tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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I wrote about the production of them in my book "confessions from quality control". It was the worst built car I ever looked at I know otherwise. I worked in the quality department of Rover, and other car manufacturers, training them in how to measure the quality of how their cars were built. I was personal friends with the head of quality at Cowley. I wrote a book about my first hand experiences, cleared by a lawyer for accuracy and risk of litigation. I probably still have the data in the office somewhere relating to the build quality of the 600 and 800. I was at Cowley from the last day they built the rubbish MGRV8 to the first of the shonky new MINI. My book is selling quite well on Amazon, you don't have to buy a copy to know that I'd be happy to own one, despite all their flaws. The leather turning green in the sunshine was my favourite. ETA - I'm smiling. I do like the 800, don't take it personally.
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Last Edit: May 2, 2017 16:06:30 GMT by tdk
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Apr 28, 2017 13:15:40 GMT
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Coupe is cool. The rest is a long way off being valuable, but if the owner likes it then who cares anyway?
I wrote about the production of them in my book "confessions from quality control". It was the worst built car I ever looked at. I do have a soft spot for Rovers, though. 820ti coupe for me, please, in BRG.
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Last Edit: Apr 28, 2017 13:16:41 GMT by tdk
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Apr 20, 2017 10:44:53 GMT
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There's a French Magazine called Youngtimers, which I like to read. All about Retro Cars in general. I do speak French to a reasonable standard, although not fluent, but it's worth a look just for the pictures anyway. I often buy that when I'm in Holland, Dutch version of the same mag, very interesting mag.
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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I do like the look of this. Can you post up some pics of the rust and headlining, and anything else that might need doing, please?
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Apr 10, 2017 10:16:39 GMT
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I currently have the horn for these. Finding one that isn't rusty or with mega miles is nigh-on impossible.
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Beautiful! Would be a quick sale with the "easy" bits fixed. Good luck
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tdk
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Fantastic photos! Mundane yet also utterly captivating. Two things strike me in particular; the amount of rust on cars and the diversity of makes and models on the road back then, compared to now.
More please. I have work to avoid.
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Last Edit: Mar 29, 2017 9:00:13 GMT by tdk
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tdk
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Perfect! I spent Friday charging around some b roads and farm tracks in one and it was bloody brilliant.
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Mar 22, 2017 14:09:02 GMT
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I wish him luck. I like his style and appreciate the integrity mentioned in the clip there.
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Mar 17, 2017 20:05:56 GMT
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That's not a Bentley in any way. It's an old kit car with bits nailed to it. It's junk, but if it makes the owner happy then that's all that matters.
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Mar 16, 2017 14:01:12 GMT
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Please, tell me you have a lisp.
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Mar 16, 2017 12:42:51 GMT
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My dad does traditional signwriting, not vinyls. He often does old logos on vintage vehicles, never had an issue. The issue would only come if the car owner tries to pass themselves off as a business in some way, which obviously you won't OP.
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Mar 16, 2017 10:02:53 GMT
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Yeah self publishing. I believe in owning or overseeing pretty much the complete end to end delivery chain I'm obviously nowhere near as up on publishing intricacies as yourself or tdk but Patreon or similar does seem a very interesting avenue; I know I'd pay a fiver a month for two or three good quality videos of a decent length (10-15 mins?) from someone I know, but I can't quite justify it for something like MTOD. I totally agree on owning the chain. This is one reason I self publish my books. Videos, then. Some maths; Cost of making a video. Take this one I did about Senna, for example, it cost probably £3000ish to do with 3 guys. Equipment, track hire, travel, time and Weissbier. To make three a month might cost £9k - £10k. It could be double, if those making it want to earn a fair wage. Anyway, that means 2000 people paying a fiver a month. You (the film maker) will have to go out and find 2000 people willing to pay. Or employ someone who will go and find those 2000 people and consider your costs then go up. Chris Harris (who is a million miles ahead of me all round) had (IIRC) 786 backers on Patreon. Money can be earned from product placement, but for that you need a colossal amount of subscribers in the first place, and millions of views - and that tends to create low rent content that just chases the kids (who - ironically, can't afford the products being plugged anyway). Another "OMG MILLION DOLLAR LAMBO UNVEIL" video anyone? No, I thought not. How much YouTube pays is a subject that often comes up. Roughly, very roughly, you might get $50 per million views. There is additional money available based on subscribers, but let's be mega generous and say it's $200 per million views. I think this is my most watched film, 145k ish. I have participated in others with far more views, but they weren't 'my' films, for the record. Kitten getting its head trapped in a toaster? Costs nothing to make, will get a billion views. Owner earns enough to buy a new toaster. And a new kitten. That's YouTube. Quality is hard to find. I get paid, occasionally, for telly stuff, but you'll have to buy my book to see how I manage to make that pay. See what I did there? Self-publishing - it's the future!
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Last Edit: Mar 16, 2017 10:08:26 GMT by tdk
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Mar 15, 2017 15:43:00 GMT
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Production costs for film? - I'd be happy to fill you in. I've done quite a few. I'd rather not splash my accounts all over the internet. New print mag? Why do you need 6 months production costs up front? Are you self-publishing? I came close to doing something in print with a cracking publisher I know and the costs were not an issue, assuming it was all done modestly. I believe there is a gap in the market for a decent new car-related magazine, in print. I am just too tied up to get off my bum and muck in with it, though.
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Mar 15, 2017 13:39:41 GMT
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So where does this leave magazines, well they don't all have a strong enough brand to make you want to spend money to identify with them and buy a physical premium item. Although looking in the comments here Practical Classics does. If they are monthly on shoe string budgets then they are hardly a premium item. People don't like adverts but that is how you offset the cover cost of the magazine. Hayburner has taken an interesting approach which is interesting to see. I think there is a world in which a magazine could have a much higher cover price with little to no adverts as the opposite of the Hayburner approach. I've not seen a digital magazine really crack the issue, Speedhunters is close but it has the safety net of funding, as tdk points out revenue from online magazine advertising is much lower than a paper magazine which makes it hard to get even a basic quality of content, let alone something high end. People have been trained to want free things online, which is a shame because if they hadn't they would have better quality content to look at .... I did see some publishers experimenting with what was called Book-azine type products, kind of one off specials with higher production values, usually made up with 70% by existing content from previous issues. I'm not sure how successful this was, but as I've not seen many of them around still I'm guessing not brilliant. Pistonheads produced a magazine/book-azine once, a kind of year in review thing, I picked that first issue up, but never saw it again, not sure if they still do it. ^^^^ This is why I do videos... too much to say... that or I like the sound of my own voice. We are on the same page. Ahem. Digital magazines are a dead end, in my experience. I had LOADS of people download mine, yet couldn't find a way to make it even cover its costs. No-one pays for online content, it seems. In a way they're a contradiction, all that trying to replicate the action/feel of pages but on a screen it doesn't work. Print also suffers because the likes of WHS are utter pirates when selling your product. They charge the publisher to use their shelves, for example, and charge more for that at certain locations. It's very tough out there for print. But, still, we love it. The smell of the paper, the feel of the thickness of the pages, it feels like you're getting something for your money. A magazine, to me, is a rare treat. I'd pay more for higher quality, fewer adverts, that sort of thing. Would anyone else? Videos? Same issue as all online content - no-one pays for it and you're swamped by a billion Schmee-wannabes. The (nice) vid at the top of this thread, for example, had only a couple of hundred views. You need millions to even make a penny, or an advertiser who will subsidise it, and they demand massive traffic. It's fun to do it for yourself, but as a hobbyist you can't afford to create top quality content. Stick "OMG lambo burnout sick Beyonce" in the title and you'll get a ton of hits. I've made (in my humble opinion) really nice films which only had maybe 50k hits. That's ten times the readership of many print mags, but still doesn't pay a penny. Anyway - I have a book to finish writing, a magazine feature to write and a script to finalise for a film that I hope a few of you might like. It's about 2CVs, but I might sneak "Ferrari dogging streetracer london 50 cent" in the title and see if that does me any good
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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PPC is , and always has been a dumbed down CCC . Far to many adverts and its not very technical , just nothing to grasp you .The sections they have done with some chap called , i think Mark Hammersley maybe are appaling. Terrible dark photos of what could be considered pretty crude work , boring explanations that i expect most people skim through etc. Ive tried to like PPC, I really really have but it comes across as a bit smug. Its almost like its screaming out 'You mean you don't know how to build a twin engined Porsche powered Daewoo Matiz!!! 'What kind of a thick curse word are you? Its just souless. I've written for PPC for a few years now. I have no idea how to build anything and make no attempt to hide it. My MO is self-deprecation, it's hard to be smug when you've owned a Sinclair C5 and Noel Edmonds described you as a tw*t. Anyway - I love learning from people with diverse and interesting machinery, and writing about it. For example, last month there was a feature of mine about a ratrod. Next month there is a feature about a Ferrari 308 converted to electric power. Totally different technology, completely different personalities behind the cars, yet they both share a love of creating something interesting from the unlikely. That, for me, is why I love PPC. Long may it live, wonky staples, missing pages, adverts, typos and all!
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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There's a real challenge here; People expect online content to be free, totally free, and yet we all hate adverts. Online advertising pays less than print advertising, it seems, so you have websites with massive traffic (this one included, I guess) that make little or no money from adverts. But - we all like quality content. Photographers, they are not cheap, writers, their time is not free, so the best seem to end up working in print/telly who still pay a reasonable rate. But despite this people are buying fewer and fewer magazines, me included, - and I write for a few!
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tdk
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not quite there yet but older phaetons are getting close. Special mention for the w12, and v10 tdi Great examples! Complete madness, VW designing and building those, wasn't it? Not particularly exotic, but they do share the platform with the Bentley Continental, IIRC.
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Mar 13, 2017 16:06:35 GMT
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It's hardly an exclusive club. Even a sub 750 quid mx5 falls into the 5%. the majority if cars between 15 and 25 years old is likely to qualify. Membership isn't calculated on price alone - they should be "interesting". Define that how you will
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tdk
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Posts: 958
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Mar 13, 2017 14:28:26 GMT
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My Astra TDS was 2% of initial purchase price, do I qualify? It doesn't meet the "interesting' criteria. Love your username though!
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