Lancaster News

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Welcome to Lancaster Insurance News

Keep up to date with the latest news and events from the world of classic cars.

It’s Not A DAF! – Graeme Aiken’s Volvo 66GL

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 5th June, 2018

Graeme Aiken is not only the proud owner of one of Britain’s rarest cars, he also delights in the confusion it often causes. ‘My best overheard conversation was in Sainsbury's car park: Wife: What's that little yellow car dear? Husband: It's a DAF love, rubber band gearbox. Wife: But is says Volvo on the back... Husband sighs No Dear, it's a DAF...’

CULT VEHICLES

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 1st June, 2018

This is a sweeping question but what are the ingredients for a “cult” vehicle? What are the elements that are guaranteed to draw onlookers to a car, whether it is parked on the street or attending a classic show?

50 Years of the Citroen Mehari

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 31st May, 2018

There is one very important aspect of the Citroen Mehari – i.e. it is not a car for a poor climate and indeed it was never officially marketed in the UK. It belongs under the Mediterranean sun and indeed I first encountered it in Santa Ponsa some 36 years ago.

The Chiltern Hills Vintage Vehicle Rally

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 31st May, 2018

When you are visiting a car show, the first vehicle that you immediately head towards often says a great deal about your classic-related tastes. On Sunday 20th May, I visited the splendid Chiltern Hills Vintage Vehicle Rally and my initial call was not to the Austin A110 Westminster, looking resplendently municipal, the Pontiac with the famous silver streaks decorating its bonnet.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING – THE AMC PACER

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 30th May, 2018

Some cars are genuinely individual but in ways that are not entirely to be recommended. We are talking about the automotive equivalents of taking off all your clothes and dancing the twist in the tinned soup aisle of Asda or having Albert Steptoe as a sartorial role model for a crucial job interview. In other words, vehicles such as the AMC Pacer.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE TRIUMPH MAYFLOWER?

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 30th May, 2018

I suspect that for many people their first glimpse of the Triumph Mayflower was not in the metal but in late night re-runs of the 1970 film version of Loot.

THE ULTIMATE ESTATE CAR? THE CHECKER AEROBUS

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 29th May, 2018

If you need a low-key and discreet form of transport, a Checker Aerobus is probably not the ideal choice. For starters, it is over 22 feet long, has eight side doors and seating for 12 occupants on four rows of bench seats.

DO YOU REMEMBER THE ORIGINAL MAZDA 323?

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 29th May, 2018

Such is the association between the Mazda brand and rotary engines that it is sometimes easy to overlook that for many British drivers their first experience of the brand was not in a RX7 but a slightly more mundane form of transport.

A royal affair at the Lancaster Insurance Classic & Supercars Show

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 21st May, 2018

Following the Royal wedding last weekend, organisers of the Lancaster Insurance Classic & Supercars Show are continuing to celebrate and are thrilled to welcome to the show a 1953 Land Rover Series 1 which has royal connections of its own!

Hyundai Coupe Cup - Alex Cursley Review of Snetterton

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 21st May, 2018

Rounds 6 and 7 of the Hyundai Coupe Cup were held at a sunny Snetterton.

CAR OF THE MONTH – JAGUAR XJS

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 21st May, 2018

You never forget your initial sight of a Jaguar XJS. For some it was a tantalising glimpse in a showroom, others thrilled to Ian Ogilvy in “ST1” defeating sun-shaded villains in Return of the Saint but for me the location was a yachting marina on the River Hamble in 1977.

60 YEARS OF THE AUSTIN-HEALEY SPRITE FAMILY

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 18th May, 2018

The 20th May 1958 marked the debut of a very compact two-seater with unmistakable looks and unmissable charisma. It was of course the Austin-Healey Sprite and to celebrate six decades of ‘The Car That Offers So Much” here are six stages in its 21-year career

MORE MOT NOTES

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 17th May, 2018

If, like me, you are not technically minded, quite a few aspects of the forthcoming changes in the MOT on 20th May are, at first sight, rather bewildering. So, firstly, let us consider what happens if your car was constructed over 40 years ago.

Lancaster Insurance gears up for GTI International

  • Lancaster Insurance Services |
  • 16th May, 2018

On 2nd - 3rd June, VWs will be out in full force for the annual GTI International. Taking place at Rockingham Race Circuit in Northampton, Lancaster Insurance will be attending the event for the first time.