Harry’s Garage

[simon_g]

Felt better value at the £20 or so for a Smith & Sniff podcast ticket with the concours included! tbh I spent 90 mins or so wandering about and could easily have spent longer.

[Pete_]

Felt better value at the £20 or so for a Smith & Sniff podcast ticket with the concours included! tbh I spent 90 mins or so wandering about and could easily have spent longer.

I was there too! Got there about 4 and spent a couple of hours wandering around before the podcast, some great cars there that I haven't seen in the metal before.

[integrale_evo]

I don’t really get the competitive / prize giving element. I suppose they do that to get a selection of the ‘best’ and encourage more discussion and participation from the punters who’ll want to try and guess the results, chose their favourites etc.

Anyway, seems a little odd handing the owner a trophy when most of them have little to nothing to do with the condition of their cars, they just pay other people to do it and settle the massive bill once it’s all nice and shiny.

[mik]

Anyway, seems a little odd handing the owner a trophy when most of them have little to nothing to do with the condition of their cars, they just pay other people to do it and settle the massive bill once it’s all nice and shiny.

That.

[simon_g]

Yeah, agreed. What really irked me though was the XK120 (you just briefly see it at 33:07 in the vid) - the guide describes this 70 year old car's history including lots of competition use, was laid up for a while then restored. It was literally as new. The seats looked like they'd never been sat in, the gauges and switchgear looked unused, the wheels and tyres looked like they'd never seen any miles at all. No idea how much of it was brand new bits but there was absolutely nothing left to place it as an old car, it could have been a very well done new kitcar. Others there were in aburdly well prepared condition but actually looked like they'd seen some action.

[IanF]

I was going to go down at lunch on one of the days but entrance was £50 and with the best will in the world I wasn't paying £50 for half an hours walk around...

Schuppan 962 looked Probably would have done better had they run that at Le Mans this year

Ah, I had a couple of free tickets for that, but was away. I’ll mention it beforehand next time!

[GG.]

I was going to go down at lunch on one of the days but entrance was £50 and with the best will in the world I wasn't paying £50 for half an hours walk around...

Schuppan 962 looked Probably would have done better had they run that at Le Mans this year

Ah, I had a couple of free tickets for that, but was away. I’ll mention it beforehand next time!

D'oh!

[Explosive Newt]

Clarksons farm crossover.

I’d never looked closely as these cars are in the £2,500 territory which I assumed meant they were disasters waiting to happen.

[scotta]

I wonder if he discussed with clarkson about how actual pissed off he was with Ant & Dec when they dumped a bucket of dirt all over his. I would have been fucking livid.

[nuttinnew]

[scotta]

Didn't enjoy this one. Bit boring i thought.

[Jimexpl]

Didn't enjoy this one. Bit boring i thought.

It was a bit dull, and missed a lot of detail about the 300SL that people would find interesting -

You have a starting procedure to follow, otherwise fuel ends up in the oil - quite a few US cars had replacement engines early on, and when they ran out of new castings the broken engines from earlier swaps were rebuilt and put into later cars.
A lovely guy called Eric La Moine is the oracle on these and has an amazing amount of detail documented. Through him we shipped a Gullwing off to Germany to have an engine swap with Roadster. £40k in my bosses pocket so that the Roadster could be reunited with its original (period factory rebuilt) engine, and our Gullwing ended up with one only a couple of serial numbers off the one it originally had.

They feel way more modern to drive than Ferraris from the same era, and the gearbox is one of the most enjoyable I've ever used.
I think that every Gullwing I dealt with either already had aftermarket a/c fitted or we fitted it as part of the sale, which makes them pleasant inside.
I'd say the engine is one of the all time great sixes, with loads of character.
I seem to remember they had a remote brake servo that was a pain to set up, but when done well the brakes were far more reassuring and positive than your typical 1950s car.

[mik]

You have a starting procedure to follow, otherwise fuel ends up in the oil - quite a few US cars had replacement engines early on,

Insights Jim. Can you share any more detail on the above?

I always did what I could to avoid running on choke back in the days of manuel choke - obviously you had no choice to get things started, but as soon as the car was running I’d reduce choke to a bare minimum, and once rolling the choke would go off - even if the car spluttered a bit.

[integrale_evo]

Wonder if that’s what had affected the horribly Smokey one at the start of the gumball rally film

[Jimexpl]

You have a starting procedure to follow, otherwise fuel ends up in the oil - quite a few US cars had replacement engines early on,

Insights Jim. Can you share any more detail on the above?

I always did what I could to avoid running on choke back in the days of manuel choke - obviously you had no choice to get things started, but as soon as the car was running I’d reduce choke to a bare minimum, and once rolling the choke would go off - even if the car spluttered a bit.

It has really early direct fuel injection (perhaps the first?), and there was a priming pump that you had to switch on otherwise they don't start when cold and can struggle when warm. It's one of the random heavily chromed knobs on the dash, and you switch it off as soon as the car has fired, otherwise it dumps fuel down the inlet regardless the cylinder firing or not.
More Roadster engines were damaged than Gullwing - perhaps less car geeky owners left the pump on more often? Merc kept hold of written-off Gullwing engines when they could and used them as service replacements.

[nuttinnew]

[mik]

Re EQXX - I didn't watch much of the vid as it was pretty dull, but I did notice a Cd=0.17

[Jobbo]

I agree - I turned off before the end, though I do quite like the EQXX. Nice interior.

Anyway, we all know Harry founded Evo: The Thrill of the Passenger Ride.

[mik]

though I do quite like the EQXX. Nice interior.

It's interesting, but fugly. The deep gloom in the rear (due to the solar panel) made the back seat area look weird.

[Jobbo]

though I do quite like the EQXX. Nice interior.

It's interesting, but fugly. The deep gloom in the rear (due to the solar panel) made the back seat area look weird.

I am hoping I can tick the box for 'deep gloom' option on my next car. Sounds cool.