The Top 50 Cars driven by Life On Cars

TO THINK it all started with a tinny Mini that had a habit of breaking down.

This is the 500th Life On Cars article published on this website, pretty much exactly three years after I moved over to The Champion from the North Wales Weekly News and figured a petrolhead blog would be a good way to keep up with what's going on in the world of motoring. Since then it's gone from strength to strength, with the blog alone attracting thousands of readers each month and the sister column in The Champion going out to more than 160,000 homes across Sefton and West Lancashire.

So I thought, to celebrate, a Top of The Pops-style rundown would be the best way to celebrate, but this isn't just any old wishlist. You won't find any Ferraris, Lamborghinis or Astons in this list because each and every car in it is one I've actually driven.

Nor though, will you find the likes of the Nissan LEAF, the Audi A1 or the BMW 6-Series, which are all cars I've driven. To be in this list a car has to have to have ticked a very particular and not democratic roadtesting box - quite simply, it has to put a smile on my face - which is probably why there's a couple of surprises among the usual suspects in this list. It's not a quest to find the greatest cars of all time, but a personal look at back at the new, the not-so-new and the truly old cars which have provided memorable motoring for whatever reason.

I hope you enjoy the read. Feel free to add your own favourites in the comments section below...

Open publication - Free publishing - More cars

Bank Hall Classic Car Show 2012

DESPITE having to compete with this year's Woodvale Rally the organisers of the Bank Hall Classic Car Show still managed to attract a healthy number of classics to help raise funds for a stately home's restoration.

The show, held by the Friends of Bank Hall group to help fund the restoration of Bank Hall in Bretherton, Lancashire, enticed enthusiasts to take a look at a diverse range of cars and bikes, including everything from an Austin Seven, through Austin Healeys, Triumphs and MGs, to modern day motors like a very tidy Jaguar XJR.

In fact, it was a Jaguar owner who managed to pull off the most spectacular entrance to a show I've seen this year by managing to blow a hose on a V12 E-Type at just the right moment, pulling into the picturesque walled garden venue in a cloud of steam!


Life On Cars took these pictures at the show:

Share your motoring stories and events with Life On Cars by sending an email to david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or simply leave a comment below.

2012 Woodvale Rally at Victoria Park, Southport

IT MIGHT have been held at a different venue for the first time in forty years but the organisers of this weekend's Woodvale Rally have been determined to give visitors the same offering of full-throttle attractions.

Visitors to Victoria Park in Southport - better known for the town's annual flower show - might have been offered a physically smaller venue than the Rally's traditional home at RAF Woodvale, but fans of classic cars and bikes were still treated to an eclectic variety of vehicles from decades gone by.

Scarisbrick couple John and Jean Fagan, whose lovingly-restored Morris Minor was featured on Life On Cars last month, won second prize in the show's concours competition.

John told Life On Cars: "It's the first time we've been to the Rally, but it's an absolute delight seeing all the old cars here - they're all absolutely beautiful.

"It really is a nice place to be and a great show to go, so I'm sure we'll be making a point of visiting each year from now on."

Alongside the scores of classic cars and bikes which made the trip to Southport for the show, visitors could also check out a World War Two Spitfire with regional connections, trade stalls, dance and music displays and specialist shops at the Victoria Park venue.


Life On Cars, as ever, has paid a visit to the Woodvale Rally and took these pictures at the event:

The event continues tomorrow (Sunday, July 29), so there's still time to catch up on the attractions. For more on the Woodvale Rally see next week's edition of The Champion, published Wednesday, August 1.

Happy birthday Life On Cars! Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that it's exactly three years since this blog went live (even if it was a couple of weeks later before the column got printed in The Champion). The anniversary hasn't gone unnoticed, but seeing as the blog is also verging on publishing its 500th article I'm working on something a bit special for article number 500. Watch this space in a couple of days...

Jaguar Land Rover factory to host exciting Autosolo event

ENTHUSIASTS are being given the chance to get behind the wheel at Jaguar Land Rover's home in the north west at an event next weekend.

The new facility at the firm's factory in Halewood will play host to an Autosolo event next Saturday (August 4) - and there's still time for petrolheads to enter into the event and put their own cars through their paces.
Aintree Circuit Club, which is organising the event, said: "We are indebted to the management of the factory for allowing us the use of one of the car parks. Jaguar Land Rover are celebrating their 50th anniversary of the plant this year so we hope to see a good turnout to thank them.

"The event will follow a similar format to other AutoSOLOs, with open flowing tests on various surfaces, a handbrake will not be essential to get round the course. If you haven’t seen an AutoSOLO before then rest assured that this is not a memory contest. Although there is no passenger the tests are laid out with numbers and markers to help you find the way round.

"We are running a dual permit event, the National B event being a round of the ANWCC Autosolo Championship. The BTRDA have invited us to be a round in their Autosolo Championship as well as in the Newcomer’s Autosolo Challenge, which is open to Juniors under 25 and those who have not held a MSA competition license in the past ten years. Running in parallel will be a PCA counting towards the ANWCC Junior PCA Championship.

"Remember that the event is only open to road legal cars driven to the event. The Clubman entrants don’t need a competition licence but make sure that your club membership is up to date. You can always join Aintree Circuit Club on the day if you wish to compete. National B competitors must have a 2012 competition licence. We are hoping for a good entry so please get your entry in as soon as possible."

There's still time to enter - the deadline is 8.30am on Saturday, August 4 - with entry costing £23 or £25 depending on the exact event entered. For more information call 0151 525 5060/07821 230961 or send an email at mja@aintree.org.uk

Aintree Circuit Club is also looking for volunteers to act as marshals to help make the event a success. If you'd like to get involved, send an email to nickstafford@mail.com.

Fire up the... Chevrolet Camaro Convertible

CHEESEBURGERS. Bottles of Budweiser. Episodes of Friends. Some American ideas, whether you love them or loathe them, just cross the Atlantic well.

Yet American cars, with the notable exception of Jeep, are the exception to the rule; for some reason we Brits just haven't taken to them to our bosom. Now it's the latest Chevrolet Camaro that's oversexed, overpaid and over here, but don't be too quick to dismiss the latest iteration of a Stateside icon.

Sure, the Camaro looks like something that should be in the Transformers movies - which, funnily enough, it is - but you can't deny it's a handsome son of a gun, blending the sculpted good looks of a Hollywood hunk with the bright colours, stripes and shiny bits of metal you'd expect in a Marvel comic. It's a just a shame the interior, which has leather everything and lots of toys to play with, looks a bit cheap by comparision.

Yet the biggest drawback about the Camaro is that in this country it's flummoxed by that other most American of institutions, the drive-thru, because you can only buy the convertible I tested and its coupe sibling in left hand drive. If you're frightened of driving ‘left hookers' on Her Majesty's highways and byways then don't be put off, because it's easy enough to master, but I still reckon it'll severely limit the big, bold Camaro's appeal with buyers over here.

Which is a pity, because Chevrolet have cracked setting up the previously all American Camaro for European tastes - while it's not BMW sharp it's fun to drive in a lazy, laid-back sort of way, the £40,000 pricetag makes it bit of a bargain for a convertible of its size, and because the 400bhp V8 can shut down its cylinders to save fuel it's even vaguely economical to run.

The Camaro is good looking, practical, oodles of fun to potter around in, and - thanks to it being a V8 muscle car - cast iron cool to boot.

Get that steering wheel switched over, Chevrolet, and I reckon you've got a hit on your hands.

300 entrants and counting for 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest

JUST had a quick note from the organisers of this year's Ormskirk MotorFest to say they've hit the magic number of 300 entries from car and bike enthusiasts.

Aintree Circuit Club confirmed today that they are no longer accepting entries for road cars for the event, which takes place in the West Lancashire market town on Sunday, August 26.

Club chairman Mike Ashcroft said: "We have now hit the magic number of 300 entries and we are now no longer accepting entries from road cars. The only car entries that we will now accept are competition vehicles - race, rally or speed type - i.e. single seaters, saloons or sports cars. We are still accepting motorcycle entries but only for the next seven days. Entries will close finally on Monday, July 30.

"We will, however, be reserving places for a number of racing cars that we are expecting as late entries due to rebuilds taking place prior to the event and the registration system will remain open only for these cars after this date."

For more information about entries email Mike Ashcroft on mja@aintree.org.uk or call 0782 123 0961. For more information about the MotorFest visit the official event website.

An open letter to Adam Vauxhall

DEAR Adam,

I thought I'd use my motoring column this week to write you, the new Vauxhall that's being pitched squarely at the MINI and the Fiat 500, an open letter.

Your creators have given you a human name to make you a bit more cute and cuddly, as though you're a beloved family friend rather than a tonne of metal on the driveway outside. You're emphatically not ‘the Adam'. You're just Adam, which I suppose saves people having to come up with their own pet names for you.

A couple of car fans I know have already been a bit cruel about you - why, they ask, have your creators broken into Ford's offices, cheekily photcopied the designs for the original Ka, and then tried to hide the crime by adding a couple of styling cues from other Vauxhall models? There's also the motoring press wondering how you'll compete with the cachet of the MINI Cooper and the Fiat 500, surely your closest competitors when you arrive in the showrooms next year. But, more than anything, it's your name that's got people flummoxed.

It's alright, I understand. On the continent you're sold as Adam Opel, which means you're named in honour of the man who set up one of Germany's oldest car companies. It's a bit like that time when millionaire hedonists were offered the chance to buy an Enzo Ferrari a couple of years ago, but the problem is that there never was a Brit motoring pioneer called Adam Vauxhall. In this country at least, the historical reference is completely lost on buyers.

Does it matter? Not, I reckon, if you offer your potential new owners the trick MINI, the Fiat 500 and Alfa's MiTo make their schtick; solid underpinnings dressed up in stylish clothes and garnished with a fun-to-drive feel. A trendy title is only half the story, which is why Chrysler's PT Cruiser left us cynical Brits, looking for substance to match the style, a bit cold. The new MINI, on the other hand, would still be brilliant even if it looked like a fridge rather than a ripoff of a cult classic. It offers an awful lot more than an evocative badge and a pretty face.

It's a shame, Adam, you weren't given a cooler-sounding moniker, but I look forward to finding out soon what you can bring to the small car table.



Best regards,


David Simister, Life On Cars

Summer is here...

....after what feels like an eternity of showers, grey skies and drizzle. Naturally, with this being Britain the best way to measure this meteorological high is from the number of convertibles out on our roads at the moment.

Regular readers will probably already know I like to fly the ragtop flag whenever the sun comes down, regardless of the time of year, but the combination of proper sunshine, warm weather and the uniquely British need to 'get the old girl' out of the garage means more and more of my fellow motorists, I've noticed, are getting the roof down.

Obviously there's the inevitable stream of BMW-era MINIs, new Beetles, Vauxhall Tigras and - dare I say it - Mazda MX-5s now on the roads in al fresco mode, but far more refreshing are the rarer beasts which have emerged from automotive hibernation in the past week or two. Stuff like MGBs, Lotus Elans, Merc SLs of the slimline Sixties vintage, Triumph Spitifires, TVR Griffiths and Chimaeras, and, if you're among the more minted petrolhead variety, Aston DB7 Volantes.

But I just had to share a picture of what I reckon is probably the coolest convertible effort I've seen so far lately - an E-Type V12 roadster parked up roof down, on a busy Saturday morning on Lord Street, Southport's busiest thoroughfare. While I usually prefer my E-Types to come in the sleeker, straight six powered variety, it would take someone with a heart of stone to say this car doesn't cut the mustard. It's just got a certain rightness about it.

Then again, you don't have to be an automotive twitcher to take in all these gorgeous old convertibles - a lot of them will be at the Woodvale Rally next weekend. Can't wait!

300mph dragster and glamorous rally driver both ready for Ormskirk MotorFest 2012

IMAGINE rocketing from a standstill to 300mph before you can finish reading this sentence.

That's what the top fuel dragster - one of the fastest accelerating vehicles on earth - is capable of, and organisers of next month's Ormskirk MotorFest confirmed this week it will be returning to the town after proving one of the biggest crowd pullers at last year's event.

Councillor Martin Forshaw, West Lancashire Borough Council's portfolio holder for planning and development, said: “The Top Fuel Dragster was incredibly popular with visitors last year and I am really pleased it is coming back for this year’s Ormskirk MotorFest.

"It is one of many fabulous vehicles that will be lined up on our streets on a fabulous day out for all the family. So put the date of 26 August in your diary and come along."

The top fuel dragster, which can reach 100mph in less than a second is one of just hundreds of exotic machines headed for the market town on August 26, with many set to take to the town's one-way system for a series of parades.

Glamorous rally driver Becky Kirwan, the current BRC Challenge Ladies Champion, will also be at the event, to show how young enthusiasts can enter motorsport and succeed.

Mike Ashcroft, Aintree Circuit Club Chairman, said: "The Ormskirk MotorFest entertained a huge crowd of all ages last year and this year it promises to be even bigger and better.

“We have a fantastic line up of two and four-wheeled machinery spanning nearly a century of automotive history from vintage classics to modern supercars and bikes.”

Anyone wishing to enter their classic car or motorcycle has until August 11 to get in touch, while this week it has been announced that any marshals will be entered into a draw with a top prize of £75 for one lucky volunteer.

 

To find out more about the event, to book a trade stand or to volunteer to be a marshal, go to the event's official website at www.ormskirkmotorfest.com

Bretherton banks on classic car show success

WEST Lancashire car lovers are being invited to head to an historic country house for a show celebrating vehicles made in days gone by.

The Friends of Bank Hall group are holding their annual classic and vintage car show at Bank Hall, in Bretherton, on Sunday, July 29, which will take place in the grounds of the centuries-old building.

The show takes place between 12pm and 4pm and costs £2 for adults, while entry is free for children who are accompanied by a parent or guardian. Entry for exhibitors is at 11am, with charges for those wishing to display their car or motorbike.

For more information send an email to secretary.fbh@hotmail.co.uk or call Lionel Taylor on 01772 612801.

Mr Honda Concerto ought to agree with my take on rural speed

THE Honda's rear haunches have never looked so frustrating. Even though it was the crack of dawn on a dry weekend morning, Mr Concerto was dawdling.

Bikers among this column's readers will already know why the Cat and Fiddle road, between Macclesfield and Buxton, is worth seeking out - and why it's such a regular visitor to all those accident statistic surveys as a result. It is, carefully driven, a stunning route across the Pennines well worth seeking out. If you've brought a car - and not a superbike - the 50mph speed limit is plenty, but Mr Concerto was having none of it. He was determined I'd be doing 28mph, and not one measly mile an hour more. A great drive ruined by someone dangerously determined not to be overtaken.

Anyway, it was all part of my quest to answer a question I left hanging a couple of weeks back - is it better to head somewhere the fun way or the quick one? The answer, unless you're absolutely insistent that every journey must go via the Buttertubs Pass in the Yorkshire Dales, is emphatically the quick one. On a really long drive motorways are infinitely preferable to getting lost in Mansfield's one way system.

Besides, little country lanes are going to get slower still if the Coalition gets its way; successive governments have struggled to deal with rural accident rates, and now Cameron and Clegg (which, by the way, sounds like a dodgy estate agent) have hit on a solution. Rather than a blanket reduction, they're considering making it easier for local authorities to lower limits as they choose. It is The Big Society versus speed.

For what it's worth, I reckon it's a good idea - there are far too many winding lanes which you could technically shoot down at sixty, but to try would be lethally dangerous, and chances are your local council knows more about accident hotspots than Whitehall does. Great power, however, comes with great responsibility.

If I head to somewhere like Lincolnshire or Yorkshire behind the wheel of something sporty, it'd comfort me greatly to know that the speed limit's been considered locally by folk who know the roads. What I emphatically wouldn't want - and what a lot of the nationals reported last weekend - is a blanket lowering of rural limits to 40mph from the current sixty.

I'm not a speed freak - a proper petrolhead values good handling over doing a million miles an hour anyway - but what I reckon motorists want is education rather than punishment. We want to know people are actually thinking about road safety rather than just blindly and blanketly laying down the law.

Hopefully, Mr Concerto agrees with me.

Aintree Circuit Club calls for volunteers to help make 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest a success

THE organisers of this year's Ormskirk MotorFest are calling on a small army of volunteers to help make sure the motorsport spectacular runs smoothly when it revs up next month.

Aintree Circuit Club, who are organising the August 26 classic car and bike event, said it is looking for volunteers to act as stewards and marshals at the event when it draws hundreds of vehicles and thousands of spectators into the centre of the West Lancashire market town.

Mike Ashcroft, club chairman, said this week: "This year’s event will be bigger and better than 2011, with over 250 cars and bikes already registered with a special feature being a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1962 British Grand Prix, which was held just seven miles away at Aintree.

"As ever, an event of this magnitude will require a small army of volunteer marshals and stewards and I would like to invite you to assist us in the running of the event and register as a marshal for the day. We now have a super online registration system that will only take a few minutes to complete and you can also download and print forms, which you are welcome to distribute to family and friends who do not have internet access or just prefer to use a pen and post!"

Last week The Champion reported that preparations are already well underway for the August Bank Holiday event, which is also being supported by the borough council and lead sponsors the Belfry Group.

The club has also confirmed that even though it has yet to close the door on entrants hoping to bring their vehicles to the event the 2012 MotorFest has already attracted more entrants than last year's inaugural event, with more than 300 cars and motorbikes expected to take part.

As a token of thanks for the support volunteer marshals will give to the running of the event all volunteers will be provided with refreshments and a special souvenir pin badge, which will only be given exclusively to marshals and not offered to other visitors and participants in the event.

Life On Cars has followed the Ormskirk MotorFest closely since the event's inception last year, taking part in the inaugural in a 1972 MGB GT.

For more information about how to volunteer to be a marshal go to the Ormskirk MotorFest website.

Ultimate Classic Car Show 2012 at Oulton Park

All pictures courtesy of Gareth Connerty

IF YOU'VE ever wanted to put your pride and joy around a race track and check out scores of lovingly-restored classic cars, then today's been your lucky day.

Thousands of fans of all things automotive took up the chance to head to the Oulton Park circuit, in Cheshire, to do just that at the Ultimate Classic Car Show - but thanks to the show clashing with a friend's wedding Life On Cars wasn't among them.

Luckily, longtime reader, Ford Capri fan and Life On Cars' friend in the trade Gareth Connerty did manage to get his car into the show, and has just sent these pictures of some of the weekend's highlights over for you to enjoy:

 

If you've got an event or motoring story you'd like to share with Life On Cars, get in touch by looking at the About Us section or simply leave a comment below.

Fire up the... Vauxhall Ampera

THIS eco-warrior has an electric motor. It also packs a good old fashioned petrol engine. So the new Ampera's a hybrid, right?

Not quite, Vauxhall reckon. I'll apologise for getting so blatantly and boringly technical this soon into a review but it's important you know why the Ampera, this year's European Car of the Year, does what it does. A hybrid like, say, a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight, is powered by a petrol engine which uses electric energy to help it run more efficiently.

The Vauxhall's contender (and its sister car, the Chevrolet Volt) is one you'll appreciate if you're a train buff - it's an electric vehicle which uses a petrol engine not to power its wheels, but to recharge its batteries. It is, in trainspotter speak, a petrol-electric. Not nodded off yet, then?

The upshot of all that electric wizardry is that the Ampera can do something no other electric car can. It can run on amps alone for 35 miles - more, Vauxhall reckons, than most of us regularly commute - so you can happily pop to the shops in it during the week not burning any fuel at all, plug it into the mains when you get back and sit back, smiling smugly because you're helping to mend the holes in the ozone layer. The clever bit, though, is that once you get past that it'll call on Esso's finest to keep going, meaning the 1.4 litre engine normally sat on the sub's bench is able to get you to Aunt Mabel's house in Aberdeen just like any other car could. Try doing that in your Nissan LEAF.

Normally, it's the price that unravels it all but while at £30,000 the Ampera costs about the same as the high end versions of Vauxhall's own Insignia it's the same sort of car - a big, generously equipped saloon, even if it's got a dashboard straight out of the 1980s. It's even nice to drive in a comfy, cosseting sort of way, with plenty of room upfront and in the back.

The Ampera isn't an electric car in the truest sense of the word but instead manages to be something much better; an eco-friendly express that makes sense. It's an environmentalist statement disguised as a really good car.

Rover engines that (don't quite) go bump in the night

FOLLOWING my poking fun at one BMW’s less than finest moment the other day, I breathed a sigh of relief at not having to deal with a rather more British breakdown before!

My Rover 214SEi might not be the most exciting bit of motoring ever made but it has a special place outside the Simister household because it does all the things the clapped out old sports cars don’t; it always does upwards of 30 to the gallon, it’s quiet, comfy and by and large lives a largely breakdown-free existence.

Considering it cost just £300 it’s definitely been one of my better buys, getting me everywhere from the Scottish borders to Bedfordshire, from the furthest reaches of Snowdonia to the church spires of York. In fact, just last week it managed to make it all the way to a campsite in the Norfolk Broads crammed with camping gear, and get back again. It’s a car that’s earned my respect by doing what it does brilliantly.

Aside from the well-publicised head gasket maladies long suffered by Rovers powered by the company’s K-Series engine, its biggest Achilles heel is that it struggles to start if you leave it standing for days on end in damp conditions. Given this week’s weather forecast and that it refused to play ball when I got back from my trip to Germany last year, I decided to play safe, leave it at my parents’ place and let them look after the old dog for a few days. A better bet than risking it, leaving it in downpours for days on end and then expecting it to miraculously burst into life.

Famous last words, and all that.

It was on the train heading back from Manchester Airport that I got the call. My dad, keen to make sure everything on the Rover was up and running, popped down to the local petrol station, popped a few quid’s worth of petrol in....and then discovered he couldn’t start it. Even the starter motor wouldn’t turn. Zilch. Nothing.

It’s hard enough dealing with a kaput car at the best of times, but when you’re over an hour away on the train and unable to do much to help it becomes that bit more stressful, and the mental images of a peeved-looking parent leaning under an open bonnet rain became too much to take. In desperation I rang Gaz, my long-suffering mate in the mechanic trade, to see if he could drive the five minutes up the road and take a look at the stranded Rover.

Which I’m glad he did. It turned out the reason why my old man, more familiar with cars from the Seventies and Eighties, couldn’t get the Rover going was because he couldn’t get its admittedly unfathomable immobiliser switched off. Naturally, as soon as it was the leather-lined Brit burst into life without so much as a cough. A close call!

I touched the (plastic) wood on the dashboard. My Rover’s back to its reliable old self!