Coors54

MKII 16v Jetta (I was married with two small kids okay?) - but I was running a spares/tuning shop for German cars so it was bored out to 2 litres, Mahle pistons, balanced crank, a gas flowed big valve head, high lift cam and the suspension mods to suit. Anyone remember BR Motorsport? It was like one of their conversions but not quite. It went like stink and being a Jetta was a bit of a Q car at the traffic light grand prix, even more when I fitted a tow bar for my sailing dinghy! I loved the car but my wife hated it, I managed to keep it for a couple of years but it had to go. Sigh......... Dave PS It did have one problem I could never cure and that was a leak into the boot, ruddy annoying.

Not quite, Frank went in with Walter Wolf for the 1975(?) season running a Hesketh but they very soon fell out and Frank left. In fact he was locked out of his own factory. Wolf took over the whole team and facilities. He recruited Harvey Postlethwaite as designer and others from Hesketh along with Peter Warr as team manager from Lotus and they created the 1977 team and WR1 car, presumably he was paying very well. Frank started again, partnered up with Patrick Head and created Williams Grand Prix Engineering - the rest is history. Walter Wolf and Lawrence Stroll strike me as similar characters, must be something in the Canadian air. Dave

🤣 Let's leave it there then! 🤣

I watched that on YouTube the other day, I thought Ben Collins was a bit too keen to hear his own voice and opinions rather than Jody's. The whole thing was a puff for the Bonhams auction but he could have asked the why question. And don't get me going on the statement that the Ferrari 312T4 is beautiful car! Really? Anyway @Reini78, the Wolf looks lovely, I have one comment - no tyre logo's, I think they add character to models and the wheels look odd without them (to my eye). I have the 1/12 kit in the to do pile - 1977 British GP, it's number three in the queue. Dave

Amen to that. I passed (2nd try) in 1975 in my powder blue F reg (1967) Morris 1100 aka Maggie The Morris. My first car, Maggie was - ahem - a little perforated by the tin worm. In truth she was a death trap and despite my Dad's best efforts to keep her going (fibreglass front end and copious welding repairs) we sold her for £50 to another poor soul who got T-boned in a low speed accident within days and Maggie disintegrated into a million (rusty) pieces. Which paved the way for my H reg Brabham Viva.........happy days. Dave

Thanks Malc, I agree with you about the colour being subjective (isn't it always?) and I appreciate your input. I want to make Regazzoni's British GP car from '77 as the car expired during practise right by us at Abbey Curve (I think, - you could wander at will around the circuit in those days, even take your car around the outside track) and somewhere I have a poor black and white Instamatic picture of him on the bank by the marshals post. He was obviously upset by the car breaking down and subsequently DNQ but after a while was happy to chat (or shout due to noise and distance), he said the engine had gone tight. I remember the car being very dark but that's all. I wonder if @PatW was on duty that day? Be an amazing coincidence if that was his marshals post. Dave

Vesa's link to the old Scale Models magazine came up trumps and the copy arrived this morning, - what a blast from the past! The Ensign article was interesting and the plans are at least to scale but no mention of colours at all! Bummer.... Anyway I thought I would show you what I've done so far, it's all a bit rough at the moment but I'm reasonably happy with the basic shapes.

Where does it say they don't ship to the UK on the website? I read it that they ship internationally by USPS, I assume you will be liable for import duty charges but there's no reason why they can't deal with the UK otherwise. Have you tried to order and it won't accept it? Some nice looking stuff there. Dave

My wife and I have been making our way through Madam Secretary a US drama series showing on UKTV Play. It probably sends US right wingers into a conniption fit but it's reasonable lunchtime TV and Tea Leoni is easy on the eye. Anyway plastic modelling has made a couple of appearances, once when the main characters husband decided he wanted to complete a Renwall Visible V8 that he couldn't get to work when he built it as a boy and as a way of bonding with his son in a way he couldn't with his own father. This thread appeared in a couple of episodes, it was treated as a normal and sensible pastime and was successfully completed. The episode we watched yesterday lunchtime again featured building models as therapy, a stressed Chief of Staff to the president reveals he used to enjoy modelling in his youth, it appealed to his need to control things and quietly produce something that was in his mind onto his table. His favourite plane was an F4U Corsair. So despite him saying he was now an adult a little later we see him unpacking all new tools and cutting mat and there is a 1/48 Revell F4U model that he sets about making. My wife seemed quite impressed that my hobby was being treated seriously as a way for people to relax and I was impressed that the writers keep returning to it. Dave

I downloaded a set of plans from the internet and along with all the photos I can get have been using the Mark 1 eyeball. It’s not going to be accurate to the millimetre but it’s going to look the part. The bonus of the Garagista period is that teams copied designs and even seemed to share parts. The cockpit surround and one design of roll bar on the Ensign look suspiciously like Tyrrell parts. Thanks to Vesa for the magazine link a copy is on the way. Dave

Your memory does you credit @Flintstone, a Google search reveals that the May 1978 issue has plans for the N177. Typically there don't seem to be any copies for sale on the 'Bay or anywhere else at the moment. Another moment when you regret binning all those magazines........ Dave

A question for the Britmodeller hive mind, I'm building a 1/12 semi scratch Ensign N177 using an old Mclaren M23 tub as a basis and although I'm some way from applying any paint I wondered if anyone had any suggestions as to the colour used on Regazzoni's Tissot sponsored car? It's a very dark blue but not quite midnight blue. I know a lot of teams at that time used off the shelf automotive colours (Brabham using VW Mars Red on their BT45 for example) so wondered if cash strapped Ensign did the same thing? I reckon @Malc2 might know something! Dave

I'll take that red TR6, just the right of level of meanness and it looks as though it's meant to be driven and enjoyed. Great photos Matt.

Afternoon Steve, thank you for your comments, searching Grover-Williams on t'internet reveals lots of different variations of his life and several references to the post war mystery, here's one from an article in the Scotsman newspaper - "Yet there are many who believe that Grover survived. One rumour had a mysterious man signing autographs at race meetings as “Williams”, another insisted he lived on as a grocer in Surrey. Recently released government documents report that, in 1947, a man named Grover-Williams was relocated to the USA by MI6 officers in Berlin, which would fit with the testimony of SS officer Kurt Eccarius, who insisted that Grover-Williams was taken to Berlin in January 1945 and then to Rawicz prison camp in Poland just before it was overrun by the Red Army. Some historians have speculated that he was used by MI6 from 1945 to 1947, pointing to a photograph of Sachenhausen apparently annotated in his handwriting. MI6 says it knows what happened to him but refuses to provide any more detail. Beatrice van Lith, Robert Benoist’s granddaughter, is convinced that Grover-Williams survived. Her research revealed that, in 1948, a man named Georges Tambal – who shared Willy’s birthday, had a gift for mechanics and who bore marks of severe beatings on his head – moved in with Willy’s wife Yvonne at her Evreux home, where locals said they lived like man and wife. Tambal said he’d come from America via Uganda, two places where Willy had family ties (he picked up two giraffes on the way, which he sold to a local zoo). Finally, when the mayor of Evreux asked Tambal to sign the register at the town hall, as required by law, he got a visit from the Gendarmerie ordering him to waive the requirement. If Tambal was Willy, then his death would have been unusually poignant. Moving to Agen on Yvonne’s death in 1973, he died ten years later when he was knocked off his bike – by a German tourist driving a Mercedes." He was also the subject of a novel by Robert Ryan "Early One Morning" which does take a few liberties but threads the post war mystery in very well. All in all a fascinating story and even if he hadn't won Monaco in '29 he's worth celebrating. Dave

Following @triumphfan's cracking build of the same car, here is my effort. I really liked the kit, on the whole it went together well, rather too many screwed fixings but in the end it is a fairly robust structure. I added 3D printed body fixing bolts from Unobtanium, these are designed for the 1/12 Alfa Romeo so not quite correct, Decalgas introduced a correct set recently so when I do another I shall use those. I tried several methods of depicting the safety wiring but ended up colouring some fishing line and winding that around the bolt heads. Anyway here are a couple of pictures of the real thing and its remarkable driver, the winner of the first Monaco Grand Prix. Grover-Williams retired from racing in the early Thirties and went to live in rural France with his wife (herself the ex mistress of his one time employer!) to breed dogs. On the outbreak of war he returned to the UK and enlisted but as he spoke fluent French was soon recruited into SOE. Back in France he co ordinated Resistance groups but was betrayed and captured. He was tortured and finally sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he was reported to have died in early 1945. But there are stories that he survived and British Intelligence used him post war and in the mid Fifties his widow took up with a man that looked remarkably like Grover-Williams but was said to be her cousin. This man was knocked off his bike and killed in 1986. A strange and intriguing story. Anyway here is my model: Just noticed the tail of the two has gone missing....... Bodywork is finished in Halfords Brooklands green spray paint and polished. I didn't make my bonnet operable, it's possible as @triumphfan has shown but it's an act of faith to stretch the radiator to make the pins fit so I opted for a drop on section. I used some fine leather to make the straps and used solder to replace the kit supplied buckles. The grey blob on the seat is my attempt to show Grover-Williams' distinctive grey racing cap and goggles, no helmet for him. The base is a sample of engineered wood flooring with a hockey stick profile edging, I just need to order a custom case to fit it now. This isn't my normal period of interest and although old I never saw either the car or Grover-Williams race but the first race meeting I ever went to was a VSCC spring meeting at Silverstone in 1972 where there were loads of Bugatti's racing plus the mighty Itala, so the car just fits into my collection criteria. Hope you like it as much as I do. Dave