Upper Middle Petrol Head:

If there's a better way to tour Tasmania than in a classic sports coupe, I'd be very, very surprised.  I suspect that's what the occupants of this lovely Victorian-registered 2000 cc Alfa 105 think, too ; great roads, beautiful scenery and, to top it all off, they found themselves in the heart of North Hobart's famous Elizabeth Street restaurant and bar strip. Hello, Scooter Chick! Did you like this post?  If so, please feel to have a look-see around the rest of the uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au site.  There's a search facility in the top right corner of the page that allows you to find any of the hundreds of classic, sports and performance cars from Tasmania and mainland Australia, as well as many, many car shows and motor sports events.  It's like a local on-line car mag but for free!  Please share!!  U M P H (uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au) All iPhone images.

I'm beginning to wonder if I've unfairly judged the Austin marque, thinking of it as the stodgy, distinctly uncool cousin to many of the other mainstream British car manufacturers of its era like Triumph, British Ford, and even Morris with its sporty off-shoot, MG (Morris Garage).  But is this fair?   Possibly not ... .  Who did legendary English car designer Donald Healey team up with to produce his exquisite Austin Healey 100  - 3000 range?  (The name rather gives this away!).  Plus there's the Austin Healey Sprite , which happened to also be marketed by MG as their Midget  in an early example of 'badge engineering.'  Even MG's evergreen MGB is powered by an 1800 cc Austin B series motor, albeit with a five bearing crankshaft and a few other refinements.  A 'Big' Healey A Mk I, or 'Frogeye,' Sprite A couple of Sprites The MG version - a Midget An Austin A30 They're not unkno...

I've named today's post - my first ever from Cars & Coffee, Hobart -  (Mainly) Japanese January because the organisers promoted it as such.  As it was my first time at the Cambridge-based get-together ( https://www.facebook.com/carsandcoffeehobart/ ), I can't say how many vehicles from the Land of The Rising Sun would normally be in attendance but, either way, there was a pretty good showing of Mitsubishis, Toyotas, Datsuns / Nissans, Mazdas and Subarus.   There was also a very large contingent of Aussie, American, British and even German machinery (no Italians, though).  However, I mainly concentrated on the Japanese cars because I've got a bit of a thing for them - especially 1970s' hardtops and coupes - and because they're been hugely under-rated until fairly recently. According to the owner of this immaculate 2.4 litre fuel injected, independent rear suspension-equipped Celica, he's only its third owner since new.  He also told...