Saturday 5 November 2016

Kop Hill 2016 (part 1 of 2)

This weeks blog is all about the 8th annual Kop Hill Climb 2016, which was held on 17th and 18th of September. The  Kop Hill is a steep climb just outside Princes Risborough, a small market town nestling at the foot of the Chilterns in the heart of deepest rural Buckinghamshire. It rises 304 feet in just 3,848 feet, with a gradient of 1 in 4 at its steepest. At the turn of the 20th century, Kop Hill was just a dirt track up an open scarp. Its surface was loose, stony, hard and bumpy, with a nasty rut at the top that could tear off motorcycle tyres, and a hump that launched many drivers and riders into the air. Today Kop Hill has a smooth tarmac surface with gentle bends, and its verges are lushly wooded. It starts with a gradual slope but by the halfway mark reaches a 1 in 6 gradient. The road then eases off before getting even steeper at 1 in 4 for a short section just before the summit, showing the power and grace of some of the classic machines in our revival and challenging the older cars and bikes simply to make it to the top.This is a fantastic family fun day out with enough to keep everyone happy, attractions include: amazing historic vehicles, traders, children's area, food court, licenced bar and fun fair to mention just a few. The Kop Hill event has a garden party atmosphere, and this years theme was the 1960's.The one attraction, apart from all the classic and American vehicles, that I wanted to see was the 'Wall of Death'. You can find out more about the Kop Hill climb event by clicking this link to their web page: 
http://www.kophillclimb.org.uk/about.html  
Kop Hill is only about 9 miles from my hometown, and to save me getting the microbus out and end up parking it up in some muddy public parking field, I decided to nip over to the event in my trusty T4 Transporter.
To see all my other blog entries, go to ‘My Blog Archive’ to the left of this page. Simply click on an arrow for a particular year, then click on an arrow for a particular month, this will then give you a drop down menu for all the blog entries for that month.


To start this weeks blog review we start with a
car that I spotted as soon as I walked in the show.
It's a gorgeous 1932 Ford Model B roadster with
a real 1950's hot rod look. The '32 roadster has 
to be in my top 5 cars to one day own.

The baby blue paint with the red painted steel 
wheels with chrome beauty rings and hubcaps
and wrapped in white wall tyres are pure nostalgia.
This lovely hot rod had a 4500CC engine, which
 in a roadster means it should be able to light up

the tyres in almost any gear.

The interior was trimmed to the same high quality
as the exterior. The white tuck and roll door cards
are also another hot rod period must have. I'm
not sure if this is a steel bodied roadster or not,
but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

The custom alloy seats obviously save weight but
I'm not sure on how comfortable they would be
on a cruise or long run somewhere.

The classic and beautiful front end of a 1932
roadster. This one had a drilled front bean axle
that had been painted red to match the wheels.

American and British classic cars parked up
next to each other. Here a 1965 Ford Mustang 
and a 1962 Triumph TR4 share the same area
at the Kop Hill show. The sheer diversity of vehicles
that were on show was huge.

This gorgeous light green 2 door hardtop
Mustang had the 289 cubic inch, 4.7 litre V8
motor with a manual gearbox.

I did like the contrasting blue stripes over the
body on this Mustang. I don't think this is a Shelby
or GT model, but I do know that those reversing
lights were an optional extra.

This lovely British classic 1962 TR4, looked 
amazing it in it's race guise. I did like those
banded steel wheels and the lack of front and 
rear bumpers. The huge race number on the
door indicated this cars purpose. This TR4
had a 2238cc engine with a 4 speed manual
gearbox.

This really is a nice looking car that in it's day
was quite nippy. With a 0-60 time of just over 10
seconds and a top speed of 110 MPH.

 Chevrolet Corvette C1 circa mid - late '50's. This 
car was stunning.The traditional red and white
paint scheme is probably the most common
colour combination, but Chevrolet also produced
the C1 in turquoise and black with white amongst
other colour combinations. The early C1's had
the single headlight, which I prefer to the quad 
headlights the later models had.

Both my passions in one photo, an American
classic and a Volkswagen camper van.

The C1 really is a beautiful car, the flowing lines
are almost a work of art. I love how the rear lights
are recessed into the rear fender and how the
exhaust exits from under the car through the
lovely chrome bumper corners.

This really is a beautiful place to sit. The styling
of the dashboard is almost perfect. You can
almost imagine driving down the freeway with
your favourite tunes on the AM radio and the
wind in your hair.

This lovely old 1969 early bay was parked up
just behind the C1 and looked great. This bus
was riding at what looked like standard height
and looked so good. The chrome head light
peaks were a nice addition that suited this bus. 

This old bay was very straight and looked solid.
I think this bus may have originally been a panel
van as those rear side windows look non standard.

A close up of the rear side windows, I don't
recognise them which makes me think they were
fitted at a later date, they did however look cool.

This stunning lowered 1964 Porsche 356C was
immaculate. You can just make out how straight
the old Porsche is from the reflection in that lovely
blue paint down the side of the body.

The 356C had disc brakes all round and the 
original 1600cc engine has been replaced with 
a more powerful  1720cc motor. 

This 1914 Fafnir Hall-Scott special was amazing.
Fafnir was a car manufacturer based in 
Germany between 1908 - 1926. Hall-Scott 
was an engine manufacturer based in Berkeley
 in California between 1910 - 1960.

This car has the Hall-Scott 10 litre aero engine 
originally built of a WW1 bi-plane. It is a four cylinder, 
water cooled, single overhead cam engine that  
makes this huge motor 10,000 cc.

This car could reach speeds in excess of 100 
MPH, and the only brakes this beast had were 
rear brakes, there were no front brakes what
so ever. !

The interior doesn't look that comfortable but
 then I guess if your doing over 100 MPH in this
old bone shaker car and you only have brakes 
on the rear, comfort is probably the last thing on
your mind!.

This bright yellow 1930 Austin 12/4 Open road 
tourer (I think) caught my eye. To be honest I don't
know a lot about the Austin 12/4 but it did look cool.

I spotted this in front of the radiator and in 
between the chassis horns, I'm assuming it is
some sort of supercharger?

This is a Humpmobile circa 1910. This car had
skinny wooden wheels look somewhat fragile
with even skinnier tyres. I think the engine would 
have been a 4 cylinder,  112 cubic inch engine 
with 2 speed transmission.

The oval windscreen wouldn't have done much 
to protect the driver from the elements or from
stopping the bug's getting into the drivers teeth.

This beautifully restored car looked stunning in
it's fresh cream coloured paint. I'm not sure how
fast this car would have gone, but I'm guessing
there wouldn't be too much traction from those
skinny tyres.

I loved the Kerosene tail lamps and the picnic 
basket. You can see just how skinny those tyres 
really are in this photo.

This lovely pro street Ford Popular was on a trade 
stand promoting welding or fabrication or something
 like that, and it was a customers car that they had
been working on. The big block Chevrolet engine
completely filled the tiny engine bay of the 'Pop'.

The super narrow rear axle and those huge 15" 
x 15" wheel and tyre combination look tough. 
The body was perfectly straight and although
this car has some way to go until it's finished
it does look very promising.

The interior is coming together but it still some 
way to go, but it's looking really good so far. That
huge transmission tunnel is to cover the unusual
(in a hot rod) manual gearbox.

This lovely 1974 Australian Ford Falcon caught
my eye as they are quite rare over here in the
U.K. This one is the XB GT Coupe model in
mushroom beige.

This lovely old Falcon had the 351 cubic inch
motor with the auto gearbox. This is a real
tough looking muscle car and those chrome
12 slot wheels and boot spoiler suit the car 

perfectly.

This Lamborghini Espada was gorgeous and
again quite rare. The Espada is a 4 seater
grad tourer which was produced from 1968 - 
1978 and had a 3.9 litre V12 engine.

Judging by the shape of the tail lights and 
the twin exhaust on this one I think this is an 
early model as it did have some body changes
during it's production. Just over 1200 of these 
lovely understated (for Lamborghini) cars were 
ever made which makes them very exclusive.

Talking of rare cars this Ford Galaxie 500 is even
rarer than the Lamborghini. This 1964 Galaxie
'54A' 4 door sedan, in raven black with black
interior is believed to be one of only 295 cars
ever made in this trim and body style, and records
show that there are only 16 left with this one being
the only one in the U.K.!

This stunning car had the 390 cubic inch, 6.4
litre V8 engine, 4 barrel carbs and a 3 speed
manual gearbox. You can see just how straight
that body is from the perfect reflection in that
mile deep black paint.

This immaculate car is the easily recognisable
1957 Chevrolet. I think this one was the Bel Air
2 door sedan finished in a perfect coat of black
 paint. The bright chrome body trim and those
lovely chrome American racing 5 spoke wheels
 looked awesome against the body colour.

All '57 Chevy's had a V8 motor of varying sizes
and I'm not sure what one this had. The body on
this '57 was just like new, it really was super
straight, check out that reflection on the trunk.

The interior of this car was just as nice as the
exterior. I did like the Chevy floor mats and door
cards. Optional extras available on the '57
included air conditioning, power steering and
power brakes and even a signal seeking AM
radio. I did like that full width bench seat that
looked so comfortable.

This lovely lowered 1967 rag top beetle looked
stunning in that gorgeous green colour. This bug
really was so straight and solid looking. Those
Fuchs style wheels suited the low look of this

The '67 had some changes from the '68 including
the larger 1500cc engine with 2 speed wipers,
12 volt electrical system and door locking buttons
on each door amongst other things. I did like the
all red rear light lenses on the lovely bug.

So that was part 1 of my blog review about Kop
Hill. Next Saturday you can read more about this
great event where there will be plenty more air
cooled vehicles, as well as American classics,
and plenty of unusual British and European
classic vehicles. There are also some photos
of the 'Wall of Death' which have to been seen

to be believed! So don't forget to come back 
next Saturday.

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