Lancaster Insurance is thrilled to announce a new initiative for 2017 with two classic car ‘heavyweights’, Mike Brewer and Ant Anstead, going head to head for charity.
To many people of my vintage age (i.e. born the year of the Mini Clubman) those pictures of Howard Hargate’s Avenger Super in the Lancaster Insurance Pride of Ownership at the Practical Classics Restoration Show in March 2017, will prompt countless memories. The Hillman Avenger is an uber-1970s car, one forever to be associated with Spangles, Wimpy bars, packets of Vesta Chow Mein and, in my case, Sussex Constabulary patrol cars.
As nearly everyone knows, there is no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ Citroen 2CV – it simply means that some are more extraordinary than others. On the 1st-2nd April at the Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show at the NEC, Classic Car Auctions is presenting a very rare opportunity to purchase a Deux Chevaux that is said to be able to climb a 45% gradient.
The task facing the crews - driver PC William McIntyre and navigator/wireless operator PC Graham Fordham in the lead car and PCs Les Crossland and Steve McCabe in a backup vehicle with a video camera – is best described as ‘immense’.
Around 42 years ago, I concluded that the Vauxhall Magnum was the most glamourous car in the world, one so great as to be on a par with The Goodies or Playaway on BBC2.
Lancaster Insurance has announced that it will be widening its Morris Minor schemes, further strengthening its association with the marque.
If anyone compiled a list of ‘The Top Ten Most Charming Cars Ever Made’, the Fiat Nuova 500 will possibly be a contender to come top of the list.
A warm welcome to our new club partners, and ‘Club of the Month’, Volvo Enthusiast Club.
Lancaster Insurance, part of Markerstudy Group of Companies, is on cloud nine following its fifth year of success at The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For Awards with the Group achieving an incredible 4th position.
There are some hot topics amongst the classic car enthusiast crowd that are likely to start a lively debate, 80s and 90s best hot hatches is certainly one of them.
1989, a year when Bros would boom out from every branch of HMV and Our Price and when people actually thought it was a good idea to go shopping in a purple shell suit. There was some good news, in the form of the latest Skoda import that might halt the tedious jokes about the marque that had inflicted television light entertainment for much of the 1980s.
Some cars seem destined never to make their mark on the British motorist, and one such is the Renault 14. On paper, it appeared to be an ideal rival to the Volkswagen Golf, but the 14 is seldom encountered in their homeland, and UK registered survivors are very rare.
As a specialist classic car broker, Lancaster Insurance is seeing a greater number of enthusiasts owning more than one vehicle, which can invariably mean more than one policy. The benefits with a multi vehicle policy mean all your vehicles would be under one roof, with one renewal date!
Many car enthusiasts believe that Bullitt is the greatest car-related film of all time. In addition to that chase and Peter Yates’ direction, there is the brilliant support acting of Don Gordon, Simon Oakland and Robert Duvall, the locations and the music of Lalo Schifrin.
There are those films with car chases that thrill and inspire – Bullitt, The Italian Job, Brannigan - but there are also those pictures with such wayward pursuit sequences that the viewer eventually begins to wonder if he/she dreamt them. Here are my five such memorable moments:
Lancaster Insurance is thrilled to be extending its event sponsorship portfolio by announcing its headline sponsorship of the ‘Lancaster Insurance Classic & Supercars’ - Sherborne Castle. Taking place at this famous Dorset Castle, the annual event will be held over two days (15th/16th July).
Park Gate in the 1980s was a Hampshire village in which, generally speaking, nothing happened. The local newspaper’s headlines were usually variations on the theme of ‘Jar of Robinson’s Marmalade Stolen from Post Office’. But, one day in July 1989, excitement arrived – my father’s Ford Orion Ghia was replaced by a red Peugeot 405 1.9 GR.
The year is 1957; the time is the 7th February, and the event is a musical show at the Kilburn State Theatre in London celebrating the launch of a new Vauxhall.
There is a common theme amongst the first finalists selected for the Lancaster Insurance Pride of Ownership competition – they all have fantastic restoration stories to share. Ideal then that the competition will be held at the Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show at Birmingham’s NEC from Friday 31st March to Sunday 2nd April.
Last year I wrote about how, back in the summer of 1977, Petula Clark advised all ITV viewers to put a Chrysler Sunbeam in their lives. Such is the sheer unabashed cheesiness of this commercial – I would personally rate it as ‘Prime Stilton’ - that the achievement of the actual subject is sometimes overlooked...
