British Auto Classic 2011

Sunday 23rd October was British Auto Classic day in Waroona, south of Perth. Shelly and I popped along to check it out.

The oldest car at the show was this 1911 Star limousine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Motor_Company

The owner mentioned that he had not managed to source appropriate headlamps. Replicas could be manufactured but at an extravagant cost of around $2000 a piece.

This cute little 1914 Swift has been a regular attendee at Veteran Car Club rallys. See my postings for the Veteran Car days of 2010 and 11.

A rarity in Australia -a 1935 Jowett.





Morris-Cowley


1926 Bentley. A very beautiful machine. Interestingly the bodywork of this vehicle was covered in vinyl - like the early DKWs.

There was an impressive contingent of classic Rolls-Royce.

A big 1948 Jaguar Mark IV sedan.

A Jag limousine

Jaguar XK 120 sedan. A very nice restoration.

What Jaguar is most famous for - sportscars.

Jaguar E-type

The highly unusual Jowett Jupiter. It has an intriguing engine layout, with the fan cooled radiator mounted behind the flat four boxer engine, just as in contemporary DKWs. This isn't really a surprise when you realize some of the car's designers had come from Auto-Union. http://carclubs.shannons.com.au/jowettcc
Here are some more links about this interesting vehicle:
http://www.jowettjupiter.co.uk/
http://jowett.org/

MGs.

The MG TC is a gorgeous little sportster.

1936 Willys-Overland. Willys-Overland was an American company but they did build vehicles under license in the UK.

Open wide - A cheeky Hillman Minx

The British Ford Club was out in force again.



Ford Prefects



A Bedford Van. This was the only commercial vehicle on show.

An Oldsmobile T-75 sedan. Not really sure if this counts as British. Maybe they built them under license?

The Oldsmobile and a 1955 Hillman.

A Riley. I've always been rather partial to the stylish Rileys. They retained a quite old fashioned look right into the 1950s.

A rear view of another Riley.

A Riley and a Vauxhall. Once again the Vauxhall club put on a good display.

Vauxhall Vangard



Vauxhall Velox. I believe my parents once owned one of these.

Standard

A Vauxhall Velox cabriolet

1957 Nash Metropolitan. We seem to come across one of these at every car show or museum we visit.

Rover

Morris Minors. There was a large contingent of Morris'.

Austin A40

Importing a South African DKW

As will be quite apparent from this blog, I'm a big fan of DKW cars, bikes and scooters. Relatively few DKW cars were ever exported to Australia. During the pre-war years 1290 DKW F5s and F7s were imported into Australia and sold relatively well, but DKW sales never recovered post-war.  Maybe 5 F89 Schnellasters and 10 3=6 Sonderclasse were imported by Standard Motor Company in 1958, but they failed to sell.  Consequently they are extremely rare in Australia, most of the examples being fairly recent private imports.

This is not the situation in South Africa where the DKW enjoyed an excellent export market. Thousands of DKWs made their way there in the mid to late 1960s, and, thanks to the dry climate many are still on the road. There is also a large enthusiast community in South Africa and many specialist mechanics and parts suppliers.

While prowling around the Internet I'd seen a couple of nice examples up for sale on South African Gumtree. I'd idly commented about them to a few friends. The trouble and risk of buying a car, sight unseen, from another country was simply too much of a risk. Just before we set off on our US holiday I was speaking with a South African colleague and mentioned my interest in DKWs. He advised that if I was interested he had contacts back home could look the car over.

I had seen a lovely green DKW for sale and Shelly - to my surprise - agreed that we could buy the car. Unfortunately the car sold, so I shelved the idea again. Then this beautifully restored example came up for sale in Johannesburg. My friend sent his dad around to inspect it and - although he disparagingly called it a 'Deutsche Kak Wagen' (German sh*t car) - gave it an extremely positive review. After a round of discussions, with my friend's dad acting as go between, we made an offer and a deal was done.

The owner is a lifetime DKW fan tracing his interest right back to his youth in Argentina. He and his son had spent a lot of effort restoring the car into the condition you see here. He has provided me a great deal of the car's history, which I will detail at an appropriate time. For the present we are engaged in the great bureaucratic exercise of arranging import approval. That can be either a smooth or a torturous experience. We'll see how it goes. You can expect updates in the blog as we go through the process.

Update 5 December 2011
At last, after 6 weeks I've finally received the import approval. The next step begins!