Monday, March 2, 2009

Italian Car, Motorcycle and Scooter show


An Italian car, motorcycle and scooter show was held on Sunday 2nd of March 2009 at Mulberry Farm in Caversham (WA). Ivo had told me about it when I visited to discuss the Troll. He and Roberto were attending with a couple of scooters so I cruised down to have a look. There was an impressive cross section of vehicles - Maserati, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, & Fiat. The Ducati club was out in force as well as a large group from the Paradise Lost Scooter Club. Here's a small selection of photos from the day.
The Paradise Lost boys line up their scooters.




The Ducati club was out in force.

I managed to have a brief chat with Ivo about the Troll. It's being sprayed this week, then it's the reassembly. Barring any unforeseen problems rearing their ugly head, it'll all be finished within about two weeks. Can't wait!!!
Update - January 2011
I first posted this entry back in February 2009 and I never got back to either update the commentary or post any additional photos. Only when I started my post on upcoming events did I go back to this entry and realized what a feeble attempt it was. So here are a few more photos for you.
If I remember rightly, this Maserati racer lived a very interesting life. It was originally built as a racecar but after its racing career was over the body was removed and replaced with a more stock sportscar body. The racer body was later found in someone's shed (as always) and then fitted with a new chassis. I think at some later point the original engine and chassis was fitted with a new reproduction of the original racer body resulting in two versions of the same car. But I may be wrong....
1964 Maserati. I was surprised how many Maseratis were on show. I didn't take that many photos though as they don't really appeal to me.

A Lancia.
An Alfa Romeo Spider. Very nice.
Fiat Spider
Fiat Abarth sports.

Classic Fiats

The belle of the ball. Isotta Fraschini
A big ol' vintage Alfa Romeo
MV Agusta
Ducattis

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Big box of tricks - Heinkel Club Spares


Over the past couple of weeks parts for the Heinkel have begun trickling in. Most were small, random items purchased through ebay; a rear wheel carrier and luggage rack, carburetter, condensor, throttle grips, etc. So I was a little surprised when I went to collect a package at the post office and was confronted with a box the size of a washing machine. The delivery from Heinkel-Club DE had arrived!! I must admit I hadn't expected the order to arrive so soon. Some of my orders from Germany have taken months to arrive.

The post office kindly lent me their trolley to so I could get it out to the car - luckily I'd opted to drive rather than ride the Vespa as I normally do! I just managed to squeeze the box into the boot. Of course, like all packages, it was mostly space and filler, but deep inside were the guts of my Heinkel. As you may note from the earlier updates, the final order from Heinkel was both extensive and expensive, and yet, when relieved of the packing and spread out on the ground it didn't look like that much stuff. I haven't diligently ticked off every item, but the order does look to be all there. I won't go into details about what's there as I've covered that before, but even so I'm pretty sure that I've missed some critical parts which I will only discover when I'm putting it all together. Not much I can do about that I guess.


The Troll Update
I visited Ivo and Roberto at their shop today. Things have been rather busy for them lately as a shipload of scooters and parts have recently arrived from Italy. The Troll - such as it was - was little more than a jumble of parts stacked in a couple of boxes on a table. It was something of a shock to see it so dismembered, but the parts, such as they were at least looked cleaned, polished and shiny. The chassis and panels are all with the sandblaster and aluminium polisher and should be back shortly. It was time to talk paint. I've chosen to stick with the original colour scheme as much as possible - given that we can't actually match the paint job exactly. Ivo and Roberto will do the painting and then it's the reassembly. Both guys commented that the Troll was surprisingly modern in construction, especially the use of aluminium and fibreglass, and seems a very sturdy, solid machine. Quite a good rap for an East German vehicle. When I had dropped off the bike originally Roberto had slapped the MZ engine and said, "It's a very good engine, is like .... a donkey. It just goes." I'm getting very excited. I can't wait to see it when painted. I can't wait to actually ride the thing!
Here's a couple of shots

The Troll is stripped naked
Roberto faces the challenge