All good things take time

8 April, 2015

How long would you put up with seats looking like this in your classic car?

One of Parkside Media’s senior management team has finally, after fifteen years, decided the time is right to have the sad-and-sorry seat upholstery attended to in his Triumph TR6, despite the fact that he’s become rather attached to that ‘patina’ look. 

He’s not one to rush into things, tending to tread carefully and cautiously into making decisions such as this, but the word is that the Triumph is finally booked in and ready to go. 

As for the dash, the owner is still pondering on the best, and cheapest, method of repair. 

We’ll keep you updated on progress as it happens. 

1975 Suzuki RE5

Suzuki had high hopes for its RE5 Wankel-engined bike launched in 1975. It had started looking at the Wankel engine in the mid-60s and bought the licence to the concept in 1970.
Apparently all of the big four Japanese makers experimented with the design, Yamaha even showing a rotary-engined bike at a motor show in 1972. But Suzuki was the only one of the big four to go into production. Like many others at the time, Suzuki believed that the light, compact, free-revving Wankel design would consign piston engines — with their complex, multiple, whirring valves and pistons, which (can you believe it?) had to reverse direction all the time — to history.

Westside story

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.