Tag Archives: feat

Spring Thaw: Deadline EXTENDED

In a tizzy because you’ve forgotten to go to the post office today? Panicked because you’ve just realized the Spring Thaw application deadline is THIS Monday, December 20th?

Fear not!

We’ve heard from quite a few people this week who have been busy/distracted/procrastinating on their applications and so we’ve decided to be nice and extend the application deadline to Friday, December 31st. (Merry Christmas!). That said, please make every effort to send us your PDF application form via email by Monday, December 20th while we await your hard copy.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent in their application – it has been another great response this year with lots of hilarious and entertaining “page 2” stories. If you know of someone who is slacking on sending in their entry, please motivate them appropriately!

Thanks again,
Warwick & Dave

Totem Rally 2010

Eric Horst (WA) & Stephen Mats Mats (WA) carve through the snow on their way to 2nd place Historic, 5th Overall. Photo: Tony Latham

Snow is a four letter word. It was also the dominant factor that shaped the 2010 running of the Totem Rally. With 17 crews gathering from BC, Alberta, Oregon, Washington, The Yukon and Arizona, everyone involved knew the competition was going to be tough. Organized by the West Coast Rally Association, the event started in Cache Creek, BC on Saturday morning with an overnight stop in 100 Mile House before returning to Cache Creek on Sunday. Up to 20 cm of fresh snow in the area added to the challenge.

While most crews arrived with modern all-wheel-drive Subarus or BMWs, a select group choose a different path, the Historic class. Open to cars 25 years old or older, the Historic class honours the 50-plus year history of the event by encouraging owners to actively use their cars over 800 kms of the best back roads BC has to offer.

Gary Webb (AZ) and John Kisela (WA) won Historic Class in their Toyota Celica GT. Photo: Tony Latham

Top placed historic for 2010 was the 1983 Toyota Celica GT of Gary Webb and John Kisela, only seven points clear of Eric Horst and Stephen Mats Mats in their 1983 Audi Quattro. Both teams finished top-5 overall. Full results can be found at www.rallybc.com.

Words & Photos by Tony Latham

Next up on the TSD rally schedule is the legendary Thunderbird Rally, February 12-13, 2011. Classic Car Adventures will be sponsoring the Historic Class which encompasses cars from 1985 and earlier and we’d like to encourage you to come and take part. Bolt up a set of snow tires to your classic Volvo, BMW, Saab, Mini, Beatle, or whatever you’ve got in the garage, and join us for a great adventure!

Spring Thaw Entries Open, plus 2011 Calendar Announced

It’s Big Announcement Day at Classic Car Adventures! Entries for the 2011 Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure are now officially OPEN! We can hear the stampede to the post office starting already, but fear not – the application process has changed from previous years and it is no longer a race requiring the postal service to get your entry here first. Instead, there is now a soon-to-be infamous “page two” on the entry form where you will be able to convince, bribe, or otherwise tell us why you should be one of the 60 entrants in the 2011 Spring Thaw. Have fun with it – make us laugh, make us cry, make us cringe – we look forward to reading them all! If you don’t feel like writing, you could always make a video or sing us a song! Don’t take too long, however, as entries are due by December 20th. Note, the entry fee now includes selected meals including Saturday night dinner. Find out all the details and download the entry form on the Spring Thaw Info page.

Secondly, we are thrilled to announce a full year’s worth of events in 2011, including a luxury vintage event, an adventurous backroads exploration, a Fall Freeze event, plus we are bringing the adventures to Ontario! The calendar at-a-glance is below, and you can see more details for each event on the Full Calendar page. We can’t wait to be back on the roads with you all!

April 29-May 1, 2011 – Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure
June 12, 2011 – Classic Rag Run (Magazine Swap/Food Bank Benefit)
August 5-7, 2011 – Rush to Gold Bridge
September 9-11 – Autumn Amble Vintage Tour (pre-’59 5-star tour)
September 16-18 – Fall Freeze Classic Car Adventure
September 23-25 – Muskoka Mille, Ontario, Canada
October 10, 2011 – Sea to Sky Thanksgiving Run (Food Bank Benefit)

Happy Motoring!

Goodwood announces 2011 Dates

The Earl of March, patron of the UK’s most celebrated motor sport meetings – the Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival – has today announced the provisional 2011 dates for these hugely popular annual events.

Photo: Goodwood/Marcus Dodridge

The Festival of Speed
The 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed is provisionally scheduled to take place over the weekend of 1-3 July, the same weekend that the world’s largest celebration of motoring culture has been held over the last two years. The 2011 Festival promises to be packed with action and excitement as the planet’s most glamorous racing machinery and famous drivers gather together in the beautiful surroundings of Goodwood Park. The 2011 theme for this leading motor sport event is currently being finalised and will be announced in the coming weeks.

Photo: Goodwood

Goodwood’s Moving Motor Show
The day before the 2011 Festival of Speed gets underway, on Thursday 30 June Goodwood’s second Moving Motor Show will provisionally be held, giving new car buyers and motoring enthusiasts the opportunity to see the very latest models up close, and in many cases drive them on a dedicated vehicle evaluation route within the grounds of the Goodwood Estate, which includes the famous Festival hillclimb.

Photo: Goodwood

The Goodwood Revival
The unique Goodwood Revival is provisionally scheduled for the weekend of 16-18 September next year. The Revival is truly a magical step back in time and celebrates the halcyon days of motor racing as it used to be with all of the accompanying spectacle and glamour of the era. Competitors and spectators alike dress in period fashions with the finest sights and entertainment of the pre-1966 era for all to enjoy.

Photo: Goodwood

Goodwood motor sport events
All of the 2011 Goodwood motor sport events promise a spectacular array of cars and motorcycles, plus star drivers, riders and plenty of other fabulous attractions to thrill the crowds. Goodwood will provide all the latest news and updates on these ‘must attend’ sporting and social events in the coming weeks and months, when the finalised dates will also be confirmed.

As in previous years, admission to both Goodwood motor sport events will be strictly by advance ticket only, with 2011 ticket sales commencing from Monday 1 November 2010. All orders placed before January 2011 will benefit from a VAT saving of 2.5 per cent.

New for 2011, young adults aged between 13 and 18 can now purchase Festival of Speed and/or Revival tickets for half the full adult price. Previously all visitors aged 13 or over would have been charged at full price. Children of 12 years or under remain free of charge, as does all car parking.

Find out more at http://www.goodwood.co.uk/motorsport/motorsport.aspx

Victoria Craigslist ad sums it up best

We don’t normally post for sale ads in the regular flow of this site, but we caught this craigslist ad for a 1967 Mercedes 250S in Victoria and we instantly want to meet the owners and invite them on our events! The description is great, and sums up why most of us are into enjoying classic cars. Someone should grab this and run it at Thunderbird Rally in February!

1967 Mercedes 250S – $900 (craigslist link)
Four speed manual transmission, engine was swapped for a 2.8L. Comes with several boxes of extra parts, and a spare set of wheels with studded snow tires. This car is driveable but the alternator output is weak. Requires a couple minutes to warm up in the morning. Shifter is loose and the gears are a little tricky to find. You have to stand on the clutch to shift gears. This is really a parts car – unless you truely want a project.

This Mercedes has no seatbelts in the back, and the ones in the front are of the airliner lap-best variety. There are safer cars out there for sale. Cars with thick slab like steel pillars cocooning you from the outside world. Cars with 7 airbags. Cars with airbags for your knees. They have fancy GPSs that will tell you where you should go; they have systems that will brake for you, before you even notice that the car in front of you is slowing down.

This Mercedes has none of those things. This Mercedes barely even has brakes. This Mercedes doesn’t even have a conventionally operational heating system, or a radio. There are no power windows, locks, or mirrors. This car does not have seven airbags.

And those other cars, Their horns make cute little beeping noises, so considerate to not be rude. They don’t have horns that sound with the arrogance and fury of some long dead Mongol warlord. They don’t come with apocalyptic snow tires, all spikes and brutal tread. You cannot fix those cars on the side of the road, using a wrench as a hammer. Those cars will never force you to think, never allow you to exercise your own ingenuity. In those cars you can’t stand up illegally through the sunroof from the back seat, and watch the moon with the cool night air blowing through you air.

Richard Nixon once said “Human existence is in the struggle.” You could buy a car that will try and hide you from all the dangers of the world, but it won’t save you; all the alarms, all the air bags, and the low sodium lattes in the world won’t save you. Some day you will die. But at least you can die with the wind in your hair.

Alternatively it would make a good parts car.

Read the ad and get in touch with them here: http://victoria.en.craigslist.ca/cto/2027409438.html
Leave us a note in the comments if you buy it!

1903 Peerless Driven Back to its Roots

When Malcolm Barber, CEO of Bonhams, first caught sight of what was to be his 1903 Peerless Model F (16HP, Twin Cylinder, Rear Entrance Tonneau) just over twenty years ago, he thought he had found something unusual. He found the car in a Hawaiian collection, and discovered it had previously been part of the Denver Colorado Transport Museum collection, but as to who had originally owned the car and the story of its past remained a mystery.

Nearly twenty years later Malcolm received a call out of the blue from the Silver Times newspaper in Lake City, Colorado in collaboration with the Horseless Carriage Club of America who told him that his 1903 Peerless had been the Hinsdale County’s first motorcar and invited him to attend a summer tour organised by the Club. The aim being to reunite the Peerless with the family who bought it originally.

The car was shipped from London to New Jersey by container, couriered from New Jersey to Denver and then driven by Malcolm from Gunnison (west of Denver) to Lake City, a mining town 9,000ft high in the Rockies. So, 108 years after its first drive, the car still made it up the steep, precarious roads to the town. Waiting for the car to arrive was the 102yr old granddaughter of the original owner, the mining engineer at the Lucky Strike mine, who had not seen the car since 1952, when the family sold it. She said she always remembered the car and was astonished to see it again.

As the Peerless was a local celebrity at the time, numerous postcards taken in 1903 were sold in the local shop. Thomas Beam bought the Peerless for a pricey $2,300. They were considered one the three ‘P’s of American manufacturing: the Peerless, Packard and Pierce Arrow, the US’s best early motorcar manufacturers.

Still going strong, the Peerless, now back in the UK, will be making its 20th run from London to Brighton on November 7th. Malcolm comments: “When you have had a lifelong love affairs with cars, to own one of the great originals like this is an enormous privilege. You realise you are driving automotive history and that the car is never going to be yours, you are merely its keeper for a time. Taking it back to the scenes in which it first saw the road in the breathtaking settings of Colorado, that has to be one of the highlights of my life.”

Need another Porsche, Jerry?

By Nigel Matthews

When Porsche introduced the Cayenne SUV in 2002, a number of Porsche purists and even automotive journalists felt that the company was making a big mistake entering the luxury high-street SUV market.

If they had done their homework, they would have known that this was not Porsche’s first four-wheeler capable of tackling muddy fields. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built three prototype-tractors in 1934.

The success of these well-built and typically Porsche “over-engineered” machines led to the production of a range of tractors fitted with one- to-four-cylinder engines.

The one-cylinder model was called the Junior, the two-cylinder the Standard, the three-cylinder the Super and the four-cylinder the Master.

There was a model suited to every farmer’s needs. Porsche partnered with the tractor manufacturer Allgaier Brothers; they built 35,000 Porsche tractors until Mannesmann (now owned by Vodafone in a $185 billion US takeover in 2000) took control of building the Porsche tractor in 1956. Mannesmann continued production until 1963 at which time a total of 125,000 units had been built.

A Porsche "Coffee Train" tractor's smooth lines were not for aerodynamics, but to prevent damage to the coffee plants. Photo: PorscheTractors.com

Approximately 1,000 made their way to North America. One beautifully restored, 1959 one-cylinder, 82-cc. Junior, producing 14 h.p, was offered for sale at RM Auctions annual Monterey event. The estimated sale price was $16,000 to $20,000 US. The hammer fell at $28,600 and included the 10-per-cent buyer’s premium.

The new owner has a magnificent example in a condition better than the day it came off the production line. The air-cooled diesel engines were cooled by a fan-duct system that was driven by the crankshaft-driven generator.

If you have ever worked on a type one Beetle or a Porsche 356, this will sound very familiar.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a huge Porsche collector and attended the 59th annual Pebble Beach Concours, bringing two Porsche racing cars; he achieved a second-in-class win with his 1970 Porsche 908/03 race car. The (slightly slower) one-cylinder Porsche model 108 Junior would make a nice addition to his or any other serious Porsche collection.