During my time of for the Christmas Holidays I took a trip down to Mustang Maniac for a chat with guys. No other reason than for a chat. Adam was busy sorting out a huge delivery of parts ready to go into stock.
While I was there he said did I want small medium or large? Not quite sure what he meant so I opted for the safe option of middle. With that he took me into the dispatch room where he had just picked up some new items that had laid out on the table. I took some photo’s that Adam will use on his blog soon.
These are powder coated laser cut metal and black powder coated. I was handed the middle size which was some 80cms in width. I was well pleased with my Christmas prezzie and looking forward to having in the garage above my tool chest.
Thank You Adam. 😀
I do know that Adam is looking to have other designs made and he may even sell them. We have shared pics for our blogs so you may see these duplicated. When they are posted on the Mustang Maniac Posts let Adam know you would like one, and he gets enough interest he will get a batch made. He was thinking about removing the Mustang Maniac panel and having it just the outline.
That just leaves me to say one final thing until next year:
My last post I mentioned that I would be doing more reviews and I have started that by adding a few more products to the Detailing Menus at the top. I had the option to use a couple of products that I hadn’t actually purchased. This is a first for me as I always by my products with my own money, that way my reviews are totally impartial as I don’t have to please any sponsors because they gave their products to me free.
The first review I did was a sponge that costs £22! Now that’s a lot of money for a sponge regardless of what is called, in this case Ultra Black Sponge made by the very respectable ‘Rag Company’ who make some awesome products. Their latest sponge is a very dense foam with a series of parallel cuts as part of the ergonomic design. The sponge is getting plenty of hype on a few detailing websites as being the next best thing for car wash detailing. Click the image below or here to be taken to my review of this rather unique sponge.
I used the sponge in conjunction with a product made by P & S. Their (new product to me), Absolute Rinseless Wash which is designed to be a just that. Wash the car and dry it off. If you are looking to reduce the amount of water used to clean your pride and joy, then this is for that ‘gap’ between a full wet wash or a totally waterless wash. Again for a full review of their product click here or click the image below.
A little spoiler alert, I only liked one of them!
A couple of years ago I exhibited my car at the Classic Car show at the Birmingham NEC, for the Pride of Ownership category. I enjoyed the show over three days, I meet some great people and also meet a few cheats as well for the voting. As I was with my car I didn’t get to see much of the show itself. I fancied going along this year as a spectator to have a proper look round at the cars and any reason to part with some of my hard earned cash. That was until I looked at the prices! I think somebody is smoking some plant extracts to come up with these prices.
How can they charge this amount? Quite easily so it seems. Yes, I get the insurance, and venue has to be paid for. The vendors will pay even more for their pitches. The cost of food up there is super stupid, (I always took my own for that reason). My question is are we, that being the classic car owners or enthusiasts, being taken for a ride to go to these types of shows? I believe so, and as a result I won’t be going this year sadly or any other years until the prices are more reasonable. The prices shown above are just the cost of the tickets to get in. On top of that the cost to travel there and back, oh plus parking of course which means I have to sell a kidney to fund. I appreciate the cost of living is going up, but now rather than this being a nice day out to look at cars, it becomes a bit of a luxury event. That makes me sad to be honest.
Am I being a bit tight with money or is this a general opinion? I have also noticed a trend for this year’s car shows; the exhibitors are being asked to pay £10 for a ‘ticket’ to attend the show. The public get in free to see the cars! It has to be said that I honestly don’t mind paying a bit for charity from the entrance fee, but without the cars – there is no show. I know a couple of people who have voted with their wallets and not gone to some of the shows this year where high entrance fees are charged. Perhaps charging just a couple of pound for the public and exhibitors is the way to go? What do you think?
A few months ago I was approached by Jim Jeffrey from a car detailing website called World Of Shine. We got to talking about a topic that was a confusing international problem. We had some good chats and he liked my chart that I had put together in December 2019 and posted on my pages here. This was my big article explaining the actions of various dual action pads and why you need them. The DA colour comparison chart comprises of the big name manufacturers on the DA pad market. Jim asked if he could share my chart with his subscribers to which I agreed. He wrote that article called “pick A Color – Any Color” which was posted here august 7th 2022, where he referenced my chart.
To download my original PDF format of the DA Comparison Chart, click here.
Thanks to my friend over the Pond Jim for giving me a shout out.
Now that the car show season (in the UK) has now all but finished, the next few posts will be focusing on little upgrades, tweaks and a few more reviews. With that in mind, a good friend of mine Craig had just bought a new car for himself, a MK 7 Golf GTI (2.0ltr turbo in fact). He brought the car over for me to have a look at and an excuse for take it for a drive. Once he was here it was a good reason for me to have a little drive (OK thrash) around the relatively deserted roads of my village.
The car looked a bit grubby when we had finished, so we had an impromptu detail session. We got out the snow foam, Absolute Rinseless Wash, spray wax and final quick detailer.
I will be reviewing the new products we used very soon which comprised of a rather expensive sponge, spray bottle and P&S Absolute Rinseless Wash which has been making some good noises around the detailing circuits.
The finished result was pretty good for a day’s work. To do it properly we should have clayed the car first, clean slate removal of old products and layered up the waxes and protection. We didn’t have time for the full process, so we just made sure it looked clean on the way home.
No sooner had he parked up at home, it started to light rain on our hard work, but the beading was good to look at.
The only down side? Craig ate most of the donuts! 😂
I normally post over a weekend but this post I just couldn’t wait to share with you a link to a website that somebody sent to me. Thanks to Michael S for messaging me. The link was accompanied with some congratulations on “my ranking” which I knew nothing about. Thinking it was a wind up, I checked out the main website and it was proper legit. The website “FeedSpot” home page is noted as being the “Internet’s Largest Human Curated Database of Bloggers and Podcasts“. There is some really interesting stuff on the website and it’s really worth checking out, not just because of my blog reference. A great place to start for anything.
The date is noted as September 14th 2022 on their webpage and could be a recent addition.
Scrolling down to number 10 I found my little ol’ blog sitting one place above another great blog I have mentioned many times in the past by Mustang Maniac. After reading the list I also sent a congratulatory message to Adam on his blog appearing in the list as well. Like me he was unaware of the listing, but was also well chuffed he was on the listing.
I know it’s a real niche reading audience thing, I’m fully aware that the list is the team’s opinion, others may not agree and it’s all subjective of course. Many wouldn’t even give my blog a second glance in the scheme of things. But, it has really made me smile and ended my week on a monumental high.
I finished yesterday’s post with a modern classic Lambo. I will start this post with a group of photos of the poster I had on my wall as a teenager, the timeless classic Lamborghini Countach, I still love these cars.
Nothing about this car is subtle, it just screams ‘I’m a super car, get out of the way’. Stunning car.
I was starting to get to the club stands with a splattering of the private cars around.
Another car I drooled over was the Magnum Pi (TV series) Ferrari. here was one in a very unusual blue.
The military vehicles was interesting as I was speaking to a guy who was telling me that he used his vehicle as a converted camper van.
The commercial vehicles wasn’t as big as I was expecting it to be. But I loved these Freightliners.
There was some stalls, more like a yard/car boot sale type stuff. There never seems to be any auto jumble specific stuff these days. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places. The food stalls were busy and the beer tent was selling well too. There was a stall that was selling some artworks which was an awesome place and the live music was quite good too.
I got back to the car and sat down for a well-earned rest. throughout the afternoon I spoke to a steady stream of lovely people. I left the show a bit earlier than expected as I was low on fuel and the last thing I need was to sit burning what I had left. I had visions of calling the wife to bring a couple of cans of fuel to me so I could get to the fuel station. My journey calculations there and back had been ruined due to the traffic jams.
Why did I let it run low?
Well, when I put the car away for the winter I don’t leave her sitting with a full tank, I run it as low as possible so if the fuel does go stale, I won’t lose a great deal. I use fuel additives and stabilizers even in premium low ethanol fuel, so it should be fine but you never know. At the start of each year when the car comes out to play, I fill a Jerry can up with fresh fuel to top her up and start on a good footing.
A great day’s car show and a little sad it was the last of the year. I got the car home and gave her a little wipe down before putting her away. I will give her a winter coat of wax and cover all the chrome with something to protect it.
It’s been a great summer of car shows and from what I can remember, all of them have been a sunny days. Let’s hope it continues for the next year shows too. There may be a an unexpected car show, but I don’t have anything planned in my calendar, yet.
Last Sunday saw perhaps my last car show of the year at Glemham Hall. This show was an hour away going the extra miles on going on the main roads, or across country for forty five minutes with ten miles less. The weather was sunny and I had already packed the suncream just in case it was to get as hot as the weather men predicted. I set the Sat Nav to go the scenic route in order to save some time as I got up a little later than I had planned.
I was enjoying my trip down the country roads until three cars arrived at a massive rate of miles an hour to my rear bumper which I didn’t appreciate. The lead car being a white Porshe 911, second was an old school mini with a big exhaust the size of a dustbin, and a I think it was a 355 Ferrari. The Porshe made a big deal overtake dropping umpteen gears giving it the large. The mini risked a lot as we were coming to a corner, trying to prove he was a man. The mini went passed sounding rather lame with the big exhaust smoking under full power. The Ferrari had a bit of sense and didn’t try to overtake. Just after the corner there was a road closed sign and the idiotic Porshe and mini driver were turning around at a junction to go back the way we had all just come from. I could see the Porshe driver was in his forties and obviously in possession of a small man sausage, trying to prove that his balls were bigger than his manhood to the others. The mini driver younger in his twenties I would say was going to need a replacement engine shortly with the amount of blue smoke coming from it and that made me happy. As I indicated and slowed to do the same maneuver the Ferrari decided that he could nip up the inside of me and catch his friends up. So three ‘boys’ with a combined IQ of my shoe size sped off into the distance. I made a point to look for them at the car show to express my concern over their dangerous driving. Unfortunately I didn’t see them there, shame!
I prompted my co-pilot Tom(Tom) to do a detour and obliged to get me on the main roads again at the cost of adding another fifteen minutes on top of the journey and burning more fuel. Eventually I got to the village where a mile or so out there was a traffic jam with a sign to say expect delays due to the car show. Epic, I was now in traffic, hot weather and drinking fuel like a drunken pirate drinking beer on shore leave.
Just under an hour later I pulled into the driveway to the show only to be directed by a marshal on a straight bit of track who was stopping the cars. “Go straight down, but don’t go fast because of the dust”. I thought he was winding me up to be honest. ‘Don’t go fast’, the chance would be a fine thing. where the track was loose and dusty I wouldn’t go to fast for fear of flicking up whatever all over the paintjob on my car.
It was such a popular show that the allocated spaces for each year had already filled up. The rest of us later arrivals were asked what year we were then directing us to another area. I swear they were making it up as they went along. They did try and park us up per decade of manufacture.
I got out had a drink and set about wiping of the dust from the car. The show was split into four sections; private entries, car clubs, military and commercial. Throughout the day I took nearly three hundred photos, but I cut it down to two hundred. This half being this post where I walked around the private entries.
The show was packed out in every direction.
I spotted a couple of TR7’s one with a v8 which would have been named a TR8, but I didn’t see any badges for it. Perhaps it was a retro fitted v8? Then the nice example in gold.
