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| Wheels
On The Waterfront |
Broadcast
dates : 1st August 2004
5th August 2004 |
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Each
year fundraisers for the Brits Hospice organise Cars on the
Waterfront a day-outing for classic cars on the banks on the
Hartbeespoort Dam.
Attendance was down this year owing to a major classic car
show held just a week earlier, but some interesting old-timers
still made the run to this scenic picnic spot.
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When
it comes to ideal picnic cars they don’t come more fitting
than this Fiat 500 Jolly. Based on the tiny Italian
city car of the 1960s, the Jolly features a unique canopy top
and, even more unusually, wicker-basket seating arrangements.
Fiat 500s have become cult classics in the 21st
century, driven by the likes of Michael Schemata. And the
Jolly is the most collectible 500 of them all.
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At
the other end of the scale, but roughly from the same era as
the Jolly is this 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne. The ’58
Chevy is interesting in that it was the year that Chevrolet
went moderate on tailfins, while other American manufacturers
were reaching for the sky in this era of jet-age automotive
design. It wasn’t too shy on the chrome, though, and it was
also the year in which every American carmaker introduced quad
headlights. |
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The Plymouth
nameplate was a mainstay of 1930s motoring in South Africa,
along with its siblings from the Chrysler stable, Dodge, De
Soto, and of course the Chrysler brand itself. Apart from the
more up-market Chrysler shapes, all these cars were very
similar mechanically. This beige and brown two-tone job is a
1934 four-door sedan. It uses a side-valve or flat-head
straight six cylinder engine, with a three-speed manual
gearbox.
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The Ford
was yet another icon in that it was the first mass-produced
American car to use a V8 engine. Known as the flathead V8,
because of its side-valve configuration, this Fords became the
darling of the emerging hotrod crowd in the immediate post-war
years, although this beautiful blue coupe dates from the
mid-1930s.
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Across
the pond, as the Yanks like to say, England had its own
flirtation with fins as these Sunbeams from the late
‘50s and early 1960s show. The Rapier was a two-door
coupe and Famous for its rallying exploits, while the Alpine
was pure sports car, built to take on the likes of MG and
Triumph. These Sunbeams both used mildly-tuned four-cylinder
engines and their performance was moderately fast for the era.
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In
fact the Alpine would later appear in Tiger
configuration with a Ford V8, although the Sunbeam name would
last only a few years longer before disappearing into motoring
history. |
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Perhaps
one of the nicest aspects of informal car shows like the
Waterfront event is that there are no rules. Most purists
would shudder at this replica of a Mercedes SSK,
especially because of its American chrome wheels, but
enthusiasts like these bikers out for a breakfast run were
impressed by the sheer variety of the wheels on display.
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Not a
vintage show year at Brits, but well worth the run, if only
for the lovely view.
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