Oooops, missed one
4th-gen Corolla. Reassuringly brown
Volvo 480. Not quite brown, clearly not trying hard enough! Flip-up headlights make up for a lot, mind
Given how much work has been put into this S12, it seemed inconceivable that anyone would leave the bonnet off it. Maybe Worcestershire rain doesn't have all the chalk in it that our Sussex rain has, if I did this with my car it'd end up looking like the inside of a kettle
Another one I'm not really sure WTF issit. I'm guessing there used to be some kind of Taunus in here somewhere?
Datsuns are something I can never quite get to grips with, mostly because they're all named after numbers and I'm number-blind. Or maybe thick, but whichever it is, I forget the order numbers went in as soon as I stop looking at them. So, this is a pickup. More than that I can't say
and this is a... errmm. A Datsun
and this is a ... well, it's a foglight. On a car. A Datsun car. Oh God, this isn't going well at all, is it? Errr... a brown Datsun car?
Thank God for that! This, then is a 140Y. Obviously. And about as brown as they come, which is awesome. I tell you, brown is the next Big Thing
Corolla Levin? I actually don't even remember taking this photo, I think this must have been about the time my feet started squelching in an alarming manner and kept distracting me. No-one should have to be aware of their own feet! In fact, my shoes got so wet that when I got home and took them off four hours after leaving, there was a perfect imprint of all the wrinkles of my sodden socks embedded into the white and flaccid soles of my feet. Which was slightly repulsive and zombie-like. No-one should have to be afraid of their own feet, either
Anyone offer an opinion on what the kit on this MX-5 is? Pitcrew, maybe? I liked it a lot from the front, with its 275 Fezza-esque vents and lines. I wish it didn't have bus/Corvette rear lights, but you can;t have everything
I always have time for a Karmann Ghia... maybe it's from having to listen to Ada-san bleat on about them so many times, lol. This one was particularly pretty for some reason. Maybe the paint, maybe the stance. It just seemed... I dunno...
nice
BMW Touring had some groovy deep-dish going on.
Lada. With Russian badge and everything. And Maserati wheels. Honestly, life gets no better!
To be fair, this Cressida is unusual enough that it probably would have stood out even without the slightly daft exhaust. Not really sure if it's supposed to be Bosozuku or what, but I thought it kinda looks a bit odd on an otherwise stockish car. Great car though
This Caddy is just mad! I can't work out if it's a hearse (thought they had windows rather than Landau backs?) or just the world's least economical florists van, but what a gloriously bonkers thing!
Another serendipitous piece of aging; the unintentional paint fade on this Monza made me love it more even than the immaculate white one just up the row... and the white one would have been a lot easier to photograph. By now it was properly p...p...precipitating down again and I felt Peedey's already stretched good humour might not survive me taking pics of both
we both agreed that we liked this Volvo very much. And we both felt slightly dirty and soiled for admitting it, lol
I honestly have no idea what this is. I'm not even going to hazard a guess. How about a "write your own picture caption" competition, lol. Nothing but the undying admiration of your peers as a prize, sadly
Starion. Gahhh, he's back on the white ones again. Actually, this was nice to see, not only because we like the 80s box-arch Japanese pocket rocket anyway, but also because they always seem to be red and a white one makes a nice change
Having orbited the field as far as we dared without risking actual death by drowning... and still not seen half of what there was to see, sadly... we made it back to the illusory shelter of the Mighty Gazebo. It was raining like it hated us again, so a while passed in the forlorn hope of another respite. It didn't happen, so I contented myself with snapping those intrepid souls who could still make it across the field
The white Mini I mentioned earlier had a few tries at getting up the bank onto the perimeter bank amidst the slither of spinning wheels and the chirp and flutter of dump valves, then gave up as a bad job and went round the long way. It did make a wonderfully orchestral job of it while it lasted though
Eventually I had to forage out again, mostly because we were having an argument about what a certain maroon car parked a way off actually was. I thought it was a Hillman, Pete thought it wasn't because it only had five letters in the boot badge. I thought that he ought to count himself lucky I could see the boot, let alone the badge, with my frail old bat-spec eyes (I mean they're really curse word, not in a sorta "Better break out the Bat-Eyes, Robin" sorta way). Pete thought that I sucked. I think he's probably right. Jo thought it was a red one. So I had no choice but to go out in the rain to find out. Pete lent me the umbrella this time at least.
It was a Simca 1301, if you're interested
Which at least excuses us not recognising it, I suppose. Not exactly the most common of things to stumble across
And with the natty little Simca 1100 nearby, it must have represented a significant percentage of the working Simcas in the UK. I don't even know that "Simcas" is the correct plural, now I think about it. Not something I've ever had to worry about before, funnily enough. Simcaii? Hmmm
And that was really that. It wasn't going to clear up. My socks weren't going to miraculously dry out. The large percentage of cars that had buggered off weren't going to come back just for my sake. And it was still a damned long drive home, with the horror of the M25 looming in the wings like the harbinger of doom. There was nothing for it but to paddle through the sodden grass back to where Pete (no, the
other Pete) was collapsing the epic gazebo, past what I seem to have recently learned is the inestimable EmDee's Polo...
...and other such scattered trinkets of joy as were left. Ooooh! Colt Sigma! Rare!
This 80s Olds Cutty looks almost as sad as I felt by then. Such a beautiful day to start... and don't get me wrong, I love taking pics of cars in the rain. Just not if I have to be out in the rain to do it...
Pausing only to sabotage the stripy tape around our pitch so we could sneak out the back way and avoid the Capri and Mini-swallowing tarpit that the road had become, a final look around confirmed that there was indeed far more space than there was car
As always one tried to follow Granny's advice and go out on a song. But the song would be Leonard Cohen's
So Long Marianne and I don't want any of your suicides on my conscience. Yes, I do have one. So I'll have to end on a high. So here, have an absolute archetype of what RR is all about, brought to you by a diehard bloke who was actually drying his car off with a chamois thing even as the other end was getting soaked by the teeming rain all over again. What icon of motoring could possibly warrant such a level of love and attention from its owner? Yes, that's right. It can be nothing less that the paragon of the RR idiom, the humble CrappyBeigeMetro. I wonder, if I stuck a hashtag on that, could we get it trending...?
Incidentally, that photo was taken round about 2 p.m. and hasn't been re-touched at all. Just to show you; yes, it really was that dismal! But besides the weather (and we were overdue a curse word one, after all) it was the usual triumphant mix that only The Gathering can offer and I loved every minute. It'll be blistering next year, you wait and see.
As always, thanks for reading and until next time, get out
lol. 
