SUNDAY JANUARY 15 2012
The phrase came about in the 16th century because the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England was based on the mining and selling of coal.
Local supply and demand was such that attempts to sell coal to Newcastle were seen as being doomed to failure.
On a similar note, last year my London-based, Anglo-American parents – victims of the 1970s craze for fondue parties in Britain and the US – kindly asked me if I would like to take off of their hands one of the five fondue sets that they had amassed over the years.
I politely declined their offer as I live in Switzerland, the home of fondue.
But it got me asking myself what real-life examples exist of those people with a bit of initiative who have figuratively managed to “carry coals to Newcastle”.
It actually turns out that the good people of Newcastle have themselves pulled off the unlikely trick of selling Champagne to the French.
Admittedly, it’s not Newcastle-cultivated Champers – the Tyneside climate isn’t exactly conducive to that.
Nevertheless, the Newcastle business Lovely Bubbly – set up in 2006 to give British drinkers access to quality Champagnes from independent French producers – struck a deal to supply Champagne to the French Consul in Edinburgh.
Perhaps even better is Fracino. Don't be fooled by their Italian-sounding name as the
award-winning Italian-style coffee machines manufacture is actually based in Birmingham, England, and was founded in the 1960s by the very un-Italian sounding Frank Maxwell, who was inspired by a coffee machine bought while holidaying in Italy with his family.
The small yet innovative manufacturer is not only the UK’s only coffee-machine maker, but it also now exports its cappuccino and espresso machines to over 25 countries – including Italy, the land of coffee connoisseurs if ever there was one.
Following Fracino’s lead is Scottish pizza kitchen Cosmo who, you’ve guessed it, sell their gluten-free varieties to Italy. The next thing you know, the Italians will be exporting haggis to the Scots.
It should be pointed out that Cosmo are slightly helped by the fact founder and chairman Cosmo Tamburro is an Italian himself, having emigrated to Edinburgh in 1958.
Meanwhile, the Central Australian Camel Industry Association have succeeded in selling 119 camels to none other than Saudi Arabia.
Australia has a sizeable population of camels – around 500,000 – the direct descendants of the 20,000 brought over in the 19th century from India and the Canary Islands, animals which were left in the wild once their use for exploration had finished.
Beside a means of transport, camels have often been an integral part of the traditional Muslim diet. Thousands are annually slaughtered during Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca.
The Saudis have traditionally got their camels from North Africa, but disease, drought and political instability have seen them turn to the Aussies for some hump-backed help.
Along very similar lines, Perth-based GMA Garnet managed to get the Saudis to buy Australian sand. The special alluvial sand is suited for sandblasting because it is free of silica, which creates dust that can cause lung cancer and silicosis in workers.
So the next time you hear 'Coals to Newcastle', don't laugh, it may just be an excellent business opportunity!
SUNDAY JANUARY 01 2012
But on this 1st day of the New Year, it isn't the time to play it safe. It's a time to seize life by the scruff of the neck. A time to get your heart pounding so you know you are alive.
A sure-fire way of getting the adrenaline coursing through your veins is to fly. But not 'flight' as in wrapped in a hermetically sealed plane while reading a book and sipping champagne.
'Flight' as in feeling the air pulling at your body and roaring in your ears.
And not 'flight' high above the ground, but high-speed flight hugging the ground - and by 'hugging we mean close enough to caress it!
And if that sounds dangerous it's because it is so the only thing better than doing it yourself is finding someone else to risk their life so that we can experience the thrills vicariously (and safely).
So top up your glass, move a little closer to the fire, put your feet up and hit 'play'.
Danny Strasser - dubbed 'Rollerman' - is a German thrill-seeker with a penchant for rolling downhill - rolling extremely fast downhill with just a wheel-studded suit between him an the tarmac. In this video, Strasser speeds down the Alps, weaves through the traffic in South Korea, and launches down a bobsleigh track in Germany.
For more information (and videos), please visit http://danny-strasser.de/videos.php
Norwegian daredevil Jokke Sommer is one of the world's foremost wingsuit fliers, which entails him jumping from a plane, or base-jumping off something high enough, while wearing a wingsuit that enables him to glide - to fly. But what makes this vide really mind-blowing is that it was filmed with a 360° camera so you can use your computer arrow keys to look in any direction. It's like riding in Summer's back!
For more information, please visit http://jokkesommer.com/
We trust that has blown the 2011 cobwebs away and wish you all an excellent start to 2012.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 09 2011
The mountain in question was Tianmen Cave (pictured above) near Zhangjiajie City in China, nicknamed the Gateway of Heaven and regarded as the highest elevated natural arch in the world at 1,500m (5,000 feet).
Oh, and Jeb was flying on his own?
Not ‘on his own’ as in a solo flight in an aeroplane, helicopter or airship, or even just alone with a pair of glider wings and jet pack strapped to his back.
No, ‘on his own’ as in ‘he was flying by himself’ – no machines, no glider frame, no engines.
What the 35-year-old did have at his disposal was a wingsuit, a high-performance body ensemble that transforms you into something like a flying squirrel.
“You have nylon wings between you arms, nylon wings between you legs,” explains Corliss. “As you’re flying, instead of going straight down, you move forward three feet (0.9m) for every foot (0.3m) you fall. It gives you a glide angle so you’re no longer flying directly towards the ground, you’re flying on a slope."
“Flying across Tianmen Mountain was the most challenging task in my life. I have visited and investigated many places, but there's no place like Tianmen Mountain.”
Jeb’s ‘investigations’ have seen him BASE jump – i.e. deploy a parachute after leaping from a fixed object – from the Seattle Space Needle, Venezuela’s Angel Falls, the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Earlier this summer in Switzerland, Corliss became the first man to fly through a waterfall wearing a wingsuit as he engaged in some white-knuckle ‘proximity flying’ – the risky yet spectacular technique of gliding close to the face or ridges of hills and mountains.
In China, Jeb started his Tianmen Mountain flight by jumping from a helicopter before eventually deploying a parachute to land – currently the sole method available of bringing a wingsuit outing to a safe conclusion.
But that will change if Corliss gets his way. The Wingsuit Landing Project is the Californian’s ongoing quest to be the first human to leap from an aircraft and land without a parachute.
“The attempt is to jump from an aircraft, reach terminal velocity and then make a non-parachute landing,” he says. “The hard part is to survive uninjured."
“A wingsuit landing will only be successful if you can do it 10 times out of 10 without being injured. I’m talking no broken toes, no broken anything.”
A wingsuit could potentially slow a vertical descent, albeit briefly, to about 50km/h (30mph) – a massive reduction on the usual 180-225 km/h (110-140 mph).
But the pilot would still be moving forward horizontally at 120 km/h (75mph) at least – more likely at a considerably faster speed – meaning any faulty movement would lead to a fatal crash.
So what does Jeb have in mind to increase the likelihood of a soft landing?
Well, he’s fairly tight-lipped about his plan as he isn’t the only one obsessed with making history. Other wingsuit pilots around the world – Frenchman Loïc Jean-Albert and Brazilian Luigi Cani, for example – are also plotting to perform the first ever non-parachute landing.
But Corliss has hinted at constructing a custom-built runway while also talking about attaching his helmet to a rigid-framed exoskeleton
Writing on science and technology website Popular Mechanics, journalist James Vlahos has made a good stab at guessing how Corliss might pull off the stunt and it’s worth checking out here: www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/how-to-land-in-a-wingsuit-sans-parachute
Vlahos reckons he will most likely try to land like an Olympic ski jumper, matching the angle of the slope as closely as possible, though Corliss will be hurtling along at nearly twice the speed and will try to land on his front, not on his legs.
“This is something people have wanted to do since the story of Icarus,” says Corliss. “In this day and age it’s hard to do something that has never been done before."
“This will be the first time a human being has reached terminal velocity and landed on their face at over 110mph (180km/h) and gotten up and done it again. That’s a very special thing.”
Indeed it is, as is the cost of constructing such a runway: about two million dollars.
Corliss adds: “Everyone thinks this is so impossible, you can’t do that. Well, the only reason you think it can’t be done is because you haven’t done it. I believe I can and that’s probably why I am going to.”
Watch the video above for an idea of what it's like to fly along the ground. Landing without a parachute is the hard bit!
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 25 2011
Toroidal Vortices is the plural of Toroidal Vortex, or more simply, a ‘vortex ring’. It’s an area of rotating substance that moves through the same or different substance, where the flow pattern takes on a doughnut-like – or toroidal – shape. A good example is a smoke ring, as amply demonstrated below by silver screen legend, Jack Nicholson.
Jack has had some recent competition in the smoke ring department by good old Mother Nature when Mount Etna stirred this summer to produce a giant version, a rare occurrence which had previously only been documented in 1970 and 2000.
However, MB&F’s attention has been caught not so much by the smoke-air version of toroidal vortices, as by the air-liquid ones.
Of course, if they try hard enough, humans can make some artistically aquatic patterns when scuba diving. Yet when it comes to making water-based circular air bubbles, it’s dolphins who have really got this trick down to a fine art.
Dolphins are well known for their echolation – their biological sonar – as a way of communicating. But these supremely social animals also communicate through playfully creating toroidal vortices, by either blowing a near-perfect ring out of their blowhole or by flipping a dorsal fin quick enough to make a water vortex.
Vortex rings are believed to be part of the sonic tool-kit of dolphins and other cetaceans – aquatic mammals such as whales and porpoises. They can play with these rings by bouncing them off walls, stretching them with their flippers into large, long spirals, and by swimming through them before breaking them up into little bubbles.
The ring of air as well as the nearby water spins “poloidally” as it travels through the water, like a flexible bracelet might spin when it is rolled onto a person’s arm. The faster the bubble ring spins, the more stable it becomes.
Vortex rings were first mathematically analysed in 1867 by the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz in his paper On Integrals of the Hydrodynamical Equations which Express Vortex-motion.
But that's enough reading, time to sit back and relax watching this compilation of toroidal vortices including dophins playing and one the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, tested by the Soviets in 1961.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18 2011
But many, especially those born after the first of those funny films were made, may be even more familar with the TV cartoon spin-off series that did the rounds in the 1970s and 80s.
The Pink Panther Show was as memorable for its opening titles as it was for the actual cartoons thereafter. Why? Well, firstly it involved some pretty catchy music – not a patch on Henry Mancini’s offering, admittedly, but a groovy tune all the same.
And secondly because it featured a spectacularly funky, futuristic pink car boasting a panther-like nose that, if the opening credit sequence is to be believed, was driven by a teenage boy – a definite inspiration to fledgling car fanatics at the time – who casually parks it at the roadside to let cartoon incarnations of Inspector Clouseau and the Pink Panther saunter out from under the gull-wing door.
As you read this, that very same vehicle is being auctioned online to coincide with the car’s appearance at the Chelsea Auto Legends Show, bidding closes –on Friday October 14th.
A true rarity, this one-of-a-kind automobile was created in 1969 by Hollywood’s master vehicle designer Jay Ohrberg, best known for having produced many of the world’s most coveted movie and television cars including KITT from Knight Rider, the DeLorean in Back To The Future, the Batmobile from the 1960s Batman series, the Batmobile from the more recent Batman films, the Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard as well as Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino among others.
It’s believed that Ohrberg owned the Pink Panther car until it was auctioned in 2007 when it was bought for £88,000 by the current owner. It is in totally original condition, though the seller says it would “benefit from some sympathetic restoration” as it is now 42 years old.
Interestingly, the engine was believed to be working when the vehicle was sold four years ago, but it’s apparently not running any more. Neither is the car street-legal. So if you know a good mechanic, have access to a private circuit and can find the £50,000 to £100,000 that auctioneers Robson Kay are expecting the vehicle to fetch, then you’ll be able to experience a drive that will literally tickle you pink.
For more information, including how/where to bid, please visit www.pinkpanthercar.com
Coals to Newcastle
You may have heard the saying “carrying coals to Newcastle”, an expression sometimes used to describe a futile endeavour.The phrase came about in the 16th century because the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England was based on the mining and selling of coal.
Local supply and demand was such that attempts to sell coal to Newcastle were seen as being doomed to failure.
On a similar note, last year my London-based, Anglo-American parents – victims of the 1970s craze for fondue parties in Britain and the US – kindly asked me if I would like to take off of their hands one of the five fondue sets that they had amassed over the years.
I politely declined their offer as I live in Switzerland, the home of fondue.
But it got me asking myself what real-life examples exist of those people with a bit of initiative who have figuratively managed to “carry coals to Newcastle”.
It actually turns out that the good people of Newcastle have themselves pulled off the unlikely trick of selling Champagne to the French.
Admittedly, it’s not Newcastle-cultivated Champers – the Tyneside climate isn’t exactly conducive to that.
Nevertheless, the Newcastle business Lovely Bubbly – set up in 2006 to give British drinkers access to quality Champagnes from independent French producers – struck a deal to supply Champagne to the French Consul in Edinburgh.
Perhaps even better is Fracino. Don't be fooled by their Italian-sounding name as the
award-winning Italian-style coffee machines manufacture is actually based in Birmingham, England, and was founded in the 1960s by the very un-Italian sounding Frank Maxwell, who was inspired by a coffee machine bought while holidaying in Italy with his family.
The small yet innovative manufacturer is not only the UK’s only coffee-machine maker, but it also now exports its cappuccino and espresso machines to over 25 countries – including Italy, the land of coffee connoisseurs if ever there was one.
Following Fracino’s lead is Scottish pizza kitchen Cosmo who, you’ve guessed it, sell their gluten-free varieties to Italy. The next thing you know, the Italians will be exporting haggis to the Scots.
It should be pointed out that Cosmo are slightly helped by the fact founder and chairman Cosmo Tamburro is an Italian himself, having emigrated to Edinburgh in 1958.
Meanwhile, the Central Australian Camel Industry Association have succeeded in selling 119 camels to none other than Saudi Arabia.
Australia has a sizeable population of camels – around 500,000 – the direct descendants of the 20,000 brought over in the 19th century from India and the Canary Islands, animals which were left in the wild once their use for exploration had finished.
Beside a means of transport, camels have often been an integral part of the traditional Muslim diet. Thousands are annually slaughtered during Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca.
The Saudis have traditionally got their camels from North Africa, but disease, drought and political instability have seen them turn to the Aussies for some hump-backed help.
Along very similar lines, Perth-based GMA Garnet managed to get the Saudis to buy Australian sand. The special alluvial sand is suited for sandblasting because it is free of silica, which creates dust that can cause lung cancer and silicosis in workers.
So the next time you hear 'Coals to Newcastle', don't laugh, it may just be an excellent business opportunity!
SUNDAY JANUARY 01 2012
Videos: Blow the cobwebs away and launch into an adrenaline-packed 2012.
The word 'flying' brings to mind graceful images of flight high above the earth's surface. Altitude provides both plenty of time to enjoy the view as well as time to sort out any problems.But on this 1st day of the New Year, it isn't the time to play it safe. It's a time to seize life by the scruff of the neck. A time to get your heart pounding so you know you are alive.
A sure-fire way of getting the adrenaline coursing through your veins is to fly. But not 'flight' as in wrapped in a hermetically sealed plane while reading a book and sipping champagne.
'Flight' as in feeling the air pulling at your body and roaring in your ears.
And not 'flight' high above the ground, but high-speed flight hugging the ground - and by 'hugging we mean close enough to caress it!
And if that sounds dangerous it's because it is so the only thing better than doing it yourself is finding someone else to risk their life so that we can experience the thrills vicariously (and safely).
So top up your glass, move a little closer to the fire, put your feet up and hit 'play'.
Danny Strasser - dubbed 'Rollerman' - is a German thrill-seeker with a penchant for rolling downhill - rolling extremely fast downhill with just a wheel-studded suit between him an the tarmac. In this video, Strasser speeds down the Alps, weaves through the traffic in South Korea, and launches down a bobsleigh track in Germany.
For more information (and videos), please visit http://danny-strasser.de/videos.php
Norwegian daredevil Jokke Sommer is one of the world's foremost wingsuit fliers, which entails him jumping from a plane, or base-jumping off something high enough, while wearing a wingsuit that enables him to glide - to fly. But what makes this vide really mind-blowing is that it was filmed with a 360° camera so you can use your computer arrow keys to look in any direction. It's like riding in Summer's back!
For more information, please visit http://jokkesommer.com/
We trust that has blown the 2011 cobwebs away and wish you all an excellent start to 2012.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 09 2011
Jeb Corliss: Flying on a wing(suit) and a prayer - through a mountain!
Last month Jeb Corliss became the first human ever to fly through a mountain. That’s right, through a mountain. Not over it. Not around it. But through it.The mountain in question was Tianmen Cave (pictured above) near Zhangjiajie City in China, nicknamed the Gateway of Heaven and regarded as the highest elevated natural arch in the world at 1,500m (5,000 feet).
Oh, and Jeb was flying on his own?
Not ‘on his own’ as in a solo flight in an aeroplane, helicopter or airship, or even just alone with a pair of glider wings and jet pack strapped to his back.
No, ‘on his own’ as in ‘he was flying by himself’ – no machines, no glider frame, no engines.
What the 35-year-old did have at his disposal was a wingsuit, a high-performance body ensemble that transforms you into something like a flying squirrel.
“You have nylon wings between you arms, nylon wings between you legs,” explains Corliss. “As you’re flying, instead of going straight down, you move forward three feet (0.9m) for every foot (0.3m) you fall. It gives you a glide angle so you’re no longer flying directly towards the ground, you’re flying on a slope."
“Flying across Tianmen Mountain was the most challenging task in my life. I have visited and investigated many places, but there's no place like Tianmen Mountain.”
Jeb’s ‘investigations’ have seen him BASE jump – i.e. deploy a parachute after leaping from a fixed object – from the Seattle Space Needle, Venezuela’s Angel Falls, the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Earlier this summer in Switzerland, Corliss became the first man to fly through a waterfall wearing a wingsuit as he engaged in some white-knuckle ‘proximity flying’ – the risky yet spectacular technique of gliding close to the face or ridges of hills and mountains.
In China, Jeb started his Tianmen Mountain flight by jumping from a helicopter before eventually deploying a parachute to land – currently the sole method available of bringing a wingsuit outing to a safe conclusion.
But that will change if Corliss gets his way. The Wingsuit Landing Project is the Californian’s ongoing quest to be the first human to leap from an aircraft and land without a parachute.
“The attempt is to jump from an aircraft, reach terminal velocity and then make a non-parachute landing,” he says. “The hard part is to survive uninjured."
“A wingsuit landing will only be successful if you can do it 10 times out of 10 without being injured. I’m talking no broken toes, no broken anything.”
A wingsuit could potentially slow a vertical descent, albeit briefly, to about 50km/h (30mph) – a massive reduction on the usual 180-225 km/h (110-140 mph).
But the pilot would still be moving forward horizontally at 120 km/h (75mph) at least – more likely at a considerably faster speed – meaning any faulty movement would lead to a fatal crash.
So what does Jeb have in mind to increase the likelihood of a soft landing?
Well, he’s fairly tight-lipped about his plan as he isn’t the only one obsessed with making history. Other wingsuit pilots around the world – Frenchman Loïc Jean-Albert and Brazilian Luigi Cani, for example – are also plotting to perform the first ever non-parachute landing.
But Corliss has hinted at constructing a custom-built runway while also talking about attaching his helmet to a rigid-framed exoskeleton
Writing on science and technology website Popular Mechanics, journalist James Vlahos has made a good stab at guessing how Corliss might pull off the stunt and it’s worth checking out here: www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/how-to-land-in-a-wingsuit-sans-parachute
Vlahos reckons he will most likely try to land like an Olympic ski jumper, matching the angle of the slope as closely as possible, though Corliss will be hurtling along at nearly twice the speed and will try to land on his front, not on his legs.
“This is something people have wanted to do since the story of Icarus,” says Corliss. “In this day and age it’s hard to do something that has never been done before."
“This will be the first time a human being has reached terminal velocity and landed on their face at over 110mph (180km/h) and gotten up and done it again. That’s a very special thing.”
Indeed it is, as is the cost of constructing such a runway: about two million dollars.
Corliss adds: “Everyone thinks this is so impossible, you can’t do that. Well, the only reason you think it can’t be done is because you haven’t done it. I believe I can and that’s probably why I am going to.”
Watch the video above for an idea of what it's like to fly along the ground. Landing without a parachute is the hard bit!
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 25 2011
Lords of the Rings - Toroidal Vortices
Have you ever heard of Toroidal Vortices? No? Well neither had we until recently. Don’t worry, it’s not a tropical disease that you should see your doctor about. Neither is it Real Madrid’s new South American striker. Nor is it the name of some obscure 1970s prog rock band.Toroidal Vortices is the plural of Toroidal Vortex, or more simply, a ‘vortex ring’. It’s an area of rotating substance that moves through the same or different substance, where the flow pattern takes on a doughnut-like – or toroidal – shape. A good example is a smoke ring, as amply demonstrated below by silver screen legend, Jack Nicholson.
Jack has had some recent competition in the smoke ring department by good old Mother Nature when Mount Etna stirred this summer to produce a giant version, a rare occurrence which had previously only been documented in 1970 and 2000.
However, MB&F’s attention has been caught not so much by the smoke-air version of toroidal vortices, as by the air-liquid ones.
Of course, if they try hard enough, humans can make some artistically aquatic patterns when scuba diving. Yet when it comes to making water-based circular air bubbles, it’s dolphins who have really got this trick down to a fine art.
Dolphins are well known for their echolation – their biological sonar – as a way of communicating. But these supremely social animals also communicate through playfully creating toroidal vortices, by either blowing a near-perfect ring out of their blowhole or by flipping a dorsal fin quick enough to make a water vortex.
Vortex rings are believed to be part of the sonic tool-kit of dolphins and other cetaceans – aquatic mammals such as whales and porpoises. They can play with these rings by bouncing them off walls, stretching them with their flippers into large, long spirals, and by swimming through them before breaking them up into little bubbles.
The ring of air as well as the nearby water spins “poloidally” as it travels through the water, like a flexible bracelet might spin when it is rolled onto a person’s arm. The faster the bubble ring spins, the more stable it becomes.
Vortex rings were first mathematically analysed in 1867 by the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz in his paper On Integrals of the Hydrodynamical Equations which Express Vortex-motion.
But that's enough reading, time to sit back and relax watching this compilation of toroidal vortices including dophins playing and one the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, tested by the Soviets in 1961.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 18 2011
The Pink Panther's car could be yours!
We are unashamed film buffs at MB&F and when it comes to classic comedy, it’s difficult to beat The Pink Panther series – the original set of movies that is. That combination of Blake Edward’s direction, Henry Mancini’s iconic music and Peter Sellers’ superb interpretation of the bungling Inspector Clouseau hits the spot every time.But many, especially those born after the first of those funny films were made, may be even more familar with the TV cartoon spin-off series that did the rounds in the 1970s and 80s.
The Pink Panther Show was as memorable for its opening titles as it was for the actual cartoons thereafter. Why? Well, firstly it involved some pretty catchy music – not a patch on Henry Mancini’s offering, admittedly, but a groovy tune all the same.
And secondly because it featured a spectacularly funky, futuristic pink car boasting a panther-like nose that, if the opening credit sequence is to be believed, was driven by a teenage boy – a definite inspiration to fledgling car fanatics at the time – who casually parks it at the roadside to let cartoon incarnations of Inspector Clouseau and the Pink Panther saunter out from under the gull-wing door.
As you read this, that very same vehicle is being auctioned online to coincide with the car’s appearance at the Chelsea Auto Legends Show, bidding closes –on Friday October 14th.
A true rarity, this one-of-a-kind automobile was created in 1969 by Hollywood’s master vehicle designer Jay Ohrberg, best known for having produced many of the world’s most coveted movie and television cars including KITT from Knight Rider, the DeLorean in Back To The Future, the Batmobile from the 1960s Batman series, the Batmobile from the more recent Batman films, the Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard as well as Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino among others.
It’s believed that Ohrberg owned the Pink Panther car until it was auctioned in 2007 when it was bought for £88,000 by the current owner. It is in totally original condition, though the seller says it would “benefit from some sympathetic restoration” as it is now 42 years old.
Interestingly, the engine was believed to be working when the vehicle was sold four years ago, but it’s apparently not running any more. Neither is the car street-legal. So if you know a good mechanic, have access to a private circuit and can find the £50,000 to £100,000 that auctioneers Robson Kay are expecting the vehicle to fetch, then you’ll be able to experience a drive that will literally tickle you pink.
For more information, including how/where to bid, please visit www.pinkpanthercar.com
