Upper Middle Petrol Head:

I'm not uncommonly told to act may age.  Sad but true.  I think this immaculate Celica might be able to steer me in that direction.  How?  Ten years ago, maybe five, very probably less, I'd have reimagined it from stock-standard time machine to period-sympathetic, resto-modded JDM classic in a jiffy. 15" Superlights or  Wattanabes : ✅; bolt-on flares:  ✅;  suspension dropped by two inches, tightened up with heavier springs, gas shocks and thicker sway bars: ✅; big brake upgrade:  ✅;  twin-cam transplant with 45 mm sidedraft Webers, extractors and a fat exhaust: ✅; and a Momo or Nardi classic steering wheel, Recaro buckets and full VDO guages:  ✅. And now?  Maybe a set of wheels.  Breakerless ignition, perhaps.  Otherwise, leave it the F alone!  It's absolutely perfect as it is!   Please don't judge me.  I'm a victim of my year of birth. U M P H (uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.) iPhone images.

Regular readers might remember that the UMPH team were a tad ticked off when vast majority of the Ferrar-o-Lambo brigade racked off just as soon as 2021's Auto Italia organisers had handed out the trophies, all air horns bleeping, engines revving and look at me (while you can!), a good ninety minutes before the event was due to end.   Thanks for nothing, ya up yourselves w⚓s! A bit harsh?  Not so!  One generous soul suggested that a lot of the "supercar" owners had travelled a long way just to exhibit their flashy toys and needed to leave in plenty of time to get home.  So the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa people somehow time-travelled back to their abodes?  It doesn't wash as an excuse. Fortunately, the owners of these two classics - a stunning Lamborghini Miura and a 1960s Maserati saloon of such elegance that it made your equivalent Jag of the era look decidedly frumpish - had the courtesy to stay to the end of the show!  Event patrons certainly a...

When it comes to Japanese performance sixes, Nissan is boss!  And, sweet as Z s are, the Skyline is Nissan's ultimate expression of that dominance, with a long, long history of performance-orientated variants dating back to the mid-1960s when they were manufactured by Japan's Prince Motor Company. For us Aussies, the performance Skyline thing didn't really begin until the seventh generation R31 in 1985.  Our first offering - the 1970s' fourth generation C110 series, which didn't even go by the Skyline moniker, being badged here as a 240K - did come in sedan and coupe form.  However, it ran a fairly benign 2.4 litre six and had no particular sporting pretensions.  The fifth and sixth versions - the C210 and R30, respectively - did wear Skyline badges but again lacked a sporty variant Down Under. That all changed with the introduction of the R31 with their 3.0 litre in-line six cylinder motors, although, to the best of my knowledge, the Australian market still missed...

  Do you reckon the owner of this slightly worse for wear Mazda Capella ,   photographed in suburban ACT, is sick to death of fending off unsolicited offers to buy it?  Seriously, when was the last time you even saw a piston-powered Capella , 808 or 929?  What scarce stock there was has pretty much been gobbled up by RX aficionados desperate to build a screaming Wankel-mobile, and even they're pretty thin on the ground!   There's no doubt that today's car would make a great starting point for an RX2 replica, even if it is a little sad and is the less desirable end-of-run model with the slightly bulgy taillights and fussier grille (easily replaced, I'm sure).  However, I like it largely because it's not a rotary, and for its rather svelte, Coke bottle styling.   I also like it because it's not an 808 / RX3.  Controversial, I know, and don't get me wrong - I'd very definitely love to have an RX3 coupe in my garage - but to my mind the...

This XM Falcon hardtop might've featured on UMPH before, possibly matched with a left-hand-drive convertible Falcon of the same vintage and in a similar hue.  That doesn’t matter, though; it's such a lovely car, it deserves a second showing!     It seems to be that there's a bit of a resurgence in early Falcons, especially from the 1960s.  As recently as the beginning of May, 2021, I saw two XPs that I'd not seen before - a very cool white hardtop and a quite distinctive green sedan, both viewable via the following link: https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2021/05/classics-by-beach-may-2021.html .    Why not take a tour of the uppermiddlepetrolhead site?  There are stacks and stacks of classic, sports and performance vehicles of all makes and models, as well as car shows and motorsports events.  If you like what you see, please 'like' and share.  Cheers! U M P H (uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.) iPhone images.

I've already confessed my ignorance of most things Lancia (please see  https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2021/05/auto-italia-2021-part-3-lancias.html ).  Whilst I don't profess a deep knowledge of Alfas, I was at least able to recognise and name with a fair degree of certainty most of the examples of the marque that I saw at Auto Italia in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, in the early autumn of 2021. This is a Berlinetta , which is just as well, because berlinetta is Italian for sedan but Alfa Sedan lends no cachet to the model at all.  Neither does four-door, incidentally, which is probably why Maserati sedans go by the far sexier Italianesque moniker of Quattroporte !  Everything sounds better in Italian!  Even Scottish names, apparently. As far as I can tell, this 105 series is probably a 1300 cc GT Junior .  I'm not sure where it fits within the 105 timeline - whether it's before or after the "step-nose" version -  but to my mind, it's by...