Engine Punk

Foxbat - wasn't that the code name for a Russian cold war fighter? Just a bijou follow-up-ette to my musings on the Jag shooting brake. Mr Valve Bounce left a comment and pointed me to the Bonhams website but there's still some mystery surrounding it.. Nobody knows who made it, although another existed back along (good Cornish expression). This car is thought to be the sole survivor and historians have suggested it was made as a competition tender for long distance motor sport events. It is properly known as the Foxbat. I'd spotted the badge on the rear door at the time but forgot about this when I uploaded the admiitedly rather dark pictures. I still say it took a genius to realise the concept of blending a Moggy with a Coventry cat. But how does that make a Foxbat? On my screen at home they don't look so murky but there's something fitting about this car emerging from the shadows.

Also at Goodwood this year, but actually competing was the Ferrari breadvan. And now, motivated by simple devilry following the last post on a Jaguar XK150 shooting brake, here is the Ferrari "Breadvan" modelled by Drogo on a 250GT. I'd first seen this car at the Le Mans Classic in 2010 but I'd heard about it years before that.  Whoosh! This car divides opinion but I like it. I think they find the straightlines don't match the curves but that roofline is the blurred streak from the top of the windscreen and I particularly like the effect from the rear. It looks so fast! Its nose is beautifully styled, too. Apparently, it was nicknamed "Anastasia", which around Modena is a derogatory name for an ugly woman but it looks pretty good to me. This car is low, lower than the kneecaps of a grasshopper. It was not built for its load carrying abilities. Although the rear window is hinged, just try to get anything in it. Or out of it. After...

From the side the lines almost flow nicely I went to the Goodwood Revival again this year and, despite the corporate hostility to the genuine enthusiast that's built into this event, still enjoyed myself tremendously. The racing was good the cars were amazing and there was a special dirtbike-heroes-of-yesteryear display, complete with classic scramblers and their riders. I particularly liked the way they had a burn up on the grass round the circuit. But out of everything, this is pne of the machines that intrigued me - difficult when it comes to four wheeled vehicular contrivances I know but bear with me. Parked by the entrance and exit, was this Jaguar XK150 shooting brake. As I'm sure you've guessed by now the rear end is Morris Minor Traveller. I was fascinated by it. It's something I would never have thought of doing and makes a lot of sense. Many woodies were produced in Britain during the late forties due to material shortages and Government restrictions...

Among VW buggies this machine manages to look quite distinctive without being consciously styled. In the 2008 Exeter it was crewed by Ben Johnson and Barry White ("Ah feel like makin' lurve") from Shaftesbury. Could this be the ultimate VW based trials special? I've heard it cost upwards of £30,000 but in the entry lists I've seen so far it's described simply as a VW Special. I'd like to know who built the thing. It's certainly very effective. I stumbled across these images while looking at pictures associated with my earlier posts on the Exeter Trial.  Y'see, I'm entered again, which makes 3 times so far but for the other two I was unfortunately a non-starter. You've probably read all about those adventure on Engine Punk already. Anyway, I'm quietly confident that with Rob Robinson-Collins we'll do better than before. With a record like mine, the only way is up. And we're going to be in Candidi Provocatore Allard, too. ...

So there you have it - The Car With No Name built by Anon I find this highly amusing. Through the power of the internet a chap has got in touch about a mysterious VW based special that I saw years ago at the National Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh. I featured this as VT No. 54 , described it simply as a VW Special and asked if anyone could identify it and tell me what it was called. Bob Bateman got in touch to say it was his car and it was called the CWNN. What does CWNN stand for? It stands for Car With No Name. The origin of this car still remains a mystery. Its builder must have called it something and if it still exists it ought to have something other than Volkswagen on its logbook or V5 because it definitely isn't a Beetle anymore. And the authorities are a bit fussy about that nowadays, unlike the glory times when this car was built. As if anyone could mistake it for a Beetle.... I nearly bought this issue Bob has filled in some of the gaps. He wrote about it i...

At first I thought this was a very rare Husqvarna vee twin but then I saw the tank badge. I've just got back from this year's Goodwood Revival and this machine is the one that made most of an impression on me, despite the great and the good and the presence of many other thoroughbred racing machines. This James vee-twin was propped up outside one of the "member's only" pavilions that blight the Goodwood Revival for the ordinary enthusiast. I stopped and stared and so did another chap in RAF uniform. He had a two-stroke James and an MAC Velocette and this machine had stopped him in his tracks. neither of us was aware that James had ever made such a machine and it occurred to me that maybe it was a "special" using a JAP engine. The only thing was, it looked like a production bike and had that well-used and well-loved patina that you can't fake. As soon as I got home I did some ferreting around in the Boogie Wundaland archives (this is a joke n...

You've seen this side before Earlier this year I took the opportunity at Wiscombe Park to study the other side of this Sunbeam Model 90, which I spotted at last year's meet propped up against some Portaloos. But this was not the view I was expecting. According to my information a Model 90 should have a head like this. I really like the "architecture" of a single cylinder motorcycle engine But what was revealed was this. This Sunbeam looks fast despite the fairly high bars for hauling the bike round the bends but looks like it'll stop thanks to the nice big front brake. I know I should have spotted that it was a single port head even when looking at it in the rain from the drive side. I can only assume that this bike is powered by the later version of this engine, which would make it a Model 95. The trouble is, Sunbeam motorcycles of this era are rather obscure. Their best years were the vintage ones and post war everyone remembers them...