Goodwood - The Flyboys

I would be much obliged if you would care to join me for that most English of beverages: the good old cup of tea.
Or in this case an enamel tin mug of the invigorating brown stuff.

Welcome to Camp Dive!

Here, nestled in the chalk downs beside the English Channel sits the WWII airfield of Goodwood, home also - for over sixty years - of British motor racing.
We'll be here at the Revival Meeting for a few posts so settle in with your cuppa and let's soak up a little of the atmosphere.

Tea is only "proper char" if it is served by a pretty girl in a maid's uniform on a glorious late summer day in England.

Of course, some folk bring a little picnic of their own.

And of course some kids get their priorities right.

And talking of getting things right: "Women! Know Your Place!"
The correct position and posture for the fairer sex is ably demonstrated here.

Of course, THIS is what Goodwood is all about (thanks to Phil for this splendid photo … and indeed many of the others).
It's harvest time and we all get dressed up in period costume to celebrate the glorious history of motor racing and indeed the history of Goodwood itself, the racing circuit having started as the original perimeter road to the airfield back in '39.

One of the many things that make Goodwood special is the airfield itself.

Many Vets come here, though sadly fewer each year, from WWII and Korea: RAF pilots, Polish, USAAF, Canadian, Aussie, Kiwi, the whole gamut of flyboys, some of whom will have flown from this very place.

All around the south coast and on up to Norfolk and Lincolnshire the English countryside is peppered with WWII airbases.

Here is the magnificent Battle of Britain Memorial Flight soaring across the skies in tribute to the heroic pilots who gave their lives in the desperate last ditch struggle for survival in the autumn of 1940, the Battle of Britain, rightly called our finest hour.

In addition to the nine-thousand British pilots taking part, the RAF Roll of Honour recognises 139 Polish pilots, 98 New Zealanders, 86 Canadians, 84 Czechoslovakians, 29 Belgians, 21 Australians, 20 South Africans, 13 French, 10 Irish, and single figures from the United States of America, Jamaica, The British Mandate of Palestine, and Southern Rhodesia.

Much as the incomparably beautiful Spitfire is celebrated, the plane that took the brunt of the action was the Hawker Hurricane, seemingly held together with fabric and string.

All through the day there are displays in the air overhead. The Yanks came late to the party in both World Wars but were most welcome guests and each year sees Mustangs, Hawks, Typhoons and the occasional B17 joining in the fun.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at some more wonderfully attired people and get down to some serious motor racing.

The Proper Way To End A Summer

With the last sunset of the season soaked in the deafening yet exhilarating roar of vintage engines, with the enticing scent of hot engine oil quickening the heart in anticipation of the weekend's racing, with the smooth growl of Merlin engines in the sky above …

It's that time of the year when Old Dive says goodbye to yet another summer at the incomparable Goodwood Revival Meeting.
Starting tomorrow on the Planet.
Be here if you possess any trace of a soul.

Ciao From Phil's Magical Kingdom

And so we come to the last day in this particular Car Porn Week and close the door for another year on Phil's Magical Kingdom.
But before we go, please allow me to introduce, for your driving pleasure the wonderful new Lotus Evora, successor to the Esprit.

While the Elise and the Exige are built for tearing around racetracks sideways and actually racing, this is for the person with a rather larger wallet and slightly less suicidal insanity.
You might take this over to Germany once a year to shit your pants at the Nürburgring but this is more of a grand tourer than a racing car. More like a Ferrari or a Lambo.

Here's a test bed version (note the headlamps are just pieces of perspex screwed - yes, screwed - to the bodywork).

Here's one in yummy blue.

And of course, British Racing Green.

Here's a link that will tell you much more about it than I can:
http://www.evo.co.uk/news/evonews/225417/lotus_evora.html

And looky! Here's the Tesla, the zippy, all-electric sports car that Lotus make for the guys in California. One of these went past me VERY FAST up the track at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer and all I heard was "WHOoooooooosh …"
Fabulous.

And very orange …

If you want to make a LOT more noise, you can always plump for a Two-Eleven.

And to complete the current range, here's the scrummy Europa.

Here, too.

But THIS is totally sweet! A unique, fastback Lotus Elite from the early sixties.
Now that is my kind of car.
Mmmmmmmmmmm …

This, too!
Yummy or what?
Oh, that's a LeMans Aston Martin up on the riser that Lotus are tweaking.

Ooooooh … and a line of classic Lotus formula one racers. Gorgeous!

And to round up this miscellany, here's some of the fun the guys have in the safety department.

That poor face gets repeatedly smashed into things for the sheer fun of it … er … I mean safety testing.

How a crumple zone works.
I've seen Exiges slam into barriers (and one another) at racetracks and - other than some choice profanity - the drivers just get out and walk away.

I'm not sure what this one was supposed to demonstrate but I think that it is the inadvisability of attacking a windscreen with your face.
That's gotta hurt!

Anyhoo … That's it for this year's Lotus birthday bash.
Will Car Porn be taking a break for a while now?
Er … Considering that Phil and Dive are off to the Goodwood Revival Meeting this weekend I think the car haters are in for a miserable time next week, too.
Toodle pip!

Let's Make A Racket - XXV

Here's an opening number from a typical night down at the Blues Club.

Opening numbers are always nice; nobody's trying to show off or play anything flash and we all get to know one another and groove along in a nice and friendly manner.

This is one of those nights when we had a couple of members who'd never played there before on Hammond and drums so at this stage of the evening we are all hanging back a little and chilling out.

My first guitar solo on this one is one of those "talky" solos, where each line is fingerpicked like a spoken line. Nothing showy, but I like playing like that from time to time.

So this is "Can't Quit Me, Baby".



Of course, by later in the evening we had loosened up considerably and I make no excuses for re-posting one of my all time favourites, the totally improvised (lyrics, too) fun-fest that is "Too Many Monkeys In My Tree".

Smokin'! Phil's Magical Kingdom Continued …

Today in Phil's Magical Kingdom we are looking at just one very special car.

The extraordinary Eco Elise.

This is a car consisting in large part of marijuana. Or at least the industrial, non-cannabinoid breed of hemp. Smokin' indeedy!

You'll remember from the earlier series of Lotus posts that the company is aggressively "green", with their original biofuel track car, the Tesla all electric sports car and loads of green techno-wizardry going on in Research and Development.
They have also recently got planning permission for their own windfarm to power the plant, making them just about the greenest car company going.

This car is the quite astonishing result of a chat over coffee in the canteen a while back.
Thanks to Phil for filling in the facts.
It all started when the lovely Geordie (a Toonsman from NooKassle, hence the name) thought it would be fun to match the weight of an Elise chassis in aluminium drinks cans (Lotus guys recycle everything they can) to try to offset the environmental impact.
A few other guys tossed in some ideas over coffee including the news that someone was using hemp matting (like your eco shopping bags) to form into solid shapes and mixing them with other materials.
The idea of a hemp car was born …

Boys will be boys and so Geordie and the others got hold of some local hemp and tried making test panels using the same resins that Lotus use with their glassfibre mats to form body panels.

Geordie then took the whole concept and presented it to the board for their blessing and the boys got down to work.

Phil went over to Belgium and sourced enough experimental primer, colour and clear coat to make the entire paint job water-borne and solvent free.
Jason (Phil's paint application specialist) sprayed all the silver and made the whole thing seamless.

Andy (seen here back at the Festival of Speed this summer) actually made all the hemp panels and grafted the entire body together.

The most difficult part was the roof, which is made entirely from one hemp panel (with the hemp exposed down the centre stripe) but which needed fully functioning solar panels inset to trickle charge the battery.

Internally, the seats are made from hemp and resin with local sheep providing the wool for the cloth trim and local timber for the lovely wooden gear knob and handbrake.

This is a one-off concept car, dreamed-up and built by the guys on the shop floor and hoorah for them!
With luck (and testing), these technologies or their derivatives may become standard across the industry and make the guilty pleasure of motoring just a little less guilty and a lot more pleasure.

More car porn on Friday.

Return To Phil's Magical Kingdom Pt.2

Back in the Magical Kingdom for yet another week of Car Porn, thanks to Phil you can buy a Lotus in all sorts of colours, from the sublime to the ridiculous and somewhat beyond ridiculous. Here are some pretty colours from his personal hallucinogenic rainbow:

Here's a nice classic Exige Sprint track racing car if you fancy this particular take on Lotus' 1960's retro look.

My personal favourite at this year's display was this absolutely perfect Exige in what Phil describes as a particularly tricky three-stage opalescent pearl.
The camera doesn't do it justice, but the crowd of people standing in front of it, moving their heads from side to side and going "Oooooh!" at the pretty colours seemed to appreciate its beauty.

Phil's eye-wateringly gorgeous GT3 prototype wasn't on show this year (check back in the "Phil's Magical Kingdom" posts and you will eventually come to it and go "WOW!") …
But this custom Elise in the same yummy sparkly orange was looking enticingly scrumptious.

And of course the best EVER colour for an Elise or Exige is "Isotope" (née "Scandal Green").
The most extreme track car on the planet deserves nothing less than a paint job of complete insanity and this radioactive marker-pen ooze does the trick to perfection!

If, however, you should want (for reasons unknown) to look like you live on a council estate or are a footballer, you can plump for one of many combinations of colours that change as the car moves.

This one is in "Prism green", a very silly paint developed by Taz's mob at Dupont, from their "Chromalusion" range.
Mica particles coated in special oxides (this one is cobalt) reflect two different colours depending on the angle you look at it from. In this case blue and green, but you can get some quite sickening combinations should the mood take you.

This sexy Europa looks black at first sight.

But look closer and it is filled with sparkly bits.
My own car is sparkly black like this, but nothing like so extreme. It's a pity the sun was hidden by clouds when I took these as the effect is breathtaking.
This is "Diamond", developed by Phil for Lotus' Diamond Anniversary.
When you look at in in real life it genuinely appears as if the paint is around four inches deep. The sparkly bits look like they go waaaay deep into the bodywork.
You remember Linda Fiorentino in Men In Black when she sees the tiny galaxy? That look in her eyes was the same look in the the eyes of the folk ogling this baby.
Woo and hoo!

Lots more to come.
We have the fabulous new luxury sports monster the Lotus Evora, crash test dummy mayhem, vintage sex and the car made of marijuana.
Stay tuned, car porn fans …

Return To Phil's Magical Kingdom

Yay! With a side order of Huzzah!
This year marks the sixtieth birthday of Norfolk's überspiffy Lotus Sports Cars.
And so naturally we head back over to Phil's Magical Kingdom for a birthday party cum open day.
Old Dive shoehorned neighbours Jerry and John into my little black car and off we tootled to the land of Lotus.

These - as some of you may remember - usually sit in Phil's office. Along with the chocolate biscuits!
Anyone new to all this would be well advised to whiz down to the bottom of this post and click on the "Phil's Magical Kingdom" link. Then follow the "older posts" button back to the start and take a good look around. Then come back here and we'll carry on.

Sensible cars deserve sensible colours. Mad fucking nutjob race cars deserve a more skewed approach to sanity.

Before we get on to the stunning new Evora and Dive's personal favourite, the biodegradable car made from marijuana, let's have a little recap of what actually goes on here.

This is not the kind of chassis you'll find under your own car (unless of course you drive a Lotus).
These guys make the best driver's cars in the world and all the top manufacturers queue up to have Lotus fettle their suspensions.
Nothing comes close to one of these, though, if you want to go round corners at speeds well in excess of sanity.
You've seen flies flying in squares; these make flies look like clumsy, lumbering sloths when it comes to cornering.

No robots here. All hand built by people who really know what they're doing.

As the production line snakes through the factory, the cars gradually start looking more … er … "vehicular".

Until they end up ready to tear out onto the test track.

More yummy Two-Elevens. It was one of these that Phil raced up the track at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer.
As the one in the foreground shows, you can actually order them in normal colours.

Or not …

Much more to come.
Those who don't like car porn might as well go home.