserved, but it sure was nice.
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My personal favourite cat for today was this XK150. I only wish the window was down so that I could photograph the interior. It was magnificent. I love these curvy old Jags.
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Fiat 2300
I have to organise a bunch of photo sessions with Tristan. This adorable Fiat 2300 would be just one of them. It had some kiddie seats in the back today so it wasn’t an ideal time, but hopefully this selection will give you a quick idea of just how graceful this mid-size Italian is. Beautiful.
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Austin’s Powers
The power to mesmerise with beautiful lines, stunning detail and wonderful finish…. It’s no wonder these Healeys attract good money these days.
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MGA Patina
There are a lot of highly polished and/or restored cars at Classics. That’s wonderful. The standard is always amazing.
But this car stood out today because a) it had been driven there, and b) it was obviously so authentic. An unrestored Mercedes Gullwing sold for buckets more at auction than a restored version in the same colour scheme earlier this year. There’s something to be said for authentic patina.
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Morgan
Posted with a “Like”
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BMW 2800
I really, really like this early BMW pillarless design. Safety regulations have a lot to answer for with the way they’ve diluted modern vehicle design.
Absolutely beautiful.
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Favourite #1 – Alfa Romeo GTV 2000
My first favourite for this month is a debutante at Classics, having been picked up by its new owners just a few weeks ago. It’s a 1972 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 Coupe fitted with period-correct optional Momo Vega wheels.
There’s plenty that’s wonderful about this car. It’s exhaust note sparkled on start up and all 105 series Alfas look like movie stars.
The real beauty of this car, though? It is 42 years old and 100% original.
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Favourite #2 – VW Beetle
This was such a joy.
I’m pretty sure this Beetle was at Classics for the first time, too. My apologies to the owner if that’s not the case. The car drove in this morning amidst sparkling sunshine and the paint looked so deep and lustrous that I just wanted to strip down, dive in and go for a swim.
The owner has had the car for 16 years and first bought it as a beat-up runabout to use around Melbourne. When it started getting a little too beat-up, he figured it was time to put the car away for a while and it sat fir years before being treated to the restoration you see in the photos below.
And what a wonderful job! The 1200 engine has been bored out to 1300, fitted with a 1500 head and then supercharged. The paint was re-done in the original colour, though I doubt a Beetle ever came out of a VW factory looking this good. All-in-all, it’s a sensational custom Beetle that doesn’t go too far visually, but more than delivers on the road.
And best of all, it’s used regularly. As they should be.
I’m not someone recently given to re-hashing marketing press releases, but this one from Porsche Australia caught my eye when it landed in my inbox today.
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South Australian buys first Porsche … at 85 years of age
Adelaide’s Olaf Varley decided early this year to realise his dream and purchase his first Porsche: a brand new Cayman in racing yellow.
Nothing unusual about that, except Mr Varley waited a little longer than most for his dream car. He is 85 years of age.
“I had been walking into Porsche Centre Adelaide for around three years thinking about it, but when I saw the latest Cayman I knew it was time,” he said.
Like most Porsches sold in Australia, Mr Varley’s Cayman was built to his specific order. But unlike most purchasers, he left all the option boxes unchecked.
“I’ve only ever driven manual gearbox cars and while everyone says the Porsche double clutch (PDK) gearbox is terrific, I wasn’t planning to change the habits of a lifetime,” he said. So on the last day of January 2014 Mr. Varley placed his order for a base model Cayman with the standard six-speed manual gearbox.
The eye-catching yellow two-door Coupe arrived in mid-July and while Mr Varley is still getting acquanted with his new set of wheels, he says it is everything he expected of his first Porsche.
……when I saw the Cayman I thought ‘that’s for me’
“I’ve always had a passion for sporting cars in strong colours and always wanted a Porsche, but in the past I’ve had to make do with more utilitarian cars when we were bringing up the kids. Unfortunately they didn’t have Porsche Macans then!”
The first Cayman caught his eye when it was introduced in Australia in 2006 and he followed it keenly through its 987-series and latest 981-series iterations.
“I always liked the Boxster – it looked like the real sports car I always wanted – but when I saw the Cayman I thought ‘that’s for me’ but I wasn’t sure whether I should take the plunge.”
It went out of his mind; he bought a Japanese sports car; but then he read a review written by journalists driving the latest Cayman on the famous Targa Florio course in Sicily where many Porsche sports cars triumphed in the 1960s and early 1970s.
“It looked nice and I started making enquiries,” he said.
Now, some time on, he wonders why he waited so long before embracing Porsche ownership.
“We are still getting to know each other, but we are getting on fine,” he said. “My wife Ann and I are still to do a long trip, but we are working up to it, doing about 200 kms a week in the car. There’s no rush …”
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The first thing I love about this story is the sheer fact that Olaf did this. I feel pretty sure that Olaf’s had other performance cars in his lifetime but to pull the trigger on a Porsche at age 85 is admirable regardless of your circumstances.
The second thing I love is his dedication to a lifetime of three-pedalling. Long live the manual gearbox!
The third thing I love is that not only did Olaf do it, but he did it with flair – in Racing Yellow. No-one’s going to miss Olaf and Ann arriving at the bingo club this week 🙂
You’ve heard the story, right? A guy buys an old farm. On the old farm there’s an old shed that hasn’t been opened in 30 years. Somehow the family selling the farm just forgot about it (!!). Inside the shed are a bunch of dust-covered, but otherwise perfectly preserved classic cars that were worth pennies when they were locked away, but are now worth a fortune.
Barn find!!!!
Above: NOT the barn find in this story
Well, I went and saw my first ‘barn find’ on the weekend. It wasn’t a forgotten collection sold absent-mindedly by a family. It was a group of cars collected by a Hobart local who passed away a few years ago, which is now being sold bit-by-bit by the family.
Specifically, I went to look at a Series 1 Lancia Fulvia – exciting enough merely because it’s one that I don’t have to transport from interstate! Or overseas (which I’ve seriously considered).
But here’s the thing I learned about barn finds over the weekend:
The unspoken excitement of the barn find is preservation. You subconsciously think “Wow. A perfectly preserved Fulvia! All I need to do is change the fluids, slot in a battery and I’m in a fully functional automotive time machine!”
Well, not quite.
Barn finds, by their very nature, are cars that have sat for ages…. and ages…. and ages. Even if such a car is relatively new, that can create problems. When the car is 30 or 40 years old, it can mean things like rust and a seized engine, both of which are sadly present in this Fulvia.
In fact, of the dozen or so cars I saw in the ‘barn’ on the weekend, there were only a handful that looked like they’d need minimal work to get moving again, providing all the internal are OK. The cars I saw ranged from the 1940’s (I think) through to the 1980’s and it was the younger cars that looked the most likely to get going the quickest.
So what of the Fulvia? I went down on Sunday with a deposit in my pocket. I came back having not handed over a cent of it.
The big downside is that the car has been in a minor accident at some point in its life and there’s evidence of this down the right-hand side of the vehicle. The fix involved some new paint, which changed the colour from blue to red. The interior looks tired and some of the brightwork, which is basically irreplaceable, is in bad condition. And then there’s that seized engine. I feel very confident it’s just from the car sitting for 18 years and not from hardcore mechanical failure. In other words, I’m confident it could be freed up. But it would still have to be disassembled and inspected. Hoses, brakes, gearbox…… the list goes on.
The good news (aside from the sheer fact that it’s a Series 1 Fulvia and it’s local) is that the subframe looked solid.
If I had some space to store the car at home I could disassemble at my leisure and prepare it for the body shop. But I don’t, which is endlessly frustrating. I’m looking into the cost of some replacement parts and panelling and I’m also looking for somewhere to store the 968. If those things can come together quickly, I might just have my dream project. If not, it might be (yet another) opportunity lost.
Either way, I learned a valuable lesson on the weekend: have serious respect for those who take on a barn find. It’s not all beer and skittles with these cars. Not at first look, anyway.
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And no, I can’t really talk about the other vehicles stored with the Fulvia. It’s a little bit secret-squirrel and I don’t know how much I can give away. I’m hesitant to even show a photo of the Fulvia here. Sorry.
The video below has been the hot video of the week, racking up nearly 2.5 million views in just 4 days. I reckon nearly 1 million of those views have been from Saab fans 🙂
I first saw it on Tuesday but decided I wouldn’t use it on site. It was nice, but for me, it lacked* the backstory needed to make it a story worth telling. The ‘what’ of receiving and old Saab you’ve always wanted is nice, but I thought it really needed more of the ‘why’. Why did she want this car so much when she was younger?
The other reason I didn’t bother posting it here is that everyone was seeing it anyway (if the number of messages I got in my inbox is anything to go by).
Here’s the video. It’s short. And it’s very nice.
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* the ‘why has since been answered in the young man’s snippet accompanying the video on Youtube:
A lot of people have been asking why her dream car is the Saab ’73 99 EMS. My Mom used to clean houses for a living, and one of the houses she would clean for a few years was a guy who owned a 70’s saab 99. He would throw her the keys and let her move the car all the time and she fell in love with it.
After 6 months of looking, my friend found one on eBay and I reached out to the seller. It wasn’t the same year or colour, but it was close. It was a silver 1974. After talking with him on the phone, I found out he had a lot of collectible Saabs, one of which was the exact make, model, colour and year I was looking for.
It took me another 6 months to get it, but surprising her with it made it all worthwhile.
For those who are watching and aren’t familiar with the project, I’ll explain it here:
2.5 years ago, my mom lost her job and I set off on a challenge to earn enough money to financially retire her. I haven’t been successful yet, but this is a big milestone in helping to improve her life. She hasn’t had a car in a year, and the one before that was falling apart.
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Question: What Car Would You Like Your Kids To Buy For You?
So, imagine your kids are all grown up and they want to do something nice like this for you. What car from your youth would put a smile on your face like the one you saw in the video above?
Consider this your chance to drop a hint like never before 🙂
The rules:
1. It has to be something you really coveted in your youth.
2. It has to be something achievable, which means it’ll be something reasonably humble. Your kid(s) will have to pool some funds together one day and buy this car without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives. No Lamborghinis here (unless your kids are super-rich, in which case, more power to ya)
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My nomination – Ford Escort RS2000
Growing up in suburban Melbourne in the 1980’s, I wasn’t exposed to many of the European cars that I seem to favour today. There were few of them around and they were all in much wealthier zip codes than ours. You were either a Ford family or a Holden family (or you owned one of those new-fangled cars commonly referred to back then as “Jap crap” even if they outlasted most of the locally built stuff).
Most guys loved the big Ford GT Falcons or the Holden Monaros or Toranas that dominated racing at the time, but the Escort RS2000’s were the little hotties of my youth and I wanted one bad. I used to get whiplash whenever I saw one on the street.
I always consider it strange that I loved Fords growing up, and my parents only ever had Fords when I was growing up, and yet I’ve never owned one. An Escort RS2000 would change all that and quite nicely, too. It’s not a hot hatch as much as a mini muscle car and small cars have always held more appeal for me than large cars. One of these would fit the bill perfectly and it might even wipe out the scars memories of the standard Holden Gemini I drove at the time.
NEVS’s anaemic PR division followed this up with a press release:
Nevs hereby clarify that the company is not insolvent. The company does not have enough liquid cash as today to pay all outstanding debt but Nevs’ assets are larger than its debt. Nevs today cannot say exactly when, but Nevs’ suppliers will get paid.
During the summer, the dialogues with the two major vehicle manufacturers have continued and developed in a positive direction. It is a thorough evaluation process that is still ongoing, and the discussions have not been finalized yet.
After the funding is secured, and that Nevs business plan is updated together with its new partners, Nevs will be able to make the decision on when the Trollhattan factory can resume its production.
The company whose representative filed a bankruptcy petition has informed Nevs today that they will withdraw the case after the information they have got regarding the ongoing dialogues.
A few quick thoughts on this:
“Nevs hereby clarify that the company is not insolvent” being followed by the words “The company does not have enough liquid cash as today to pay all outstanding debt….” is more than a little strange. It changes marginally from place to place, but in general terms, insolvency is where your debts outweigh your capacity to repay them as they fall due. It requires liquidity, not promises or claims about total assets. NEVS may claim solvency in this press release but such a claim has to stand up in court if/when they’re pressed to prove it.
Here’s a question someone in Sweden should be asking – Why doesn’t NEVS protect itself from creditors by going into Reorganisation, as Saab/SWAN did more than once a few years ago?
“Reorg”, you might remember, is the rough Swedish equivalent of a Chapter 7 11 bankruptcy in the US or ‘Voluntary Administration’ here in Australia, where the company gets some protection from creditors and can reorganise its business in order to maintain solvency and become profitable. The answer, I believe, is that if you go into Reorg you’ve got to prove to the court that you have a realistic chance of coming out of Reorg and trading successfully. NEVS’s ability to prove that would be severely limited because right now, they don’t have a finished product to sell nor a distribution network to sell that product into.
Consequently, I’ll take a stab and say that NEVS quite possibly exists right now only because of the good graces of its creditors. KJJ has already liquidated plenty of assets in China and elsewhere to keep the doors open this long and his capacity to keep doing this must be limited at this point.
And another question, on a slightly different matter….. Unless there’s going to be a three-party effort going on here – NEVS, DongFeng and Mahindra all working together – why is NEVS still in discussion with two potential partners?
This has been going on for months now and it will likely go on for many, many months more if NEVS still hasn’t got past the point of isolating one partner to deal with (if indeed one partner is the intended goal). If I were a creditor, I’d want a little more information as to exactly where things are at. I’d want a more realistic timeframe as to when I was going to get paid. If the goal is to secure a single partner/buyer/investor and NEVS is still sorting out who that might be, then I wouldn’t be planning on recovering my debt any time soon. Maybe the creditors have got that info from NEVS, but to the general market it looks like very little is happening in the way of progress – again, this is down to the anaemic PR department at NEVS.
Scandinavian thrillers have been in vogue for the past 5 years or so, but this one’s becoming less of a thriller and more of a “why-dunnit?”. The conclusion is fairly well known to most objective observers; Saab is highly likely to be skewered and fairly soon. The only remaining questions are to do with any minor flips or twists along the way and the inevitable examination of why it happened.
My memory on the exact procedure from years ago is fuzzy, but hopefully I’m not putting anything out of context here.
Petition for Saab Bankruptcy
So what’s the latest?
Here’s the word from just-auto, which is a reliable source of news from my experience:
National Electric Vehicle Sweden says 250 production employees are at home following further struggles with short-term financing.
Staff only recently returned to the Saab-producing parent after summer holidays, but a petition filed with Swedish authorities from a supplier, today (12 August) has seen many without production work.
“The vacations ended this weekend, so when they came back we informed them [production staff] we still have things to do in the factory,” a NEVS spokesman told just-auto from Trollhattan in Western Sweden.
“So everyone comes back every Monday, but during the stop of production they stay at home and wait for new information.
“Those 250 people are being paid – they are at home with wages. The petition to the Court was today and they made a decision to have a negotiation on 8 September. It is the Court here in the area [of] Vanersborg.”
That’s a bankruptcy court they’re talking about.
So while NEVS continues to talk to two ‘prominent’ OEM’s about the company’s future – those two companies are widely believed to be Mahindra and Dongfeng – a supplier has had enough and petitioned the bankruptcy court to step in. The company that has filed this motion isn’t owed much (150,000SEK is not much at all in car company terms) but it doesn’t take much to get the ball rolling.
It should be noted that the filing was actually made by a debt-recovery company engaged by the supplier rather than the supplier itself. The CEO of the supplier company was surprised the debt recovery boys had taken this action but didn’t commit to withdrawing it. As we saw back in 2011, it only takes one to encourage a few more so even if the motion is withdrawn, others may follow.
The Likely Outcome
Back to NEVS/Saab:
The two companies [with which] we are in dialogue are fully aware of our situation. That it takes some time to complete a cooperation is a sign they are very serious.
I’ll bet they’re fully aware of the situation and I’m sure they’re quite serious. But I doubt they have the honourable intentions that NEVS is leading everyone to believe.
Trollhattan’s mayor, Paul Akerlund, remains ‘optimistic’ according to TTELA, but his statement sounds neutral-at-best, to me:
I am quite hopeful that there will be a solution in the pipeline that will be stable for the future.
And of course he’s optimistic. He might have been a former Saab guy and union guy in the past but in 2014, he’s the mayor. It’s his job to remain optimistic about his region.
A likely outcome is that the Dong Feng, or any other player, buy the rights to the [Phoenix] platform and that Kai Johan Jiang sells the factory to someone else – paying debts and accepting a dream shattered.
That’s where I think this is going, too.
No company is going to commit massive funds to Saab when it can let the inevitable happen and pick up the technology or property it wants for pennies on the dollar.
Why Has This Happened?
I’m far away from the action and like most of you, I’m left to read between the lines. From afar, however, I can say that any company looking to rejuvenate Saab needed two things: Plenty of money and a credible plan.
Victor Muller had one, but not the other. He had new models ready to go, an outstanding bunch of engineers that were already making progress on improving/replacing those models and a global sales pipeline that was hurting, but still alive. Things needed improvement, but that was known and it was being addressed. That’s as close to a credible plan as Saab has had in a long time. What he didn’t have was the money or the political support to get it.
NEVS – and this is only my opinion – had neither.
Converting to an all-electric fleet was always a massive gamble. Not only does it require massive resources, it needs the product to be an absolute groundbreaker in order to sell. A short history of Tesla will tell you that much.
NEVS had some good PowerPoint presentations in the beginning but time told us that the thoughts therein could not be turned into actions. The electric vehicle they promised was delayed to the point where they had to divert scarce resources into redeveloping a petrol version of the Saab 9-3 – a car they’d only ever be allowed to sell in tiny numbers because it didn’t meet regulations for selling in volume. The move to a petrol powered Saab 9-3 was the first sign that NEVS was in genuine trouble.
That’s the credible plan part.
We all know now that they don’t have the money, either. Kai Johan Jiang has made an honourable effort and continues to do so, but he couldn’t do it alone and he was let down by a Chinese partner that didn’t make good on its promise. I sincerely doubt NEVS’s long-term viability even if their Chinese partner had made good on their commitments, but they didn’t.
That’s my short theory as to why. I’ll leave it to people closer to the action to tell us the gory details in good time.
It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over
There is a small, small chance that this could all come good. Either DongFeng or Mahindra might surprise everyone and come through with a deal that keeps a Saab presence in Trollhattan. And because I love the town and the factory, I sincerely hope that happens.
But the realist in me says we’re witnessing the final scene in a Scandinavian drama that we’ll all say would have been nice if it had a more un-Scandinavian outcome. A happy ending would be nice, for a change.
Your pictures were appended to your census comments last week, but I figured the effort people went to to send in some photos deserved a bit more recognition than that.
So, here are your cars in a post of their own. There’s an undeniable Swedish theme hanging around, which is never a bad thing. It’s not as Swedish as it would have been a few years ago, though, which in light of the recent article about Saab people driving cars that aren’t Saabs is an interesting thing in itself.
Thanks for sending in your pics. I like tracking where people are going with their vehicular choices so I’m sure it’s an exercise we’ll repeat at the some time in the future.
Andy’s Jaguar:
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Ed’s 9000, 99 Turbo and 900 T16S
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Nigel’s Jensen Interceptor and VW Kombi
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Allan’s MCY 900 SPG
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Eggs’ 900 Vert, MB Oiler and ‘craptastic’ Dodge people carrier
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Phillip’s Saab collection: 900×2, 9-3 vert and Dame Edna 9-5
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Dan P’s modified 9-3S
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Jos’s eclectic and wonderful bunch – Saab 9-5 Wagon, Citroen 2CV and aged MB S-Classe
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Mats’ work-in-progress: Porsche 914
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Graham’s Saab 9-5 Aero wagon and 900 Convertible
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Sebastian’s oil-burner collection: Saab 9-3 TiD SportCombi and MB 250D
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iiari’s Lincoln MKZ Hybrid and Saab 9-3 Turbo X SportCombi
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And of course, my own trio – Saab 9000 Aero, Subaru Brumby and Porsche 968CS
