Upper Middle Petrol Head:

This is the first article of my  Upper Middle Petrol Head Drives  ... series.  However, I suspect that it could also be my last, given that the owner of the featured car, Phil Blake, is a man of unequalled generosity and trust. If I were Phil, I would not have offered me a drive of his hand-built,  Targa Tasmania  class-winning Fiat-Abarth OT 1600 replica.  But that's exactly how I found myself behind the wheel of his diminutive yellow rocket: one day I was chatting  to Phil about the car when he said, quite unexpectedly, "you'll have to have a drive!"  Clearly, it was an offer that I was never going to refuse! Not totally on top of your early- to mid-1960s high-performance Fiats?  According to an ubiquitous on-line source, who describe the OT 1600 as an "extreme variant" of the Fiat 850 Berlina, only four were ever made.  I'm putting my money on Phil, though ; he reckons there were five and I have no reason to doubt him.  He also

There's a bit of circularity happening with today's post, the 299th in the U M P H  Random series, only one shy of the triple century edition.  The second ever car to be featured was also a Renault 10, photographed way back in January of 2016 ( https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2016/01/random-2-renault-10.html ) .       I've only seen and posted about one, maybe two, other Renault 10s in the intervening four years - a sky blue, slightly modified one on display on the lawns of Tasmania's Parliament House, Hobart, during the French Car Club's annual Bastille Day celebrations and standard version of a similar colour at Le Weekend in Cygnet.  Either way, they're getting rare. The one shown here looks a treat with its tricolour themed paint job, ancillary lighting and motorsports style stickers, one of them being for Gordini.  I'm not sure where Gordini sits within the pantheon of Renault sports editions, but I believe its relationship to th

This lovely old Toyota Corona liftback is a perfect example of survivor car meets modder.  Its panels, paint and chrome are in amazingly good nick with just a tiny hint of rust near the fuel filler and a trivial dent on the rear bumper.  The only hint that it's not still with its original owner are the fattish black and chrome D-slot steelies and a Slowasf*ck sticker on the driver's side.   Corona sedans and wagons of the same era were Aussie-assembled and shared Holden's poxorific  Starfire 4  engine from the four cylinder Torana / Sunbird and Commodore line-ups (yes, there were four cylinder Commodores which I know is a bitter pill for GMH fans to swallow!).  However, the liftback versions of the Corona were fully imported from Japan and featured the 21R 14 motor from the concurrent RA46 Celica coupe and liftback, making for a much more satisfying - if still not awe-inspiring - driving experience.  The liftback was also beautifully appointed for the time,