Kitty Litter
Obviously having heard that the other true way to my heart was up the M6 and off at junction 4 (don’t follow these directions they are wrong!) the young female TV producer slipped me a press pass to the motor show. I was chuffed, as the pass would allow me to indulge in one of my favourite hobbies – no not the pretty girls!  In the more remote areas of the countryside, where John Craven is considered a star, where Mr. Massey and Mr Ferguson made the wife’s run about and where said wife may be a blood relative, they have a popular pastime known as badger baiting. Obviously this sport only takes place in remote areas – so that’s East Anglia and the South West then. I have a vague version of the same sport that I learnt to play in the wilds of South London and it involves baiting car salesmen.
The aim of the game is to get the chap to admit faults with the product that he is trying to sell you by whatever means possible. My strategy is to start asking the normal questions about the car, cost, performance etc. and then slowly push him on a point – eg  that parking sensors spoil the overall look of the car or that they just don’t build them like they used to. Heading to the NEC I thought of a couple of prime targets, the Volkswagen Golf R32 (a modern car that I like) and the Ford Focus RS - two performance cars and two rival sales teams pushing the hard sell. Arriving at the Volkswagen stand I managed to get chatting to the head bloke there, whilst admiring what is a fine performance saloon. I pointed out to him that vee-dubyah was my marque of choice and that I have owned three Golfs in my time, all mark two’s. I asked if there was to be a competition version and he implied that there was to be. Now at this point I was struggling to pick up a fault with a 250BHP four wheel drive Golf, then two things dawned on me. The R32 is a mark 4 golf, the mark is shortly to be replaced with the promising mark 5 and that VW had done a mentalist Golf before - the supercharged G60.
The Mark 4 is overweight, bloated and not the greatest platform for a performance car. The Golf line peaked with the Mark 2 G60, which, although never sold in England, was the ultimate performance hatch, so shouldn’t VW get back to the Golf’s roots? When I posed this question I won the game, the set and a whole shed of imaginary badger baiting points. The VW chap agreed with me! It transpired that he was a G60 owner and thought that the R32 should have been called the G32 (32 for its 3.2 V6). He told me that the ‘4’ was too tame but things were looking great for the ‘5’. It seems that VW have twigged that many people are sticking to their Mark 2 GTis, which have stood the test of time brilliantly and often look better than newer models. (as I write this the young trendy executive-esque family who live opposite are getting out of their mint example.) The 3 and 4 were not really as good as the first two. I was told that the ‘5’ will come in three basic types, one for those who like the bloated 3 and 4’s with all the cupholders etc. The GTi which will be a leaner version of what it is now and a third as yet unnamed purist loony’s golf, with all the refinement you find in my road rally mount – ie none. The word Mr G60 used was “raw”. Can’t wait!
Heading for the Ford stand I realised that the motor show really is quite dull and decided to go home.
Yesterday at the regional charity premiere of Die Another Day I ended up sipping champagne with a salesman from Guy Salmon Jaguar (Oxford) who had a couple of XK8’s on display outside, I went to investigate and a baiting session was irresistible. I kept on mentioning Ford ownership, Mr Jag managed to dodge this one well but tripped up when it came to the engines in the X-types, minor points for me. I think that in fact I was beaten on that occasion and as he was telling me how reliable the things were all I could reply was “how about that, a reliable British sports car”. I guess that makes the overall score as follows:
Britain 1 (with assistance and cash from the USA) – Germany 0
In other words if I had the choice, it would have to be the XK8 for me. (I can see the headlines on the forum now) Still the New Mini vs. Old mini puts the game into extra time!

Spooning It
A committee member who shall remain nameless asked recently “Who is Vic Elford?”. Most of you know that he is the club’s vice president, if you don’t it’s written in the front of this Acorn and all others! But some of you may not know who he actually is and Colin Rodger asked me to do a bit on Quick Vic so here it is.
At the age of thirteen Vic was taken to see the first post war Grand Prix at Silverstone. He was hooked and the same old story followed. In 1961 Vic started racing a Mini and a year later into rallying with a DKW (good German car that). As a Sevenoaks and DMC member (who traditionally do a bit of everything) success followed and by 1967 he was a works Porsche driver in both racing and rallying. The season was awash with success and he won things left right and centre in events as diverse as the BTCC, Monte Carlo Rally and a 84 hour race at the combined Nurburgring.
The success continued in 1968 when the Monte Carlo Rally, the Daytona 24 hours and the great Targa Florio all fell to Porsches in Vic’s hands. The green hell was no problem for Elford who won his first Nurburgring 1000kms race during the season. Formula One beckoned and he made his debut at the ‘68 French Grand Prix, starting from dead last he drove through the rain to finish 4th.
In 1969 the pots kept coming and NASCAR was on the menu, Vic finished 11th at the Daytona 500. Formula one was still around and he finished 7th in the Monaco GP, the only driver to have won the Monte Carlo Rally and finished the Grand Prix. Elford was in fact the last British driver to win that most famous rally. (Get on with it Burnsie!).
Sports car racing was the order of the day in 1970/71 winning lots of big events including the Daytona 24 hrs and the Sebring 12 hrs, both in Porsches. Vic was asked by Steve McQueen to help out in the making of the superb film Le Mans, that was the club badge’s Hollywood debut (it appears in the film). 
After the driving career finished Elford became a team manager with Inalera and ATS F1 both Elford run.
Vic works today as an occasional driver coach for both Antonio Pizzonia and Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya. Earlier this year I met Vic, when he was at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in a Porsche 908.
During most of his driving career Vic had a Sevenoaks + DMC sticker on his crash helmet, bet he won a few monthly mugs!
Not bad for a lad from Peckham eh!

Spreading The Aggregate

The car pictured is quite obviously not the modern one I promised last month this is because I’m sitting on some strong specials for this section but haven’t been to see them as yet. Mike – I will do a bit on yours soon. So instead I will pick the most famous of all specials. The car pictured is Chitty Bang Bang, I bet some of you didn’t realise that it was a real car!
Six cylinders, 23 litres – an engine from a Zeppelin no less (more strong German technology). The engine ticked over in a lazy way giving the sound chitty chitty bang bang, chitty chitty bang bang. The constructor of the car went by the name of Count Zborowski and he raced the car at Brooklands in the years following World War 1.
A little known fact is that there were actually four Chitty Bang Bangs, these were known as Chitty 1, Chitty 2, the White Mercedes and the Higham special. The latter was a stunning machine powered by a 400bhp 12 cylinder Liberty lump of a rather sizeable 27 litres. Huge power, huge machine, but it was a doomed machine. The biggest racing tyre in existence in 1923 had a section of less than five inches – I think that’s a little over 10cm (sorry I wasn’t educated in obsolete imperial measures). J G Parry Thomas bought the car from Zborowski, renamed it ‘Babs’ and took the world land speed record of 170.62 mph. Malcolm Campbell took the record from Thomas and ‘Babs’ and JGPT set out to eat it. The record attempt at Pendine sands was to have a tragic conclusion as the last of the Chitty Bang Bangs went like none had ever run before. Screaming down the beach at a speed of what must have been in excess of 180mph when something broke, causing the chain to smash through the skull of the hapless Parry Thomas killing him instantly. The wreck of the last of the Chitty series was buried under the sands.

Sam Collins