Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

For me it is the Aston Martin DB4 Vantage I snapped on a street in St. John's Wood. Posted a long way upthread.

Or, stretching a point, the Hesketh F1 car that James Hunt raced which was parked outside Arbuthnot Latham near Liverpool Street, for some event, which was doubly cool because I got to meet his sons too.

edit:
Aston: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15491884/
Hesketh: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/12850989/

You little tinker, you can't have black and silver plates on a 1975 car in this fair land.

*Buys scratch card.

Not awful looking car seat protectors? I have wool inserts on my seats that are looking tired so am keen to give them some protection on longer road trips. Not after full seat covers rather something that could lie on the base or possible tie to the headrest. Retro bead covers could actually work but haven't found anything that doesn't look really cheap. There's a couple bamboo seat cushions on Amazon that might do the trick but just wandering if anything better exists.

Oh yes you can ...

(Well, you've always been able to, but it's actually legal, providing the vehicle's in the Historic tax class and constructed before 1st Jan 1980. I think they changed the rules to permit it on 40 year-old cars when they introduced the 40 year rolling VED exemption, but then added the 1980 cutoff date a couple of years ago)

You can now, but seems and feels wrong to me.

Well ruffle my hair and call me Frankie. I did not know this but then traffic law failed to interest me after 1989.

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paininthe in reply to @Cornish_Bike

2.5pi estate in the back. one of the slowest cars i've ever been in

I had one for a good while, commuted 60mile a day or a while. Definitely not slow and fitted to TR6s not known for being slow.
However, forum passim, they went out of tune real easy, they had to have all 6 butterflies opening and closing together and with high mileages and worn linkages was a regular job.

my punctuation was at fault here. the diesel merc was the slowest car i've ever been in, next to no torque no power and automatic to boot

i also had a 2.5PI which was the smoothest loveliest car i have owned. was relatively quick but such a torquey smooth motor, with a stainless steel sports exhaust sounded lovely too, i never really booted it or got the rev's into the red, just perfect for long distance cruising with the O/D on the gear stick

i've posted these before but always happy to spam my fave car i've owned, it was pretty immaculate too, just the engine bay was a bit oily, but that's engine bays for you

the guy with the 2.5PI eventually moved on to a tr6 and did a 5 year ground up restore. his pride and joy now.
the guy with the bmw still has 2002tii's . i think he's part of the admin / mod team for one of the 2002tii owners clubs. he did an engine swap and put a bmw m3 engine into his current one and i'm pretty sure he'll have a mint original 2002 tii as well in his garage.

haven't heard from the merc guy since the mid 90's

the diesel merc was the slowest car i've ever been in, next to no torque no power and automatic to boot

Some friends in high school had a very similar Merc - petrol automatic rather than diesel - and it was also shockingly slow and cumbersome. Lovely shapes from that era, but they were more about weight to power ratio, rather than the other way around.

70s velour...

A performance mod for the gt6 was fitting the injection system from the pi. Wonder if the injection system could be fitted to the triumph vitesse....

Do have a soft spot for the herald and vitesse.

You can occifer (what others have said)👮😏

Monster post warning, Tl:dr - the paint on my car is shit and I want to have a moan and ask for ideas...

The paint on my TTS is awful. I knew this when I bought it, and was hoping getting a detailer to machine polish it would bring it back to life, but I've had a guy with a great reputation come round to look at it and he's not comfortable taking the job on. It appears a previous owner has attempted a DIY respray (or used a complete cowboy company to do it), which has led to a lot of issues. For a starter compare how dull the finish is to the not exactly clean family Seat in front of it:

Next up we have the world's worst bonnet. The swirls that have caught the light are all over it, just not picked out by the camera. This is particularly irritating as I can see it whilst driving. I have no idea how they got it into this state and/or why they decided to leave it like that.

Lacquer flaking underneath the front light, which will become rust city if not dealt with:

Corrosion where water has sat around the base of the rear window, presumably due to the area not being properly painted and sealed:

Poor finishing around where the front bumper joins:

As these pictures show, the new paint appears to have reacted with something so it has bubbled. This is the main reason the detailer wasn't happy to take the car on, as he felt he'd cause more problems than he'd solve with a machine polish as these would all start to burst.

Now of course getting a perfect finish back would require a full respray, but that would come to more than I bought the car for. It's got 135,000 on the clock so I'm not fussed about getting a factory-new finish, but would like something a bit less awful.

I've spoken to a body shop and been quoted around £1900 to get it back to 'decent' condition. This would include removing the rear boot section and around the headlights and fully respraying, and then sanding back and doing the best job he can on the rest of it. I'm inclined to go ahead with that, but was just wondering if anyone had any other suggestions for getting it to a passable condition? I've thought about maybe trying to get hold of a boot and/or rear trunk panel from a car that's being broken, but I think there is then the question of how good the colour match to the original (Sprint Blue I believe) is given how poor the respray job was. The detailer I got out works with prestige cars and achieves a very high standard, so I also wonder whether an all over machine polish would get it 'good enough'.

I'm groping around in the dark here really as I have no expertise in paint, so any ideas I might not have thought of would be very much appreciated!

Wrap it?

I've been considering that but given the work needed to make sure the corrosion on the boot section won't spread (and possibly similar around the light) thought it might not come in much cheaper than what I've been quoted at the body shop. No harm in getting a quote though I guess!

Roller job with some emulsion.

But more seriously, treat the bits that need treating and wrapping is surely more cost effective and will have a much better result than trying to fix what’s already there.

Probably wouldn't do much worse. Think I still have half a tin of lovely baby blue knocking around from when we did my daughter's room...

Spray it with petrol as the solvent...

Buy a machine polisher and practice on your car. Actually don't as that paint really looks fucked.

I once had to eggshell a car for an exhibition we were setting up (an 80s Peugeot saloon of some sort of memory serves). Keyed it all down, taped it off, rollered on some primer coats and then about 4 coats of yellow eggshell - it looked sick. So good that the artist actually went around with a brush messing up the paintwork as it was supposed to look hand painted and even though it was yellow eggshell, it still looked too pro!

Yeah I can see why the detailer guy didn't want to take it on. It's much less noticeable when it's wet, maybe I should just drive it in winter ;)

That definitely sounds a better job than whatever was done on this one! I'm going to run it into the ground so the thought of going full Need For Speed with it and sticking a carbon bonnet and some hilarious vinyls down the side has crossed my mind. I think my wife would strongly disapprove given she drives it to her school semi regularly however...

Hahaha, school run in the NFS special sounds jokes. Do it!

Trying to get that paint flat would reveal the under coat/ paint below and look even shitter.

Gloss mini roller and coach paint? Harlequin Audi?

I could always just get this massive Skull wrap on the bonnet and put up with the rest of it...