Tag Archives: Fairthorpe Electron

Prescott “La vie en bleu” – Sun 29th May 2016

Blast-Off

A 6AM start saw me blasting out of London in the old 911 along the M40 before hitting quiet country roads North of Oxford. Well they would have been quiet but for the fractious popping and banging of my engine!

Undeterred by fog, the aftermath of a nasty crash on the M40 and an inordinate number of flattened foxes and the odd two-dimensional deer littering the carriageway – I pressed on.

Continue reading Prescott “La vie en bleu” – Sun 29th May 2016

A-Z of Car Stuff: BP is for British Plastic – Part 1

A-Z of Car Stuff

This is one in a series of posts on cars, drivers, designers etc. that have interested me over the years. I’ve bored my family and friends with this stuff for years – now it’s your turn!

See A-Z of Car Stuff page for more posts in this series.

So, what’s so special about British Plastic?

A while back I bumped into a very nice chap at Donington Historic Festival who wanted to have a chat about our respective 911s. In the course of the conversation he almost guiltily confessed that although he really liked his 911 – his main passion was for “British Plastic”. His definition of “British Plastic”  was British cars with Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) bodywork built during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

In a scene reminiscent of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting – I had to own-up to having had a previous predilection for British Plastic myself through brief ownership of a TVR Vixen.  I obviously stressed that I had successfully overcome this affliction and had since moved firmly into German Metal.

The term “British Plastic” stuck in my head as it reminded me of the plethora of interesting cars that were around (and were occasionally on my shopping list) during my “plastic period” in the late ’70s.  I consequently thought it merited a post or even two posts under my A to Z of Car Stuff page:-

British Plastic – Part 1 covers the following marques:-

  • Ashley, Berkely, Caterham, Clan, Costin, Daimler Davrian/Darrian, Elva, Fairthorpe, Falcon, Gilbern, Ginetta, Gordon Keeble & Jensen

British Plastic – Part 2 continues with:-

  • Kougar, Lenham, Lotus, Ogle, Marcos, Ogle, Peerless, Piper,  Reliant, RGS, Rochdale, Tornado, Turner, TVR, Unipower, Warwick and WSM

Read on……………….

Continue reading A-Z of Car Stuff: BP is for British Plastic – Part 1