Blogs

Southward Car Museum (NZ)

26/6/2022

Written by Paul Sweeney.

A visit to the Southward Car Museum in New Zealand filmed on 24 June 2022.

Southward Car Museum was established by Len Southward in the 1970s to house his collection of over 400 vehicles. As you would expect of a New Zealand collection, British cars from the early 1900s to the 1980s dominate the collection, followed by Americans and smaller contingents representing the motor industries of Germany, Italy, France and Japan.

The first time I visited the museum was in 2002, when I met Len. We talked about his collection and he walked around with me, listening closely to anything I could tell him about the British cars I was familiar with and in return allowing me to hop over the ropes and get close to the exhibits. Len is no longer with us but his museum is still open and very popular.

The museum is arranged as follows and you can jump directly to any section using the chapters in the video description and on screen:

Upper level: Veteran, Vintage and classic cars mostly before and up to the 1950s plus historic racing cars
Lower level: British, French and German cars from the 1950s onward
Mezzanine level: Veteran, Vintage and classic British motorcycles

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Classic British Cars Carry On Camping - Warks 2022

26/4/2022

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This was a big weekend for our group, starting on Friday 22 April with those electing to camp for the weekend arriving at Fir Tree Farm camp site. The story follows Gar Cole towing the Fisher Holivan with his trusty Triumph 2000 from his home in the West Midlands to the Warwickshire campsite close to Gaydon, home of the British Motor Museum.

Gar stops en route to collect fellow tourist and good mates Ian Woodward and Bernard Owen, then it's onward to the campsite and the setup process begins while the other group members start to turn up in their British and European classic cars ...

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Introducing "Focus on British Classics"

1/4/2022

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Introducing a new occasional series on our YouTube channel called "Focus on British Classics". Each video will focus on a member talking to Gar Cole about his/her British classic(s).

We begin with Gar's very interesting interview with Andy Perman in which he introduces his gorgeous Vanden Plas 1500 which was displayed on our stand at the Resto Show in March.

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2022 Resto Show - Saturday

20/3/2022

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It's Saturday at the Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show at the NEC. Saturday is traditionally the day that pulls in the crowds and this year was no exception.

The club stand was busy most of the day but Gar still found time to chat with Simon Stock, Phil Allin and Ian Woodward as well as an interview with Ian about his lovely Ford Granada Estate. He loved meeting a charming young man named Sonny who wanted the Chopper bike displayed on the stand - but would he get it? You'll have to watch the video to find out!

Gar also goes walkabout in Hall 5 to film some of the motors on other stands that caught his eye - most notably a stunning Humber Super Snipe Estate on the Lancaster Pride of Ownership stand and a Morris Marina van that took his breath away, plus many more.

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It's 2022 Resto Show Setup Day!

18/3/2022

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Written by Paul Sweeney.

Finally it's March 17th, the day we get to set up our club stand for the Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show at the NEC, Birmingham.

Given the lack of shows during the pandemic, this one's been a long time coming and Gar used that time to dream up a clear concept for the stand. He wanted it to be more than 'a few nice cars parked in a hall' - to create a presentation that would entertain and interest more show-goers than before. His chosen theme was to recreate a typical back-street car sales outlet as we remember them from the 1970s complete with period memorabilia, signage and even costumes a la Arthur Daley for the group members manning the stand.

When the setup was finally complete, Gar said:

After a long 7 hours set up our stand is complete at this years Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show at the NEC. I couldn’t be happier and want to thank the guys who worked real hard to bring my design concept to life.

The new video below shows the setup in Hall 5 as it happened.

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Forest of Dean Driving Tour 2022

3/3/2022

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by Paul Sweeney.

It's my pleasure to introduce this new video presentation which is based around the group driving tour of the Forest of Dean in late February 2022.

Gar Cole organised the tour as a way to combine celebrating his birthday with breaking up the long, dark and dreary winter months in the UK. Considering that it was a freezing weekend in winter, the turnout was excellent.

Thanks to all those who braved the freezing cold - you did us proud with your beautiful and diverse British classics and gave Gar a birthday weekend to remember. We hope you enjoy the video - please remember to comment on YouTube, then click 'Like' and subscribe to our channel if you've not already done so. That lets us know that our efforts are appreciated.

Finally, my personal thanks and appreciation go to Gar - on top of organising the tour including all the hotel bookings, driving routes and places of interest to stop, he also managed to think about filming events as they unfolded using our new up-to-the-minute Go Pro camera technology which he had never even seen just a few shorts months ago. Pretty impressive, I think you will agree!

Our only previous attempt to film a group driving tour was the Fat Lamb tour in late 2021; we were pleased with the end results, but Gar and I were both determined to continue developing our skills and to do even better this time.

Gar wanted to hone his newly-acquired camera skills, not to mention getting to grips with the various new bits of hardware I had bombarded him with!
I am learning how to manage the dozens of video clips and around 500 photos that came tumbling out of the weekend (special thanks to Nick, Anthony and Paul C), then selecting which ones to use and finally editing it all together as a (hopefully) coherent and enjoyable short film.

It's amazing how the two of us located on opposite sides of the world manage to collaborate as well as we do - the technology is amazing when you think about it; what we're doing now would not have been possible even just a few years ago.

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Southward Car Museum (NZ)

Classic British Cars Carry On Camping - Warks 2022

Introducing "Focus on British Classics"

2022 Resto Show - Saturday

It's 2022 Resto Show Setup Day!

Forest of Dean Driving Tour 2022