Classic Cars and Coffee New Year's Eve 2021

Thankfully, after the State Government's idiotic Covid lockdown for Christmas and New Year, the guys at Classic Cars and Coffee managed to get approval for a New Year's event. The fun police were very concerned that there would be no dancing.

The end of year event is always huge, despite the fact that many people go away over the break. I arrived a little after 8am and had to park in one of the overflow carparks. Just after I arrived they had to close the gates as the carparks were full.



The weather in Perth over Christmas has been excessively hot - peaking at 46 degrees celsius on Christmas Eve! Temperature had dropped to a milder 36 degrees by New Year's Eve, but even so the light was extremely bright which has washed some of the colour from my photos.

Chevrolet

Datsun 240Z

A newcomer to Perth and my favourite car of the day - Skoda 1000MB. The Czech industrial concern, Skoda, took over Tatraplan construction in 1951 and the experience must have given them the idea of building a rear engine budget car. The result was the 1000MB, which was powered by a four cylinder, transversely mounted, water-cooled engine in the rear. The car is reminiscent of the French Renault 8 or 10, but is better looking in my opinion.

This car was originally part of the Gosford Museum collection. I was actually interested in buying this car at the time of the auction, but I had my hands full with my 1953 DKW project so thought better of it.

The Skoda 1000MB, Skoda Octavia and Land Rover Mark 1

GW

1965 Porsche 356B

1934 Lagonda and a trio of Tomasos

Cadillac club

A quite lovely Pontiac

Renault 4CV

The Shannon's Insurance Goggomobil

Another newcomer to the show and what a machine! 1953 Maicoletta

German motorcycle manufacturer, Maico, built the absolute king of large touring scooters with the Maicoletta. It is powered by a 250cc single cylinder two-stroke engine. The starter is rather unique - and I still don't fully understand how it works. It has a pendulum starter which rocks the engine back and forth and then fires the ignition. Maico believed it was so reliable that they never fitted the Maicoletta with a kick starter, so if the pendulum starter failed (as it was want to do over time), you could only get the scooter running by push starting.

I mentioned the pendulum starter earlier... well, of course, when people are watching it decides to play up.

Suzuki Re5 water cooled rotary

Alfa Romeos

By around 10am the heat was beginning to build and it was time to hit the road.

Citroen-Hoffman, Citroen CX and Reliant Scimitar.

The next Classic Cars and Coffee is on 6 February 2022.

Classic Cars and Coffee - 27th December 2021 Cancelled

WA State Premier, Mark McGowan, got an early Christmas present this morning when a backpacker tourist, arriving from Queensland a few weeks ago, tested 'positive' in a phony PCR test. Poor Mark has been desperate to to find some way of F-ing with the people and ruining Christmas. Over the past couple of weeks the pressure has been ramping on Mark and his immoral, reprehensible and discriminatory mandatory V policies. The government is on its way to becoming the Number One cause of unemployment in a state which is desperately crying out for workers. Tens of thousands of West Australians - normally docile and apolitical - have been protesting every week. Similarly, across the country, nearly a million citizens march to express disgust with over various State and Federal governments. These numbers dwarf the anti-Vietnam war marches of the 1960s and 70s - not that you'd know if you watched mainstream TV.

As the governments around the country have flailed about trying to silence this dissent and quash the many legal cases working their way through the courts, they have been desperate for some new distraction to restoke the fear - and right on time here comes omicron. Despite the extensive studies demonstrating the moronic variant probably represents the end of the pandemic phase of this disease (that means, the virus spreads quickly, but causes only minor illness - like a cold - leaving lasting immunity in its wake. This is how all viral diseases evolve. A disease that causes serious illness and death, dies with its host, limiting its opportunity to spread so evolutionary pressure always directs the disease to become milder), the government and its media fearmongers have seized on omicron to lock us all down and ruin Christmas. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268116v1

So, Classic Cars and Coffee for 27th December 2021 is cancelled. New Year's Eve 31st December 2021 has been penciled in. We shall see. I personally doubt it. The government has never simply dropped snap restrictions but have slowly weaned them away over two to four weeks.

Dear valued classic car enthusiast,

As many of you may already have seen, we have had to postpone the event due to the State Governments latest Covid mandate.

The decision has been made to hold the event on New Years Eve, Friday December 31st.

The last time it was held on December 31st it had record numbers so hopefully this is the case this year and that the "snap" restrictions" end on Tuesday the 28th as currently planned.

We are sorry about the disruption, however it is out of our control and we want to do the right thing by all. Best thing is it is bound to be cooler!

Our advice from the State Government is that they are monitoring the cases over the next couple of days and will extend this past the 28th if there are more outbreaks. Either way if the new date gets postponed further we will know over the coming day or so and will let you all know accordingly so as to plan.

All the very best from all of us at Classic Cars and Coffee and I hope you all have a great Christmas break, hopefully see you on the 31st!

Classic Cars and Coffee

E event@classiccarsandcoffee.com.au  | W classiccarsandcoffee.com   

Celebration of the Motorcar 2021

Celebration of the Motorcar is an event like no other in Australia, with an unequaled display of prestige, exotic and classic cars. Displayed by invitation only, the cars are the crème-de-la-crème of the state’s finest collectable cars, with a few interstate exhibits added into the mix. In the region of $35 million worth of rare and desirable cars are on show each year, spanning vintage through to the latest prestige and exotic cars.

The star of this year's Celebration of the Motorcar, in my opinion, was this 1904 Napier L48 world speed record car, "Samson."

Samson was a one off construction by the British Napier company to break the world speed record. These were the days when to go faster you built a bigger engine. Samson was powered by a six cylinder, sixteen litre T block engine. The car competed in dozens of races, including the famous Gordon Bennett Trophy. In 1908, with a larger twenty litre engine it set a British record of 119 miles per hour - the first British car to break the 100 miles an hour barrier.

Like other experimental racers of the period, the car was significantly modified during its short career. The original sixteen litre engine was replaced by a twenty litre engine, with which it achieved many of its record speeds. Being a straight run racer, it handled rather poorly and in 1908 the car was badly damaged during a race. The engine was salvaged and the car was scrapped. The car's original sixteen litre engine was sold to the Cromwell brothers, from Australia, who fitted it to their racing speedboat, Nautilus II. Nautilus II won the Griffiths Cup in 1914 and 1915.

In the 1920s, the Cromwell's replaced Nautilus' engine with a Hispano-Suiza aero engine and the Napier engine was placed in storage. The engine was discovered in the 1980s by Bob Chamberlain, who acquired the engine and undertook the massive effort of recreating the car as it was originally constructed. The car, which set a standard of excellence for a historic car reconstruction, competed in a number vintage race events and concourses before it was purchased by Peter Briggs for the York Motor Museum collection. It was great to see this car 'out and about.' For more details see: https://www.motoringpast.com.au/the-napier

And it was fabulous to see it run!

Shannon's Insurance and their iconic Goggomobil Dart. https://www.shannons.com.au/

Abarth 1000CTC

De Tomaso

Newly arrived in WA, 1968 Fiat 2300S with body by Ghia.

Aston Martin DB2/4

Porsche 356C

Cadillac row

The display of Cadillacs was flanked at each end by iconic 1953 Cadillac El Dorados

The happy Cadillac owners posing with their cars - wide angle lens required!

1967 Alfa Romeo Spider

1974 Alfa Romeo Montreal

1965 Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint

1961 Maserati 3500 GT

1934 Bentley Derby

1929 Bentley 4 1/2 litre tourer

1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom II rolling chassis. This was actually how Rolls-Royce - and many other manufacturers - supplied their vehicles. The purchaser would then send the rolling to chassis to a body builder of their choice. This car will shortly be shipped to the UK for its bodywork.

Facel Vega, a French luxury car from the 1960s.

1935 SS Tourer. The company we know today as Jaguar actually started life as Swallow Sidecars. After making their name in sidecars (obviously), they progressed into cars under the brand name SS. In the late 1930s they introduced the SS Jaguar, but with war looming in Europe the company recognized that the name SS had unfortunate implications, so they swapped the brand and model names around and  become Jaguar.

Another British rarity - the 1959 Bristol 406. Bristol were an aircraft manufacturer during the Second World War who moved into motorcars in 1946. Bristol picked up the BMW concession from Frazer-Nash and began building copies of prewar BMWs. The 406 was the first Bristol model that abandoned BMW styling and was entirely designed in-house.

1937 Alvis 4.3 litre Charlesworth

1965 Alvis TE21

American row

1957 Plymouth Savoy

1960 Plymouth 2 Door

2021 McLaren Elva

The French Connection - Facel Vega and Peugeot 403

Citroen SM

Citroen CX

My favourite car of the day - 1949 Delahaye 135M Cabriolet with body by Guillore. Delahaye built magnificent luxury cars in France prior to the Second World War. They struggled along in the postwar period, but found it difficult to find a market in war ravaged Europe, going out of business 1954.

Proud owner Ross and his magnificent Delahaye

For more information about the show, check our the website: https://celebration.org.au/