Happy New Year - and may it be sunny

Have a great 2013 - hope to be doing a bit more of this in the year coming up and seeing a lot more sunshine.

Christmas Haircut

Ideal for that 'Crimbo Limbo' stage of the end of the year. Thanks to Pete at Eat The Rich for reminding me about this.

Classic, weird British comedy, maybe tough to appreciate if you're not from these shores.

Mmm, Rhapsody in Velcro or the Burnt Pop Tart?

Issue Five out in January - and Happy Christmas!

Finally, Issue Five of the magazine is done, and will be on sale, hopefully, on the 10th of January. 

Yes, it has taken ages, but hey, steady as she goes as we've been navigating the choppy waters of recession, and at least we're still here with more hardcore Italian motors.

More details soon, but it's the usual mix of home-built, brand new, and very old Italian motorcycles, and the car in this issue is a stunna.....keep an eye out here on the blog/Facebook page/website - but in the meantime, Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year and happy and healthy 2013 to all our readers, subscribers, supporters, the brilliant advertisers who have stuck by us (you know who you are), friends, and enemies.

We'll be emailing everyone in the New Year about new subscriptions - use it or lose it!!

So who wants a mini Gilera Saturno then?

Can't remember if I've posted this already, but anyway, I'll need to be be selling my 1952 Gilera Turismo 150cc in the new year. Restored by me 10 years ago, and featured in a couple of magazines too.

Motor Bikin'

Chris Spedding - early punk, Womble, Pistols producer and Robert Gordon collaborator.

1985 - have Ford Escort van, will travel

This is me, aged 18, all quiffed up, in flying jacket and boots, and seated in my beloved '77 Ford Escort van, all 1300cc of it, and with dark blue 'Starsky and Hutch' go faster stripe along the flanks. I loved it - it was practical for putting guitars and amps in the back, and could also accomodate a few friends, or ladies (yes, sometimes..) in the boarded-out back. I've always liked the practicality of vans (still have one now, a VW LT), though they attracted the attention of the police, and I'd be regularly pulled over in the mean streets of North London by the fuzz for a search in the back. I was working in Holloway, North London, had a few quid in my pocket, had just met the girl of my dreams, and life was good and carefree. I was about to join a band and make a record a few months down the line too, so realised a few passions and ambitions.

The van was pretty reliable, and I drove it to Holland and back without problems, though some junkie tried to nick the cassette player out of it while it was parked up in Amsterdam (I was more worried about the AC/DC album inside it though). I remember replacing the McPherson front suspension strut in the street on it the day before the MOT with the help of my mate Allen (whose dad was a semi-pro banger racer) having found one in a scrapyard in the day when you could wander freely amongst the cars piled six or seven high, and use your own tools to get what parts you needed. It wouldn't start easily in the damp, though luckily I lived on a hill. I eventually sold the van for 200 quid, which is what I paid for it, and went on to a much more exotic '67 Triumph Vitesse Mk2 convertible, which was also a bit of a rustbucket.

A DVLA vehicle enquiry tells me that the van came to the end of its registered life in the summer of 1988. Probably just rusted away. Good times.