Engine Punk

Pemtillie Castle makes a great venue for a speed hillclimb. It was wet, though. This Alfa Dana 500 was using Castrol R so smelt divine. This is a new event based at Pentillie Castle on the western bank of the River Tamar and centres on a speed hillclimb up to the house from the river and into the estate beyond. Pentillie Castle featured on the telly a few years as a country house in need of rescue and has become a prestigious wedding venue. Unfortunately, the tarmac drive to the house showed signs of wear sufficient to make the blushing bride bounce out of her bodice in the backseat of the nuptial Bentley limo. Actually, I just made that up but the potholes were so bad that the Coryton family had the whole drive re-surfaced. Then, local enthusiasts said lets have a speed hillclimb on your lovely new road and after a lot of preparatory work the first event was held today. Another fragrant competitor using Castrol R was Stuart Evans in his MG J Special Unfortunately, it ham...

As bought This is the Vintage Thing that burst its top hose on the way to Le Mans. It's my Monster Mazda that was renamed Le Monster Mazda in the expectation that it would get us there but it didn't. However, I've got into the habit of calling it that and the name has stuck. So have the L and the E that I've added to the Monster Energy drink logos down its flanks. The home made bodykit made it look very heavy, especially from the rear My involvement with Le Monster Mazda began with a long standing appreciation of the Mazda 323F that was made from 1995 to 1998 (check). These always struck me as a concept car that had somehow made it into production - later 323s are appallingly bland by comparison - and when I spoke to people who owned them they said they loved them. The engines were especially sweet and the best one of the lot from my piston-headed, Engine Punk standpoint was the V6. So I did what any normal person would do. I put a search on Ebay for one an...

Luigi looks all shiny and new here. Those front wheels were reputedly off a Ferrari. They were ultra-light but were sold off for some ridiculously high amount before Luigi came my way. Luigi is Kermit's younger Italian brother. If my memory serves me right it was 1987 when I stumbled over Luigi at Tregrehan. Luigi is low and I am not. This was the same place where I'd seen Kermit (VT No.101) a few years before and at the time I thought I'd found Kermit again but this device was obviously Alfasud powered and had a great slab of radiator sitting up front. I subsequently discovered that it was called Luigi and entirely new. Luigi embodied a few lessons learnt from campaigning Kermit. These included the use of a single rear wheel (albeit a spectacularly wide rear wheel) with a Citroen suspension sphere pressed into service on the home made box section swing arm. Not a brillinat photo but it's the only image I've got of Luigi (or Kermit for that matter) in ac...

Goonhavern 2011 and there's nothing on the roads I mentioned a sprint or time trial on this blog some time ago, held in a decade when a nimby was unknown and folk were more like to say Yes on my back roads The time trial was held in Goonhavern during the 1920s and here is the "now" view compared with the "then" view below, when people said "Let's see what'll she do mister!" and had their own friendly little time trials on public roads. Here, I'm standing in the middle of the A3075 road facing out of the village, looking towards Newquay. There's a 30 mph sped limit here now and that black sign on the left facing traffic coming up the hill reminds you if you're going too fast. Goonhavern 1920s with a stripped down Calthorpe approaching the starting line Things haven't changed so much since the 20s. The road isn't much wider - it probably was always the width of a drover's road so shepherds could drive she...