Classics by the Beach 2023 Happy New Year Edition

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Happy new year, petrol-heads!  We begin 2023's Classics by the Beach with this immaculate V6 Ford Capri GT, follow it up with an unusual - also quite rare - SAAB, an excellent VW Beetle, a pristine Austin Healey, and an interesting selection of Minis, before capping it all off with an elegant Riley coupe.  Please enjoy!


I've loved Capri GTs ever since Ms Paterson first drove her then quite new blue one into the Howrah Primary School teachers' car park in the early 1970s.  Other than the main colour, hers was had the exact same livery as today's example and featured what were then considered to be high-end performance Dunlop Aquajet bias-ply radial tyres, possibly on alloy wheels from the same manufacturer and that looked like this:


Ms Paterson was a formidable woman and a member of the Australian Institute of Advanced Motorists.  I thought she was really, really cool! 






It's unlikely, being a primary-schooler when this quirky SAAB was built, that I'd have found it as exciting as I did Ms Paterson's V6 exotica.  However, fast forward five decades and I find myself strangely attracted to it.  Not in love, mind you; just fascinated by its styling and simultaneously impressed by the otherworldly Swedishness of it all.  Plus there were whispers amongst the assembled cognoscenti that the wheels it was wearing - "soccer balls" or the like - were quite the thing in SAAB circles, thereby piquing the nerdier side of my car obsession.























The Broadspeed and Cooper S Minis above were each a treat in their own ways.  The former - a lightweight fastback, complete with a perspex rear window - is an rare car.  The latter appears to have been recently restored and features really, really tidy wiring, immaculate paint and attention to detail that appeals to this author's inner neat-freak.  Both would be more than welcome in the UMPH garage!








According to Wikipedia, there were a bee's penis short of 21,530,000 - that's TWENTY-ONE MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED and THIRTY THOUSAND or so - Type 1 Beetles built between 1938 and 2003 in VW facilities in Germany, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Chile, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia, making it the very most successful car ever.  However, that still doesn't diminish the desirability of the model, as this example clearly demonstrates!    


Today's mere 1/21,530,000th of the total production run was absolutely first rate, combining superbly original features with a bit of attitude - a nice stance, fat steel wheels and some subtle suspension mods - to create a car with true class!  And that's just what was easily seen!  I'll let the photos do the talking but, at the same time, challenge anyone to dispute that this is one uber-cool Bug!





I'd love to wax lyrical about the Riley coupe that follows but I can't, as the marque is only very, very vaguely known to me.  My understanding is that at some stage the now defunct Riley Motor company became part of the British Motor Corporation stable but, beyond that, I reckon the best bet is to gaze upon the attached photos and drink in this car’s unique beauty.  If that’s not enough, though, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Riley Motor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_Motor.











U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.co.au.)

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