Adam Wilkins

Either Snowdonia at sunset in my first Elise. I was on my way home from a week in Ireland and the car’s next owner was coming to collect it the next day.

Or two days pounding around Zolder in my Sylva Riot. Fuel and track time paid for by VAB in return for giving passenger laps.

I haven’t met one but I read about one only yesterday.

That’s what I thought! There’s an argument that it took a Cooper to catch a Cooper…

That must be it. I wrote a letter to Car magazine ridiculing them, and someone replied in the following issue saying it was akin to the police using y Mini Coopers in the ‘60s.

I’d forgotten those! Used to see them patrolling in Dover. Not sure what they were used for.

Thanks!

BLOL

Pretty much identical to the car I learned to drive in. Can’t remember the last time I saw one.

Cameo for my Mondeo too, if you look very closely.

It’s been ages since I took an appropriate car to a show so it was good to take my very unexceptional base Mondeo to FOTU.

The thrill of gambling.

Good move. Travel is so much better than High Street, which’ll be why even WHS didn’t want High Street any more.

Lowering the tone…

First proper road trip under its belt. Used it as a van to take a stand a mags to the Jim Clark event in Duns. Not bad for a car that stood for six years until January, and which has averages below 2000 miles per year over its lifetime.

Of course I meant 1965. Typo!

You’re right. Typo! The whole event is for the 60th anniversary.

Three of the four single-seaters Jim Clark drove in 1968, the year he won the F1 World Championship, the Indy 500 and the Tasman Series. It’s a record that will never be beaten. The backdrop is Duns Castle.

It’ll be interesting to see how the relaunch Storey transpires.

Yep, that’s what became the Marcos Spirit 220. But, shh, I didn’t tell you that!

A former owner of that brand (name redacted but not well known, created a Marcos-badged version of the Avelle kit car) volunteered all his secret plans to me, then about-turned with a threat of violence if I ever printed any of it. It was a most bizarre phone call.

That’ll polish out.

I’ve covered 1000 miles in the Mondeo now. To mark the milestone I’m going to clean off the algae (in this heat). A polish might have to wait until the weather cools down.

Dog walking spelt backwards is ‘if’.

Little clip from Saturday’s Classic Team Lotus Garden Party. They’d assembled the biggest ever collection of ex-Jim Clark cars, including this Type 49. Volume up!

Ah, yes.

Yes! Rare to need anything faster than intermittent.

It almost always makes no difference to meaning, but sometimes it does. ‘Do you have less able children in your class?’ means something different to ‘Do you have fewer able children in your class?’ (Example nicked from the Guardian style guide.)

Incredible, isn’t it? Elise was £14k and manual red NSXs were the same money. The other one I remember being an option was a Z3M Coupé. But I only really had eyes for the Lotus.

When I bought a four-year-old Elise in 2004, a Clio V6 was the same money. And so was an NSX…

Gotta love a Phoenix!