www.zwischengas.com officially launched

It was a lot of hard work, but now its available for public use: www.zwischengas.com. It's targeted towards German language readers, but the pictures are of course multi language. Have a look and you will understand that my blogging frequency went down over the last weeks.

What we can celebrate next year (2011)

Soon we will swap 2010 by 2011 in our calendars. So I started to think about what cars have been presented 50 years ago. Here's a first list:
Renault 4
Jaguar E-Type
VW 1500
Peugeot 404
NSU Prinz 4
Fiat 1300/1500
Daf 600
Devin VW (Devin D)
Citroen Ami 6
Fiat Coupé 2300 S
Simca 1000
Jaguar Mark X
Triumph TR 4
Ferrari 250 GT(E)
Alfa-Romeo 2000 Sprint (Bertone)

Yes, I agree, not all of these have the same relevance ;-)
So, here's a list for cars presented 30 years ago (so 1981):
Alfa-Romeo GTV 6
Audi Quattro
Audi Coupé
Talbot Murena
Porsche 944
Renault 5 Turbo
Ferrari Mondial
Mercedes 380/500 SEC
Opel Ascona (front wheel drive)
VW Jetta
Talbot Tagora
TVR Tasmin
As always, I am open for feedbacks and corrections.

Soon available - zwischengas.com - online portal for friends of classic cars and historic races

We have been working a lot over the last months, but soon we can present the results of our efforts: www.zwischengas.com. This will be an online platform for German reading classic car addicts and friends of historic racing. We have scanned and digitized more than 120'000 pages of historically important documents, have searched through large archives and edited sound and video documents to create what we think the most comprehensive online information repository covering 100+ years of automobile history.
If you want to get a sneak preview, have a look at the video shown here.

Arosa ClassicCar 2010 - exciting cars and optimal conditions

This year's Arosa ClassicCar hillclimb enjoyed almost optimal (weather) conditions. Except for some rain on Friday for the training the sun was shining and temperatures were just right for classic cars. The Arosa hillclimb is one of the most selective and challenging ones I know off. 7.8 km long, 78 curves (though some say 76). The fastest cars, for example my favorite, the Porsche 906 (Carrera 6), run in approximately 4 minutes and 40 seconds up the hill. But even if you take 5:30 you are still doing an average of approximately 90 km/h, regardless of the three hairpins and many narrow bends. The event features regularity and competition classes. As usual most of the cars are in the regularity class, but even these pilots are trying to optimize their uphill time. As said Friday was rainy, resulting in quite some crashes during the training. My JWF Milano GT showed some misfires because of high humidity, but then got much better on Sunday finally. I actually managed to become 10th of more than 140 drivers on Saturday in regularity, by pure luck though. Sunday I successfully tried to improve my lines and speed up the hill, so didn't give anything on regularity any more. Interesting was the comparison of the JWF with the Ford Galaxie 500 starting just behind each other. The JWF almost fits into the trunk of the Galaxie, probably has only half (or less) the horsepower, but on the bendy road is clearly faster than the Falcon, no wonder, right.
Everybody I talked to was very happy and excited about the race and most probably will come back next year again. I am still in the process of compiling a little movie that I will post later on.

Forgotten cars - Technical Exponents TX Tripper

Don't say you remember this car! It's a Technical Exponent TX Tripper. Here's some background: Convertible, 4 seater, 635 kg, engines sourced from Ford and Triumph, for example with 129 HP from 1998 ccm, 3,7 m long, 1,45 m wide, 4-gear-transmission with overdrive, max speed 200 km/h, said to be in 6.6 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h. The factory said it would consume 7.8 to 10.8 liter of gasoline per 100 km. The name was certainly not suited for the German speaking market, as "Tripper" is a bad illness you don't want to be connected with. Also design wise it wasn't probably a beauty and so this British product disappeared at some point of time. But good to know that these cars existed should I once spot one.

Hittnau Oldtimerclassic 2010 - airplanes steal cars the show

It's a wonderful concept! Bring classic cars, old motorcycles and vintage airplanes together in one event. This is what the guys in Hittnau are doing every two or three years. Today was the 7th Hittnau Oltimerclassic. And they came, especially the airplanes. It's rare that you can see such impressive airplanes land and start on a piece of grass. I am not an airplane expert, but I really liked what was shown. In my eyes the participants in the airplane category were much more impressive than the ones in the car or motorcycle discipline. There were a number of beautiful cars, but all in all, there's much more in Switzerland that what was shown in Hittnau! Same with the motorcycles. But anyway, it's cool to see them all pass by, on a simple race track using standard roads. There was a corso as well with a numerous almost forgotten cars. And the parking was an attraction as well, with many classics parked side by side. Whether CHF 30.- as entry fee is justified that's another question, I heard a lot of people complain. But if it helps the MSC Hittnau to organize this every second or third year, it's money well spent. Have a look at the pictures!

One that you can buy - TVR Griffith 500

Here's again a classic car that you actually can buy. You don't find a TVR Griffith often for sale on the market in Switzerland and Central Europe, here's one from 1998 with 49'000 km for CHF 54'000, approximately £ 28'000 or € 40'000.- (bad exchange rate, huh!). It's the model you want to have, as compared to the 430/400 it's vastly refined and the Rover 5 liter engine in its TVR Power tune is an all time great. The color scheme (blue, red interior) might not be your first preference though. TVR Griffith models can suffer from not being driven frequently, but with this mileage that should be okay. On the other side the larger bills come usually with 70'000+ kms. Mind that in the UK these cars go for £ 10'000 to 20'000, but in RHD disguise, which is not really an option for Central Europe. Importing one into Switzerland is very difficult and I wouldn't suggest to do this.

Coming Arosa ClassicCar - Sept 9 to 12, 2010

In roughly 10 days this year's Arosa ClassicCar 2010 will going to attract again many classic car fans and an impressive list of participant cars. It's somewhat the Nurburgring of the Alps, in a hillclimb setup. Have a look at the advertisement and you can spot the black JWF Milano GT (right side) being entered again this year! Hopefully the weather will be as nice as last year of better!

British Car Meeting in Mollis - Riley, Connaught and many others

One of the biggest car meetings in Switzerland every year is the British Car Meeting in Mollis (Glarus). Situated at an airport it offers both the drivers/owners and the spectators an overview on basically any car ever produced in Britain. This years guest of honor was Riley and it was quite a gathering of (mostly post war) Rileys, rarely seen here. But whatever you are interested in concerning British cars, you probably would have been able to spot one - Lotus, TVR, Nash, Hillman, Vauxhall, Triumph, MG, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston-Martin, Rover, Land-Rover, Jaguar, Morris, etc. they all were there, about 1'300-1'500 of them. And, probably for the first time ever, the brand new Connaught V10 GT was shown in Switzerland, as a protoype. The weather was perfect, not too warm so that most cars even survived some queuing at the entrance, sunny and dry. See you again, next year, same time!

From the RAID Prolog in Zurich

Accidentally I ran into the opening ceremony of this year's RAID Prolog in Zurich today. It's refreshing to see so many classic cars in the center of Zurich where usually only 2010 Mercedes and Porsche drive around. Already in the morning the cars gathered at the Burkliplatz were impressive with Alpine A110, Lancia Flaminia, Facel Facellia, Alfa-Romeo Giulia SS, collections of Jaguar XK and E-Types, Porsche 356 and 914 and even a Citroen DS transporter with a Dino 246 GT loaded. If you want my opinion, they could do this every day!

Forgotten cars - the Standard

Few people probably remember this car, the Standard 8, a British car built in the 1940ies. It came with 4 cylinders, 28 HP and a compression of 6.7:1. With four gears, of which three were silent, it was quite modern at that time. Thanks to a low weight of 800 kg the car was pretty economical with 6-8 liter of fuel per 100 km, while offering 4 seats in its 3.5 m long limousine body. It used about 0.1 liter of engine oil per 100 km and there was of course the need to grease the chassis. All in all quite a modern car that could reach almost 100 km/h (96 km/h to be exact). Looking at this you may wonder how much progress we really have seen.

We need more race tracks! Like this one.

A couple of investors are building a new race track in Germany, integrated into a natural scenery, leveraging an old military area. They will rent it to private drivers, car manufacturers and its own members. Sounds like an interesting concept, but doesn't come cheap. They are looking for some 30+ million Euro in financing, you can contribute starting at 100k. I like the idea and hope that hopefully soon somebody will implement a similar concept in my neighborhood. With all these traffic monitoring, speeding cameras and more and more regulated streets, the race track is the only place where classic sportscars really can driven as they should!
I wish all the best to the chaps from Bilster Berg, make it work, it looks great on the investment brochure!

Great Classic Car weekend with wonderful weather

This was really a classic car weekend. Not that I am aware of any famous meeting or gathering, it was just great weather and obviously many classic car fans thought so and took their car for a ride. I spotted several E-Types, Alfa-Romeo Spiders, Triumphs and many other more or less rare classics and apparently everybody enjoyed his drive! Good so!

Very rare British classic cars in TopGear

So, here's my last blog entry about the episode 6 of TopGear. When Jeremy was talking about the good old times of British motoring a number of classic cars were shown sitting in a large hall. Have a look, you can spot a Ginetta G4 and a mid engine Ginetta G12, a Lotus Elan, an Ace, and .... Great classics, would be interesting to take a closer look ...

Picture of the Week - Classic meets Modern

Seen recently at an oldtimer event (with cars and motocycles), this looks like a still live where tradition meets modern times. Funny enough barely anybody was interested in the Mercedes SLR while people really enjoyed the old motocycles (and cars).

Oldtimer Sunday Morning in Zug - great variety and really rare cars

Finally I found the time again to visit the Oldtimer Sunday Morning Meeting in Zug. It usually takes place on the first Sunday during the summer months. Usually there's a special topic, today it was "Alfa-Romeo - cuore sportivo". And with probably 100+ Alfas there was a great selection ranging from Giulietta Spiders, to GTAs and other rare types. There was even an Alfasud, that many of you probably remember. I also found quite a selection of Lancias. What really makes this meeting special is that there's everything at one place. You can see Volkswagen Beetles side by side with a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso or an ASA race car. And you can find big American classic cars, Italian and English cars just sitting side by side. It's all about bringing your car and watching all the others. It's a lot of fun.

Driving a Lotus 11 on a narrow oval bicycle racetrack

Once per year a number of older race cars reconvene on a narrow bicycle racetrack forming an oval in Zurich-Oerlikon. The race cars are a show block for the bicycle races, but for the spectators often it is the highlight. And so it is for the drivers! It's quite something special to drive a classic race car through the steep curves. About 3 g downforce isn't something you are used to with an old car. But apparently it's a lot of fun and that's why the drivers happily return every year. To get a feeling what it means to drive these cars around the oval have a look at the presented video showing a Lotus Eleven (1956) in the oval. Impressive!

Are Audis a renaissance of the body in different sizes like Devins or Buchanans?

Yes, this is the brand new Audi A7. You wouldn't have noticed? It looks like all the other Audis, specifically the A5 Sportsback or the A4? No, it's really a different car, even if you don't notice. For example, it's longer than the other mentioned. But having been mistaken myself, I honestly must say, they really look alike a lot.
It's almost as if the successful practice of Bill Devin producing many different (fiberglass) bodies with the same shape fitting different chassis and sizes is coming back. You want an Audi? Do you want 4.2, 4.5, 4.7 or 4.9 meter length? Well, then take this one or that one, they all look the same basically. It's like buying jeans, you have picked the brand, now it's about size. I think this is the wrong strategy with cars, especially with such expensive cars. And it's a bit boring and lacks imagination and innovation as well. BMW does a bit the same, but at least the different cars have more unique design features, same with Mercedes. I prefer cars that look unique and special, that's probably the reason why I like older cars so much ....

Do car restorations make economical sense?

In my life I have financed the restoration of multiple cars and in none of the cases this resulted into an economical gain for myself. The truth is that there are very few cars where the enormous cost of a full restoration really can be justified with increase of the value of the car. You probably couldn't even restore a Lancia Stratos (nuts and bolts) for example for the total value the car fetches today. Of course it all depends on with what you start with. But I have seen people spending many hundred thousands of dollars to get a car right. And in my cases the restoration usually equaled the value of the car plus/minus, but I also had to buy the restoration basis on top. Why did I still do it?
1) it's fun to see how a car rises to its old glory
2) you know what you have as you have observed the process yourself
3) your connection to the car is much tighter as you know so much more about the car
4) the process as such is interesting and you get to know many people you need to ask for help or part or so
5) you preserve an important piece of history
6) you actually create local value add for specialists, something to feel good about in the times of financial recession
7) you can influence the end product, be it by the choice of color or by selecting materials or refinements (if you have to, but that's another story)

So, I will do it again, if I can afford it and I usually don't regret it.

Great Australian Sports Cars and Specials

I finally got it, my own copy of "Great Australian Sports Cars and Specials", written by Mike McCarthy, published in 1987. It lists and describes a number of Australian Classics such as the Bollwell, the Buchanan or the JWF, I have been writing about in this blog. But it also contains a number of other brands and types you probably haven't been aware off. Cars like the Ascort, the Bulanti, the Elfin, Nota Fang, Proctor or the Tontala probably have never made it to any other continent than Australia. But some of these cars are great collector's items and I would certainly love to get my hands on an Elfin Sports, Geneer Outlaw or Moir Renault. Having been a fan of Australian Sports Cars for quite some time and the lucky owner of a JWF Milano GT this book is a great compendium of the variety of Australian car engineering. It's sold out, so it took my quite a number of efforts to finally receive my own copy. So, I just have to wait for a rainy weekend to read it!