Engine Punk

Smell the sawdust, sniff the sulphurous smoke - it's the Great Dorset Steam Fair The Great Dorset Steam Fair never ceases to amaze me. For years I thought the last one was better than ever and then one year it was merely as good as the last one. I can't remember why but that was when I had a little break from attending. Last year was my first visit for some years and I loved it. This year I whizzed up and back again in a day with one of my neighbours - "up" because we live in Cornwall. There was a good deal of "across", too. Anyway, the GDSF hadn't lost its magic. I could watch wood sawing for ages I always like the themes at the GDSF and when a certain manufacturer is featured, such as McLaren this year, you get a real sense of their product range and the development of their designs. This year's theme was Big Macs. As many McLaren engines as possible were on display and there were all the usual GDSF sights, sounds and smells to savour,...

The RA Special as advertised on Ebay earlier this year. Photo : Oxford Dreamers I don't often feature machines I haven't clapped eyes on as Vintage Things but make an exception for this device. I discovered the RA Special on a web search backalong as one of my friends - who hasn't quite got the hang of being another scrap buddy for me - suggested I check out some Austin 7 specials he'd seen. In addition to those I found this. I did. As well as the car Brett suggested was this RA Special for sale on Ebay and after 61 bids the auction ended at £9,400. I don't know if it sold but, when you consider that it's full of new or reconditioned parts, that doesn't sound too step to me, although way out of my price range. I reckon it looks great and the performance sounds serious fun. All photos are from The Oxford Dreamers website, which includes some very interesting images of the car's construction. Just the job for tooling around the backroads of Blight...

The Mus é e Maurice Dufresne mixes and matches its exhibits to dramatic effect. On the left is a 1959 Buick Electra. On the right is something even weirder. If I've read the guide correctly, it's a 1914 Latil artillery tractor. We were on a road trip down the Loire valley from Le Mans and were trying to get a kitten out from under the BMW and Morgan following a stop at a road side bar. Someone picked up a tourist information leaflet about the Maurice Dufresnes museum and, once we'd helped the bar owners get little Agnes out from under the car and firmly back under house arrest, we decided to give it a try. And boy are we pleased we did. For our party, it had something for everyone - steam engines, cars, motorbikes and aeroplanes. And in the old mill building on an island in the River Indre it was wonderfully cool. The watermill still had its machinery in it and in places the water still runs through the building, giving it a wonderfully cool atmosphere on a very hot...