The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
A Velocette MAC 350 cc similar to the one the author restored.
Story by Brandes Elitch
National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull, West Midlands. To get right to the point, this museum is recognized as finest and largest motorcycle museum in the world. There are about 600 show-quality bikes on display in five exhibition halls. The bikes are from the early 1900s to the 1980s. It is overwhelming.
It is a tribute to the British motorcycle industry, which achieved world domination for sixty years.
Fellow traveler Brandes Elitch next to a stationary Citroen prop food truck – Warwick Castle (they are all over the place: malls, public spaces).
Kenyon and Margaret Wills add some local color to their recent trip to the NEC Classic with the intrepid Brandes Elitch-Ed.
Story and photos by Kenyon and Margaret Wills
The annual early-November Classic Motor Show that we’re discussing is next to the Birmingham airport in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), which is a modern convention center that is to UK conventions what Las Vegas or Orlando is to the USA.
The show is very centrally located and the entire country is essentially “next door” via a robust national rail network or the adjacent airport, making for a several-hour train ride or a cheap easyJet flight into Birmingham Airport. Hanging with Brandes Elitch, we also enjoyed the National Motorcycle Museum, just down the roundabout from the NEC. [Read more…] about A Short Trip to the UK
George Harrison's Dino 246 GTS. George purchased the car in the early 1970s from Rodney Turner. George owned the car for 4 years
Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp
Variety is very important when running a very well-established show. This year’s Classic Car show at the NEC in Birmingham was the 30th running and was probably the largest yet, with over 65,000 people attending over the three days, and the hundreds of cars and bikes being spread out over 11 halls. As the show attracts mainly car clubs as well as exhibitors, amazingly, each year the clubs bring out more cars you hardly ever see, if at all. And while perhaps this year’s content was a bit down on exotics, it certainly made up for it with rare, offbeat, and unusual items.
When was the last time you cast eyes on a Renault 30 from the early 80s, a Lancia Trevi, or a Fiat Uno Selecta? (By the way, the Fiat Uno also celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.) Another nice feature of the show is the grouping of the cars; the Italian car clubs are together in one area, the French cars together in another area. You only need to find the appropriate hall and see cars that are of particular interest to you; no need to trudge around 11 halls to find them all. But that would be a shame, because if variety is important, you may just miss something that you had never seen before, even if it was out of your normal sphere of interest.
The Beatles car display added interest, but the display area for the four cars was very small, which is why my shots do not show the whole car; too many ropes in the way. They did however, paint what we in the UK call a “Zebra Crossing” leading up to the display area, similar to the famous Abbey Road Album cover.
John Lennon's Iso Fidia. It is believed that John owned three Fidias during his lifetime. This was number two. The car was originally silver with a blue leather interior.
Paul McCartney's Aston Martin DB6.