A mate is about to go up in the Spitfire at Goodwood. I know many who have done this now, and i'm sure there are several on here. It made me revisit a sad incident that i was closely involved with, which i have done several times over the years, but this time i found a short video to my surprise. The plane was rebuilt and first (re)took to the air in 2005 and has been flying for many years since then.
it's a rare thing, but demand for the below car has outstripped production capability, even causing some Teams featuring well-known drivers to drop out before they've even started. The only consolation for me is that Fiat will get the blame "this time".
It’s always been a dream of mine to go up in a Spitfire, when I looked into it many years ago for my 40th I nearly fainted at the cost. I think it would be way out of reach for me now.
A work colleague bought an experience for his Wife North of £2500 and that was a few years ago. Watched one take off from Duxford a few years ago, don't they sound great.
..further to yesterday's comments "Geoffrey" - i would like to flip the table and say by all means, if you can improve on this, then i would welcome a better source than i am attempting - if you have one?, but (for me) applying a "fuzzy logic" to all you hear, is the best approach and so here is another relevant video:-
This Tuber has also a Meteor engine he's restoring but no content about it, along with a lot of early synths etc
They're lovely in real life, saw one outside CMC a few weeks ago. Still pictures don't do justice to this bike.
Lovely, that brings back some memories. Best mate's sister and I drove her dad's one, a Chummy, like the one in the video, to Epernay in the Champagne region with 15 other various Austin 7s in the 80s. Family were all members of the vintage sports car club. The youth element of which all started out on Austin 7s as they're cheap to buy, run and maintain. A lot of spares are still available off the shelf as there's such a following a small industry exists making them. Amazingly there were no serious breakdowns on that trip that couldn't be sorted at the roadside, that's all 16 cars, not just the one I was co-driving. There was a support van with a spare engine and lots of parts, though, if I recall, it wasn't much in demand. Due to French rules regarding cars over a certain age, that we, as tourists, were apparently exempt from, such cars are a rare sight there. I think it's possible with a special permit only. As a result we featured in the press and were welcomed by the mayor in more than one town enroute. A scruffy bunch of young car nuts were not quite what they were expecting, in my mid 20s at the time I think I was the eldest. We even got a free group tour at Moet. A few on that trip have since sadly passed away early. The rest are driving more exotic cars such as Frazer Nash or similar these days, most still have an Austin 7 in the garage that their own grown up children in turn now drive.
