Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Kilt-based fashions, both traditional and contemporary. Come on guys, bring on the pleats!
weeladdie18
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by weeladdie18 »

Sinned wrote:Actually WL, the quoted top speed of a MG Magnette was about 80mph and the Moggie 1000 was 62mph. The MGB was capable of 100mph downhill and with a following wind.
Sinned.....Pardon me young man....
Were you employed in the British Motor Industry in the 1950's and 1960's , when these vehicles were brand new ? ............weeladdie
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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Sinned wrote:Actually WL, The MGB was capable of 100mph downhill and with a following wind.
............

May I remind you young man that going down hill with a following wind is probably not the best way to pull the Birds in the Bar
when they are more interested in the Utilikilt one is wearing than ones customer's classic car. ............L.O.L.........

One elderly aunt became over excited when she saw me wearing the Kilt....Her two nieces had to take her to a café to buy her a nice cup of tea
to help her recover....
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Mike
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by Mike »

We are restoring a Magnette currently.
Mike

Who the hell is 'society' anyway?
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Sinned
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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Actually WL, my father was a time served motor mechanic, having trained in the REME [0]. I grew up with the darned things and knew the workings of the four stroke by the time I was six years old. Apparently I was looking at a book on cars on a train journey south with my parents at that age and a guy remarked on my knowledge so I spent about a half hour telling him about engines and other things. I spent many, many hours outside in the street helping him on most jobs. I could service a car - change an oil filter, spark plugs and set the points in a distributor before I left Primary school. Of course I needed a little help at times undoing nuts but then it was my lack of strength at such a young age and not my not knowing how to do it. By the time I left Grammar School I was pretty good at doing most jobs on a car, brakes, cylinder head, clutch, exhaust and so on. But I could never better my father's knowledge and he had an answer for ANY question that I posed to him. He had a fine ear too and could tune twin carbs just by ear alone. So yes, I know my way around a car. The only jobs I didn't like doing involve bodywork as it's a lot of filling, sanding, painting. My earliest memories were of cars such as Austin Sevens, Triumph Mayflowers and such, mostly unreliable beasts but did have real leather seats going for them. Ah, the smell of real leather. So yes I do know what I am talking about. You picked the wrong guy here. It's only now that I'm older, can afford it and have access to a garage that I let others do the work for me.

[0] Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, a division of the Army.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
weeladdie18
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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weeladdie18 wrote:
Sinned wrote:Actually WL, the quoted top speed of a MG Magnette was about 80mph and the Moggie 1000 was 62mph. The MGB was capable of 100mph downhill and with a following wind.
Sinned.....Pardon me young man....
Were you employed in the British Motor Industry in the 1950's and 1960's , when these vehicles were brand new ? ............weeladdie
Please will you explain why you have not answered my question ?..........Is your knowledge of the English Language sufficiently low to
be unable to answer this question ? .......weeladdie18
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Kirbstone
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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My nearest brother's BRG + wire wheels 1965 MGB 4-pot 1800cc. had a quoted top speed of 106 mph. My Dad's 1955 Ford Zephyr, 6-pot 2262cc. had a quoted top whack of just 81 mph. My own 1st car, a 1966 Triumph Vitesse saloon, 6-pot, 1600cc overdrive could just about sniff at 100 mph, but with it's rear swing axles was unstable at that sort of speed. A very dangerous little car. My Gf./fiancee/wife drove a convertible 4-pot 1200cc Herald, less speedy, but a safer bet.

Much later I bought a 'used' 1928 Alvis 1250 with open touring 4-seat bodywork (1973), which could wind its way up to a dizzying 62 mph, but try stopping her from that speed ! :cry:

Tom
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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Kirbstone wrote:My nearest brother's BRG + wire wheels 1965 MGB 4-pot 1800cc. had a quoted top speed of 106 mph. My Dad's 1955 Ford Zephyr, 6-pot 2262cc. had a quoted top whack of just 81 mph. My own 1st car, a 1966 Triumph Vitesse saloon, 6-pot, 1600cc overdrive could just about sniff at 100 mph, but with it's rear swing axles was unstable at that sort of speed. A very dangerous little car. My Gf./fiancee/wife drove a convertible 4-pot 1200cc Herald, less speedy, but a safer bet.

Much later I bought a 'used' 1928 Alvis 1250 with open touring 4-seat bodywork (1973), which could wind its way up to a dizzying 62 mph, but try stopping her from that speed ! :cry:

Tom
well done Tom ,....I accept your speeds....we had a Ford Consul.. Was it a mark 11....bench seat and column gear change......
0 to 30 M.P.H. in first gear...
we towed a twelve foot clinker sailing dinghy down to Cornwall every Friday Night and left Cornwall 5 o'clock sunday evening in the summer

Our next door neighbour had a Mark 111 Ford Zodiac ....He would drive 20 miles to his milk tanker ...transport milk up to London overnight return with his
tanker ...get in his car and drive home...in those days he drove his vehicles hard.

Triumph Herald was a good car ...a local yacht owner could carry his two crew and weekend cruising requirements down to Weymouth on a Friday Evening.
Weekend cruising from Weymouth ...week end cruises to Poole , Cherbourg , Alderney, Dartmouth...usually about 12 hours

One of the lads drove his fathers Vitesse to College....Did that vehicle have twin headlights ?
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by weeladdie18 »

I remember posting re an Alvis rally Parked outside a local pub...wire wheels....and big headlamps.
one car had her tail in varnished wood ..another was leather covered...

At least one of the sixties small armoured tracked vehicles had an Alvis Power Unit ....later changed to Rolls Royce and then Cummins
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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Yes Rob, The Vitesse was recognizable by its four headlamps, arranged each side in pairs slanted upwards towards the side. Mine had a Laycock de Normanville overdrive which operated on 3rd & 4th gears, giving effectively 6 speeds and vastly improved touring legs over the 'standard' car. It also had a folding canvas Webasto sunroof which was a great addition, but which malfunctioned after a few years. It had disc front brakes too and frameless door windows, which fascinated the workers at a garage in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on our way back from Ankara, Turkey via Istanbul.

At the time of Harold Wilson's 1966 introduced Selective Employment Tax, trimming unnecessary employees in Britain, I counted 23 employees at the Plovdiv garage servicing just four side-valve Volgas, or similar!

My Dad bought the Zephyr to tow our Eccles Imperial caravan on holidays, but it gave just 20mpg, so to do his rounds (He was a country GP) he bought one of those newly imported VW Beetles, which were air-cooled and gave 40mpg. It turned out to be the first of a series, he changed them every 2 years until his death in 1971.

He gave me the use of the Zephyr in the 60s which I used to tow the boats for the University College Boat Club to far-flung regattas, and a jolly good towcar it was too, but was hard on petrol & oil. It also had a bench front seat and a three-speed column change.

The Alvis was sacrificed to pay for School fees and the convertible Herald was replaced with a series of Peugeot estates when family arrived.

Tom
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Sinned
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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WL, to answer your question, no I wasn't employed in the motor industry in the 50's and 60's but what has that got to do with the price of cheese. Were you? And even if you were it doesn't mean that you know a vast amount about cars. During that time the workers were mostly on strike anyway.

I was born in the mid-fifties so by the early sixties I was already getting down and dirty, literally, with the common British cars of that time. My father was a mechanic and I saw and rode in a lot of different makes and models. Learning from a master [0] on how to do the various jobs on a car. I know a lot less about the modern heaps of scrap metal than the older ones. To put the foot on the other boot I noted that you didn't dispute the figures I quoted.

My first car was an Austin A40, then Mini van. I've also owned an Austin Maxi, Allegro, some Skodas ( before they became fashionable ) among others and worked on all of them.

[0] My father.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by Gusto10 »

Gentlemen, shall we return to the original object of discussion, being the utilikilt brought by santa?
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by weeladdie18 »

Kirbstone wrote:Yes Rob, The Vitesse was recognizable by its four headlamps, arranged each side in pairs slanted upwards towards the side. Mine had a Laycock de Normanville overdrive which operated on 3rd & 4th gears, giving effectively 6 speeds and vastly improved touring legs over the 'standard' car. It also had a folding canvas Webasto sunroof which was a great addition, but which malfunctioned after a few years. It had disc front brakes too and frameless door windows, which fascinated the workers at a garage in Plovdiv, Bulgaria on our way back from Ankara, Turkey via Istanbul.

At the time of Harold Wilson's 1966 introduced Selective Employment Tax, trimming unnecessary employees in Britain, I counted 23 employees at the Plovdiv garage servicing just four side-valve Volgas, or similar!

My Dad bought the Zephyr to tow our Eccles Imperial caravan on holidays, but it gave just 20mpg, so to do his rounds (He was a country GP) he bought one of those newly imported VW Beetles, which were air-cooled and gave 40mpg. It turned out to be the first of a series, he changed them every 2 years until his death in 1971.

He gave me the use of the Zephyr in the 60s which I used to tow the boats for the University College Boat Club to far-flung regattas, and a jolly good towcar it was too, but was hard on petrol & oil. It also had a bench front seat and a three-speed column change.

The Alvis was sacrificed to pay for School fees and the convertible Herald was replaced with a series of Peugeot estates when family arrived.

Tom
Thanks Tom..we seem to agree on the top speed of the M G B..... a couple of my rich friends had M.G.B. ..G.T.s. ...the hard top version in British Racing Green...
Top Speed 103 to 106 M.P.H....one of the versions had an overdrive........The Vitesse was ahead of its time.....My father's last car was a Triumph Dolomite
If I remember correctly the car had a beautiful walnut dash Panel.....A local neighbour gave me a lift to college every week in 1963...As he was a commuter
he had one of those new fangled Beetles....I cannot remember how many gears it had , but the gearbox appeared to have a high ratio drive and water
did not settle on the lower part of the windscreen.....Ideal for the German Autobahns.... Rod.
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

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My brother's MGB had overdrive, too. He later invested in a Downton conversion which involved installing a close-ratio box, crossflow head with twin SU carbs & fatter wheels over disk brakes & koni shocks.. The thing could do about 120 then. We tested it one day on the M1 which had no upper speed limit at that time, but the hardened lowered suspension didn't like the (then) concrete M-way surfaces at all.
My Vitesse was chopped in for a 1970 Triumph 2.5 PI Estate, which had a nice wooden dash, but matt. It also had overdrive and could pull 110 mph for hours on end. It almost could use the German Autobahns to good effect, but the English garages hadn't a clue about wheel balancing then, so a crowd in Wiesbaden (am Rhein) did a proper job which transformed our comfort for that holiday.
March of technology...in 1990 while living in Germany I acquired a left-hooker Audi 6-pot twin-turbo 2.8 which could shove you up to in excess of 140mph in very short order and waft along at 210Km/H (130 mph) with consummate ease. Returning after Christmas with my 20 yr-old daughter doing an Erazmus exchange year at Heidleberg, she shared the driving and in the middle of the night I glanced over at her on a Belgian M-way, cruising cool as a cucumber at 200K (124 mph) !

Tom
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by weeladdie18 »

Tom ...Another caravanning story..1956 or 1957...........The garage my father managed had two fine 1930's Austin 16 cars...They had Dikie Seats built into
rear of the front seats...passenger carrying capacity 6 passengers....These vehicles were used as School Cars....Big Headlights and black pressed steel
spoked wheels ....Very impressive in their black and blue livery....The top driver was an Ex WRAC Driver-Mechanic.....Every morning at least one of these
vehicles was parked outside the garage in site of the big Shell and BP petrol pump tops.....awaiting the passengers....senior school children...
Charming young ladies in their gym slips and ties and young gentlemen in their fine school caps........

Tuesday morning there was a diversion....The boys turned up wearing their School Cadet Force Uniforms. One of the boys played the bugle in the School Band...
An elderly farmer owned The garage site and his mother lived in the thatched cottage next to the petrol pumps...

My father finished his Desert Tour as A Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Regimental Sargent Major on Detachment to Nasser
and his Arab Legion Workshops for the Arab Long Range Desert Patrol.....So pomp and ceremony was the order of the day.....

At 0815 Hours the bugle sounded Revale....for the Landlord's Mother outside her bedroom window...... all the lassies in their school uniforms
were witness to this ceremonial occasion.....

The bugler had a fitting career in the Naval Fleet Air Arm...He was a photographer on the Queen's Royal Yacht Britannia
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Re: Santa Brought a Utilikilt

Post by weeladdie18 »

Soon another vehicle was acquired for the Taxi Fleet....An Ex War Department Staff car....A Humber Shooting Brake....A very powerful and thirsty vehicle.

This vehicle was fitted with a tow bar and towed the business owners 22 foot Rollalong Caravan from Ringwood to Abergovenney on the first day of the
delivery trip....If I remember correctly ,second day was over to Haverford West and onto a private site near Fishguard.

The route was an A A long vehicle Route...specially prepared for members......My memory of this trip is a bit hazey...as I was pretty exited at " Going Foreign.."
The caravan site held four caravans and was behind a church on the edge of a beach...The church had been washed away in a storm.........
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