Review – Lydiate Classic Car Show

THE HOTTEST thing in Lydiate last weekend wasn’t its full-to-bursting classic car show – it was my rather reddish mug afterwards.

With temperatures knocking at the door of 30 degrees Celsius and bright, unwavering sunshine throughout even a liberal dolloping of factor 50 and a hat that in my head was modelled on the one worn by Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark (but in truth looked a dodgy knockoff of the one sported in Peter Davison-era Doctor Who episodes) wasn’t going to protect me from a spot of sunburn.

But the cars were most definitely worth it. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve last ventured to this one-day bash, held in aid of North West Cancer Research, but it’s really grown in stature and variety since then. The venue – the field immediately behind the village’s parish hall – hasn’t magically increased in size, but the organisers seem to have packed in more variety this year than I ever remember the event having in its early outings.

There was, for instance, a 1910 Sunbeam whose brass plating beamed in the summer sunshine, and forever seemed to be attracting a small crowd on account of it easily being the day’s oldest entrant. Then there was Kevin Price’s magnificent Volvo P1800 – one of the actual cars used in the filming of The Saint, complete with a cardboard cutout of Sir Roger Moore himself. Then there was a 1960 MGA, owned by Southport car nut Peter Bowen – and has been for the past 50 years. This year’s show managed to pack a lot of fascinating motoring stories into a surprisingly small space.

But my favourite, for all the E-types, TR6s and MGs packed in behind the parish hall, had to be the show’s 1947 Singer Super Ten. There are plenty of people who want to enjoy Austin-Healeys and Triumph Spitfires, which is why there are so many of them on the roads at this time of year, but for what would’ve have been a fairly unremarkable machine when new to have survived more than 70 years – thanks largely, to a succession of devoted owners – is an achievement in itself. It probably hasn’t been that long since you’ve seen an MG or old Jag zip past – but when was the last time you saw a Singer Super Ten?

Unless you went to the show last Sunday, of course. In which case, I apologise for the hat.

Why the Le Mans Classic should be on every petrolhead bucket list

THE FERRY tickets are booked. A phrase book allowing the ordering of baguettes from service stations in broken Franglais has been purchased. Oh, and a boot’s worth of all the safety-related clobber that only the French seem to insist on has been ordered.

All of which can only mean one thing – it’s time to head off to Le Mans. A couple of colleagues and I have just serviced a slightly tired-looking Rover 216 Coupe, and the big plan is to venture down to Portsmouth and hop on an overnight ferry. All of which means we’ll be able to watch Porsches thundering around the world’s greatest race track barely a day later.

I know what the race fanatics are thinking already – that I’ve got my dates spectacularly wrong, because the Le Mans 24 Hours race was a couple of weeks ago. You know, the one where Toyota spectacularly snatched victory after decades of near-misses? When effectively Fernando Alonso was the winner, because you couldn’t remember the names of anyone else driving the car that came first?

Ahhh. Actually the one I’m on about is the Le Mans Classic, which isn’t actually one long race but lots of short ones, and is dedicated entirely – as the name suggests – to machines that pounded the Mulsanne Straight decades ago. I love it not only because it involves pretending to go camping but actually sitting outside your tent with a beer watching some Group C cars doing some night racing, but because classic Le Mans racers actually look vaguely like normal cars.

Think about it. Toyota will spend the next year going on about how winning Le Mans will somehow make the next generation Auris a bit better, but when was the last time you saw anything even remotely like its LMP1 racer on any sort of road?

A Ford GT40, on the other hand, was designed to humiliate Ferrari – which it did four times on the trot – but it still looks like a GT40 a very rich bloke might drive to the shops. Same with the Jaguar C-type of the 1950s, and if you don’t live in a world of Pathe newsreels, it’s worth remembering that the McLaren F1 that won in 1995 was based on a road car. The world’s fastest and most expensive road car, of course, but one that genuinely had as much luggage space as a contemporary Fiesta.

Maybe it’s time they revisited the rules at Le Mans to make the racers a teeny bit more relatable to normal people who aren’t Fernando Alonso – if it can’t be driven legally through, say, Crosby on a Friday night, then it ain’t going to Le Mans. It might mean the cars don’t look as bonkers, but it’d give hope to the rest of us that we might see cars vaguely like it bringing joy to people stuck in Volkswagen Passats.

Or just drive to France in a secondhand Rover and look at some old ones. You know it makes sense.

There’s one thing worse than singing Angels while drunk – driving

THERE are several things, I’ve long maintained, that I can do marginally better when I’m slightly smashed.

Singing Angels, for instance. There is not a chance on earth that I’d attempt the high notes on Robbie Williams’ teary-eyed ballad in the cold, sober light of day, but given a single malt or three I might just be tempted to belt it out in front of a pub full of strangers on a Friday night. I’m dreadful at pool too, but I remain steadfastly convinced that my ability to master a cue improves ever so slightly midway through pint number three.

But my control of a Citroen C1 – or any other car, for that matter – most definitely doesn’t, so I’m amazed that so many people still attempt it. In 2016, the most recent year for which figures are available, some 59,000 of us either took a breathalyser test and failed or simply refused to bother altogether. That means that on average there are at least 160 people a day taking to Her Majesty’s highway who are convinced that they are X Factor-worthy pool champions. If they drive as badly as they sing, that’s a terrifying thought.

Which is why the Department for Transport is cracking down on it by announcing a competition – and it’s not for who can down the most Frosty Jacks before hopping behind the wheel of a Volkswagen Polo. The £350,000 prize will go to whichever company invents a mobile breathalyser so accurate that it can determine your smashed-ness without a subsequent trip to the nearest police station, and have it fitted it to a police car near you within the next 18 months. The lucky few on the raggedy edge of being hammered will no longer be able to sober up in the back of a marked Vauxhall Insignia, en-route to walking (well, swaying) free by the skin of their teeth. It will mean you’ll be done for drink-driving, well and comprehensively, on the spot.

Bring it on, I say. I’ll defend to the death my right to wander into a nightclub while a teeny bit tipsy and dance to the Grease Megamix on a work night out in a way that I’ll almost certainly regret the following morning, but no one in that state should be behind the wheel. If more accurate breathalysers make it a cast-iron certainty that you’ll get nicked, then that’s got to a good thing.

And anyway, there are plenty of cars that you can happily commandeer if belting through Angels badly is your thing. They’re called taxis.

The Nobe electric car looks cool – but not enough to invest in

IT’S NOT every weekend that you get asked to help put a car into production.

Don’t worry, nobody from Vauxhall has rung me up, asking whether – as that bloke from The Champion – I have any tips on what I’d like to see in the next-generation Adam. Nor am I loaded enough to be one of those lucky souls invited to, er, help Ferrari develop its next model by paying for a one-off track-day special that you’re only allowed to access three times a year.

But some Estonians have asked me to bung them a couple of quid to help get their retro-styled electric three-wheeler off the ground. They obviously haven’t approached Deborah Meaden and Duncan Bannatyne yet, but as a car nut I’ll save them the trouble.

Nobe – an eco-friendly start-up specialising in microcars, not a mis-spelling of Leicester-based supercar maker Noble – is using a crowdfunding site to attempt to secure £800,000 for the new car. Apparently the thing that’ll excite Greenpeace types is that it’s zero emissions and easily recyclable, but the bit that grabs me is that it looks good. The front end looks like it could’ve come from a shrunken Borgward Isabella (you’ll have to Google it), the way the rear end tapers to a set of full-width lights is lovely, and the delicate chrome details between the two are distinctly 1960s. Oh, and there’s a very faint whiff of Jensen Interceptor about that rear glass treatment.

It’ll also has room for three, will sit at 70mph happily enough and promises a two-hour charging time, but I’m not exactly going to be taking out a second mortgage or hounding my bank manager any time soon. There have been plenty of miniscule motors over the years, from Messerschmitts and Minis to modern day Smart cars, and none of their creators needed to use a crowdfunding site. The asking figure of £800k also sounds a bit far-fetched, when you consider that Aston Martin apparently had to raise £200 million to help develop their new DBX off-roader, likely to be called the Varekai when it makes production.

All this coming from someone who’s owned two Minis, once bought a Renault 5 for £100 for a laugh and is currently restoring a Reliant Robin. I completely get the point of cars that offering up motoring fun in pint-sized packages, but if the Nobe’s that clever an idea I’d expect Dragons’ Den types would be queuing up to invest in it.

Best of luck, chaps, but I’m out.