Custom Car August 2021

Old school weekender One of the longest established rod runs in the UK, the Kings Lynn Kruisers Vehicle Extravaganza will take place on the weekend of 23-25 July. The venue is Walpole St Andrews playing field (PE14 7JW). Numbers are limited and there will not be a bar, so take your own, or go dry. As always, Sunday is show day when all customs, hot rods, classics, bikes and military vehicles are welcome. Tel. Wendy 07883 091339 Muscle peach The biggest muscle car doorslammer event in Europe returns to Santa Pod Raceway from 30 July — 2 August. The 27th staging of the Mopar Euro Nationals offers three days of RWYB track action, a burnout contest and a show ’n’ shine car corral, all for American muscle cars only. This year’s event will be especially poignant as…

Dave Gibbons remembers The recollections of An Accidental Polymath is a memoir penned by Dave Gibbons of Rough Diamond Altered notoriety. Not specifically a car book, the light hearted and frequently funny text embraces everything from family and upbringing to relationships and injuries. Understandably, there are frequent mentions of cars and motorsports activities, which are not limited to drag racing. Russ Smith helped with some of the edit and the book contains a foreword by John Price. Although Dave never intended for the book to be widely published, it has so far been well received and he wants to expose it to a wider audience. After all, each paperback copy sold earns him 13p! The book is only available on Amazon, in either paperback or eBook format. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B093B238QX Sunny side up The first Sunday of each…

I make no apologies for the contents of the news pages in this issue being pretty much summed up in one word – events. With lockdown having become less restrictive in recent weeks, gates are being opened, venues wiped down and cars polished in eager anticipation. And boy, are we here at CC ready for it. Okay, smaller local events with social distancing have been occurring with increased regularity of late, but it’s now time for the big hitters to make their voices heard again. By the time this issue hits the shelves, or drops on your door mat, the NSVA Truck-In will have come and gone, as will the National Hot Rod, Custom and American Car Show in Peterborough. The first weekend this issue is on sale will still the staging…

The combination of tasteful British design and brute American horsepower means the AC Cobra has always sat right on the border between a hot rod and a classic car, but of all the versions ever built the so-called Dragonsnake Cobras are the toughest of all. Re-engineered by Shelby American purely for drag race action, the 289ci, quad 48IDA-equipped cars came standard with rear slicks and 11.7-second quarters at 120mph guaranteed. Only seven were ever made. The king of the hill, though, is the one single 427-powered version produced, which ran 10.8s at close to 130mph.…

Pin pointing Dear CC, further to DB’s Ed and shoulders piece in the June issue, I remember going down to Jago’s place sometime in the mid-’70s. There was a UK map on the wall with a load of pins in it. Geoff said each pin represented the sold-to location of one of his T bodies. I can’t remember the exact number but it was around 100, which we found difficult to believe as we could only think of about 10 finished cars at the time, and we were pretty active on the rodding scene at that time. Bob Roberts, via email > That’s some memory of times gone by, eh Bob? I can easily believe Geoff sold over 100 bodies as we’ve heard similar stories from many body and chassis manufacturers over the…

Dear CC, I was intrigued to see the mention of my brother John’s Mk2 Jag on p65 of the July issue. Having both been made redundant in 1972, I suggested we visit California to check out the real McCoy, after becoming imbued with blown nitro cars since our first visit to Santa Pod. We made that trip in late ’73, after having the Jag shipped out first so we had some wheels to roam around in. Initially intending to stay for three months, we ended up sticking around for a year longer than that (long story). John later bought himself a ‘67 Camaro SS to run about in and I drove the Jaguar for quite some time. We visited a variety of drag racing tracks and were made very welcome by…