Day: Jul 1, 2016

Theme : Colour – Introduction

All Cars Are Grey In The Dark

SM Colours

Colour. What a minefield that is! From your playground days, you might remember angry debates as to whether you had a right to nominate Green as your ‘favourite colour’. And, unlike many other childish foibles, the irrational and excessive reaction to colour doesn’t go away.

As you can see from the above collage provided to me by Sean Patrick, some people agonise over colour. Some years ago, the poor boy went to great lengths to decide which colour to respray his car though he tells me that he is still not sure he made the right choice. Personally speaking, I favour grey, which is not strictly a colour, or, if I must nominate actual colours, those shades used by the military. I am more liberal concerning the choices of others. Unfortunately, the motor industry is not. Continue reading “Theme : Colour – Introduction”

History Falls

Ghosts of Browns Lane.

2005_0101JagMuseum0120
Image: The author

Today, Jaguar’s Heritage collection is in safer hands but in the closing months of 2011 the future looked a good deal more uncertain. We take a look back at Jaguar’s former museum prior to its demolition.

You can tell a good deal about the ethos of a car company by how it views its past. Enzo Ferrari was notorious for his callous attitude to last season’s race car; many simply destroyed, since in his view the only good car was the next one. Such views were not uncommon amidst the grand marques, resulting in vast sums being spent buying back significant cars once they realised exactly what a well curated museum could do for their image. So while it remains fairly unlikely that Ssangyong has seen fit to lay up a pristine Rexton for posterity, anyone with an image to project and a heritage to exploit either already has or really ought to. Continue reading “History Falls”