Richard Porter
@sniffpetrol
Astronaut, stunt man, liar. Also one half of Smith and Sniff.
Oh, and thanks to everyone who admired my new car, bought the day before the festival. It's a very early Ka that, amazingly, hasn't turned to brown dust. A real rarity (apart from the other very tidy P-reg Ka I saw at FOTU).
As usual, I was having such a nice time at FOTU that I forgot to take photos. Apart from this one of two relatives.
Another fabulous Festival of the Unexceptional on Saturday. Still my favourite car event of the year. Thanks to everyone who put up with Smith and Sniff nonsense when we were on stage and came to say hi when we weren't. Truly, an great day out.
This new Range Rover GT is all well and good, but I find myself wishing they'd looked at the wider back catalogue for the side window shape.
How Many Left reckons there's just one Sao Penza left in Britain and it's SORN. The question is, where is it?
Here's me getting to repair some of the camo wrap on a new Jag prototype. The very first new Jag prototype, in fact. I explain more in the podcast.
No, wait, also a Jag. Do not adjust your settings, it really is black & white.
Had a smashing time at the Festival of Speed but it seems I forgot to take photos of anything except two Group B cars and the world's most comfortable headrest. Sorry.
Any Logic Pro wizards know why when I move or duplicate a section using the arrangement markers, it insists on joining regions like this? It does it no matter which drag mode I'm in. Logic on my old laptop didn't do this.
In the safety of some shade, I rolled up my sleeves to pose with my new tattoo and the same design on an actual F1 car.
Well whaddya know, it's an Lucid Air. UK registered, on Birmingham plates in fact, so I assume a JLR competitor analysis car. Not sure why two people were sitting in it in the museum car park not inside the R&D place next door but there we are.
While up in the Midlands earlier this week I saw something slightly interesting lurking in the car park of the British Motor Museum.
This is PT101, the very first X900 prototype, hand built, very rough and ready in places, bearing the scars of hard work on early powertrain development, and dressed in a complicated fake estate car disguise kit that was never papped in the wild.
These are the SEECRIT JAGZ I was poking around earlier this week. The blue car is currently zooming up the hill at Goodwood. The car on the left is a third phase prototype in the commonly papped camo. But the car on the right is the really interesting one...
Well done to everyone who spotted that this is a piece of car camo wrap, specifically the bespoke stuff used on prototypes of the new Jag.
Had a tremendously interesting day yesterday which led to me coming home with this. Spotter's badge if you can tell what it is and what it's from.
I dug out the XJ40 book by Philip Porter and that hotel is mentioned in the chapter about the press launch.
I think the story was that once the XJ40 was announced, Jag gave a redundant prototype to the Coventry museum still in its full camo to explain to the people of the city these unusual and mysterious cars they'd been seeing around town for a few years.
Also, the late phase camo kit used rear lamps from the Talbot Alpine/Solara. Of course.
Fun fact about the camo kit on those XJ40s; it weighed 90 kilos and, at mid-'80s prices, cost £1000 per set. Serious business.
This fully camouflaged Jag XJ40 prototype used to be on display in the Coventry Museum of Transport. Does anyone know if they still have it?
Et, pour comparaison du size, la voiture joyeuse avec un VW En Haut. (Il y a un peut du perspective ici.)
A definitive high performance hatchback (parked next to some Toyota).
Slight anomaly with this 106 prototype. The project was S10/S11 but they've left off the number here.