1983 Austin Ambassador

I took these photographs at a classic car show in Hyde, Cheshire in October 2025.

It's a 1983 Auston Ambassador and has a 4-cylinder inline 1,994cc engine.

The note in the windscreen of the car reads as follows:

Austin Ambassador

 

The Ambassador is what ADO71,

the Austin Princess became in its final form.

The conversion to Ambassador was codenamed LM19 and cost just £19M.

Ambassador was a stop-gap model before LC10,

the Montego and Maestro were launched.

 

This was a mainstream model but only 44,000 examples were made,

between 1982 and 1984 and now to many peoples’ surprise, only 74 survive including

only 13 in Vanden Plas trim and only 17 in total are known to be on the road!

 

The advanced features of Harris Mann’s design include:-

crumple zones with a rigid passenger cell,

fold-away steering wheel to protect ribs in an accident,

front wheel drive for accuracy in all road conditions,

Hydragas suspension, linked front to rear giving legendary comfort,

a huge boot, masses of legroom, especially in the back, and wedge styling.

Over the Princess, the ambassador has bigger, improved Hydragas suspension units,

wider wheels, the dashboard is all new, there is an air dam at the front

to further reduce drag and it is a hatchback.

 

The decision not to build the Princess in the first place as a hatchback was because

BL wanted a saloon car, so as not to compete with its own Rover SD1.

 

Despite being ‘badged’ an Austin, Ambassadors were at Cowley, Oxford,

the former Morris factory where BMW Minis are built today.

 

Here is a very rare British car to be proud of.

 

A455 VUK Ambassador Vanden Plas

1999 Renault Laguna

I took this photograph at Druids Corner during qualifying for the HSCC/TCRE Super Touring Car Challenge race at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2018.

It’s Mark Jones in his ex-Jason Plato 1999 Renault Laguna which has a 4-cylinder inline 1,988cc engine.

Friday's Ferrari

The Ferrari Racing Days meeting at Silverstone in September 2017 celebrated Ferrari’s 70^th Anniversary, and this is one of the cars that marked the occasion.

It’s a 2016 Ferrari 488 Challenge based on the 488 GTB and has a 3,902cc V8 engine.

1958 Leyland Atlantean PDR1/1

This is a photograph that I took in Heaton Park, Manchester at the Greater Manchester Transport Society’s Trans Lancs Historic Vehicle Rally in September 1988.

It’s not listed in the programme of the event,  but it’s a 1958 Leyland Atlantean PDR1/1 provided new to Wallasey Corporation Transport in 1958 and has a Metropolitan Cammell H77F body.

1944 Volkswagen Kübelwagen Type 82

I took this photograph at the Donington Park museum in September 2014 in the area set aside for Tom Wheatcroft’s son Kevin’s collection of World War II military vehicles.

It’s a 1944 Volkswagen Kübelwagen Type 82, over 50,000 of which were built between 1940 and 1945.

 

AI tells me that the military vehicles were moved into private storage when the museum closed down in 2018.

1962 Morgan Plus 4

I took this photograph at Druids Corner during qualifying for the Equipe Pre ’63 race at the Aston Martin Owners club’s meeting at Oulton Park in May 2018.

It’s Mark Hoble in his 1962 Morgan Plus 4 which the programme of the event says has a 1,962cc engine. They may have confused the engine capacity with the date of manufacture as the Plus 4 was provided with a variety of engines of around 2 litres, but none of them with a capacity of 1,962cc.

1959 Maserati T61

This was one of the competitors in the 1950s Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998.

It’s Alan Minshaw’s 1959 Maserati T61, generally known as a Maserati Birdcage on account of its space frame chassis and which has a 4-cylinder inline 2,850cc engine. It's chassis #2453, which was totally wrecked in an accident at Daytona in late 1959 but the remains were used to re-create the car in the early 1990s.