Upper Middle Petrol Head:

Two things, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist:  1/. I really, really love this ute, photographed in uber cool Brunswick Heads, a bee’s penis north of NSW’s Byron Bay.  2/.  “Designer rust” is fine by me and, in this particular instance, it’s been done extremely well. H o w e v e r ,  I would like to draw your attention to the awesome EH load lugger available via the following link:  https://uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com/2024/06/five-reasons-why-this-is-australias.html .  Which one do you prefer?     No points for guessing where I stand in this!   The clue’s in the title of the post, after all!  But I’d still like to hear your views on “patina” in its many and various forms.   U M P H (uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au) iPhone images.    

This month’s coverage of Classics comes to us via Mr McBeard, who it seems was one of a very few attendees hardy enough to brave an icy Tasmanian winter’s morning on the windswept shores of the River Derwent at Sandy Bay.   Not even our usually robust editor-in-chief, head writer or principal photographer turned up.  Other places to be, apparently. According to our hirsute correspondent, the baby Fiat and massive Lincoln garnered the most attention on the day, almost certainly due to the striking contrast of their size and styles.  They also illustrate a monumental cultural difference between their countries of origin, with the super-sized American saying rather a lot about life in the USA when compared to the diminutive - and, more to the point - frugal Italian.   DM420 isn’t a Jaguar, by the way.   It’s the more up-market Daimler variant, being slightly skewed towards luxury when compared to the Jag version, which - despite being jolly plush - was the more performance orientated car