In addition to providing top–quality advanced driver training courses, as well as motorcycle rider training, we at Ride Drive wish to appeal to your motoring interest by presenting to you our classic section. If you love driving you surely love classic cars, so fill your senses with all we have here.

What is it about classic cars that makes them so fascinating?

Cars make up so much of our modern scenery that even if we are not focussing on any individual vehicle, we are subconsciously aware of them. In fact, they are so much a part of life, if one day they all disappeared, we would find that really strange.

As models go out of production, and as we are at the time more interested in what replaces them, we pay little or no attention to that which is out going. Old models become ignored as they deteriorate; falling to bits with rust and looking generally shabby. We don’t actually miss them when they are gone altogether either.

Austin Healey

An iconic name in British sports car history.

A Tribute to Donald Healey

Healey Cars, The Early Years

Austin Healey 100

Austin Healey Sprite

The First Frogeye Sprite

The disappearance is such a gradual process it is probably just that we don’t notice, like how time passes when we’re keeping ourselves busy.

What Happened to all the
Ford Cortina’s?

Was there a day when you went out for a drive and thought to yourself how the roads looked different without them? And yet, think of the millions of Ford Cortina’s that were sold in the UK. Indeed, where are they all now?

Jensen

The best known Jensen is the Interceptor, as pictured above. But there was much more to this car maker.

Jensen The history of the cars

Classic MG Sports Cars

Probably the best known British name

A Brief History of MG

The MG Midget

The MGA

The MGB

The MGC

Life rushes on as we involve ourselves in our work, or families and all the activities that require us to do and then one day, quite unexpectedly, we see a pristine example of a car that has long since left our conscious mind and we can’t help but stare.

Yes, park a well kept example of any obsolete model in any street and you will see people stop and look, even more so than at a brand new one.

It’s called nostalgia, which means the triggering of memories of the past that we savour with a certain fondness. It may be an adventure we had, a holiday or perhaps a first car that endears us to them. Sometimes the memory can be tainted with loathing, but whatever the emotion that is invoked, there will be an old car in our lives somewhere.

They are the last of their kind

All the cars here represent some special times in motoring history and a spirit of motoring.

Many were an extension of the personalities responsible for their conception. There were no computer graphics in those days, just vision and passion to produce the style.

Take Donald Healey, for example. If you delve into the pages here you will see his company was really born out of nothing, as often the great car makers were.

Here was a man from a small village in the West Country who was fascinated by all things mechanical, and who basically started his career by messing about with cars.

Triumph Sports Cars

Market rival to MG sports cars

A Brief History of Triumph Cars

Triumph Roadster

Triumph Spitfire

Triumph GT6

Triumph Vitesse

Triumph Stag

TVR Sports Cars

The newest classic car of our series

TVR History 1947 – 2010

TVR Griffith 500

TVR Chimaera

TVR Cerbera

Healey completed a correspondence course in engineering, started to dabble in motor sport, initially on a small scale, and eventually built his own competition car from components of production models. From there he went on to build road cars to which he gave his name.

The story of Autin Healey is similar in many ways to that of TVR, the most recent marque on our pages to go out of production. TVR, as we all know, was the creation of Trevor Wilkinson, a man who had set up in business servicing a repairing rides at Blackpool’s pleasure beach.

Like Donald Healey, Wilkinson started by messing about with cars and built his first by cannibalising known production models.

After building a handful his efforts got more serious as he began to market his creations, taking three consonants from his own first name as his trademark.

Cross Pollination of Talent

It seems that during the first half of the 20th century, car manufacturing was quite an incestuous business, as there were many cross–name associations.

The two Jensen brothers, for example, formed the Jensen motor company which had an association with Donald Healey, Austin, and later, Sunbeam and Volvo.

Healey himself rubbed shoulders with Riley, Nash and raced cars for Triumph. Healey even ended up being on the board at Jensen.

Family-run business specialising in sales and restoration of Triumph sports cars, offering exceptional levels of personal service that is rarely found in the motor industry.

Classic Marks
Unit 6A Wimbledon Avenue
Brandon Industrial Estate
Brandon
Suffolk, IP27 0NZ

Telephone
01842 813490 or 07880 527132

Email: classic_marks@btconnect.com

Office: 01509 881516
sales@jamesagger.com

The story of MG is only slightly different

When focussing on MG, initially the cars were Morris’s that were customised by a licensed distributor. Ordinary Morris’s were modelled into competition cars and raced by then general manager of the Morris dealership, Cecil Kimber. It was from the name of this distribution company, Morris Garages, the now famous MG badge was created.

In 1924, Morris Garages began offering their customers a 4–seater sports road car and for the first time a car with the MG badge was available to the general public. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Triumph models featured here came from an amalgamation of companies, and for a while was known as Standard-Triumph. The partnership was then swallowed up by corporate giant, British Leyland, which also no longer exists.

What followed was a bazaar situation where the badges of Austin Healey, MG and Triumph were all owned by the same company, and yet were producing cars that were in direct competition with one another.

TVR has been the most recent casualty of economics

Jensen, Austin Healey and Triumph have not been in production for over 30–years, whereas MG went to the wall again at the turn of the century. Whether we shall see new cars wearing the MG badge remains to be seen, but the most recent casualty of car building economics is TVR.

These cars are most remembered for their immense power with a beautiful exhaust sound track. They were handcrafted by a small team highly skilled and gifted people working in an out of date facility at Bristol Avenue, Blackpool.

However, in the year 2007, TVR went into receivership, as it had done a few times before in its history, but always recovered. This time, however, the situation seems to be permanent.

Hopes of a reincarnation of TVR seem to have faded

Whilst there was some excitement in early 2008, when the old management team of TVR held a press launch at a small farm–based workshop in Lancashire, announcing a re–born company, nothing ever seemed to come of it.

Behind every badge there is a story of heartache and pain, as well as some amazing tales of discovery and invention. In some cases it is a wonder some of the cars lasted for as long as they did, but there are many whose lives have been made that much richer by their creation.

Whilst car making of today has moved into a totally different dimension, the classic cars you see on our pages will forever be fondly remembered and certainly very much sought after. No one makes them like this anymore, so it is important that anyone who owns one will make sure they care for it well.