Up, Up and Away... Above the Festival of Speed with Phoenix Helicopters

A different perspective of the weekend's Festival...

Many thanks to the team at Phoenix Helicopters... www.phoenixhelicopters.co.uk

Revival time again.

Is it really 12 months since we were last sat here in our tweeds & listening to the sounds of historic machinery going about its business?

Well, we're back in our traditional home just along from the assembly area and adjacent to Captain Mainwaring and his motley crew.

The sun's even out so our team are already at large capturing the sights, sounds & smells of this unique event on the historic motoring calendar.

Graham's just come back brandishing an interview with Red Bull's Christian Horner so we'll get that edited & uploaded - watch this space..

Immediate reaction to Malaysian Grand Prix

Graham, Dave and Andrew have a brief chat about the Malaysian Grand Prix....

Download the MP3 HERE

Melbourne Grand Prix - Immediate reaction

Graham, Dave and Andrew talk through the thrills and spills of a fantastic Melbourne Grand Prix....

Download MP3 HERE

Immediate reaction to the Bahrain GP....

Graham Benge, David Wakefield and Andrew Denyer give their immediate reactions the first race of the 2010 Formula One season... the Bahrain GP...

Download the MP3 HERE

Extra UKMotorTalk Programme!

A short extra edition of UKMotorTalk as Graham Benge, Andrew Denyer and Mike Turner get together to talk about Stirling Moss' unfortunate accident, and then discuss the price of new cars!

Download MP3 HERE

UKMT Podcast - From the Mini Countryman to the Plug In Car Grant!

UKMT's Graham Benge, Andrew Denyer and Mike Turner get together at the Goodwood Motor Circuit to discuss:

• The New Mini Countryman
• The New Porsche Cayenne
• Car "recalls"
• Car Theft
• The £5000 "Plug In Car Grant"

It's what you've been waiting for...! - UKMT's F1 briefing for 2010...

Just when you thought we'd forgotten... ;-)

Graham Benge, Andrew Denyer and Dave Wakefield discuss the forthcoming 2010 F1 season...:

New Cars
New Teams
New Driver line-ups
Who will be Champion?

For more, visit http://www.ukmotortalk.co.uk/

UKMotorTalk - First podcast of 2010

In this edition, the team:

• Discuss the world car market with Toyota, SAAB, Spyker, Ford and Volvo under the microscope
• Remind listeners about claiming for pothole damage to their cars
• Get excited about the new F1 cars!

Brighter, Better Headlight bulbs...

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from my regular pub quiz night... You can picture it... Wind, rain and dark, country roads.... I thought the road just looked a bit, well, dull!

When I got home, I confirmed that the dipped headlight bulb had blown.... So, the next day, once the rain had stopped, I replaced it with a spare bulb I had bought some time ago for this exact purpose...

Job done, I thought as I switched the lights on and did a full bulb test to make sure all was ok....

And, yes, the job was done... The car was legal again... All lights showing as they should....

But then I drove in the dark again... And I didn't think the road looked any brighter than it did before! So I checked the lights again.... Yes, all working...

It was now I began to wonder if I had got used to all of those bulbs that come with great claims for extra brightness that most of us would find hard to quantify....! 40% extra... 50% extra... And with price tags that are possibly exponentially inflated with the claims!!!

A little internet research, and a few tweets later, I had decided that I wouldn't mess about... Osram Nightbreakers claim an extra 90% at the same 55W.... That'd do me!

But, hang on a minute... The Passat takes 4x H7 bulbs for its dipped and highbeam headlights... This could get expensive! A quick (made all the briefer by the pain in the wallet!) search of the internet suggested more than £30 a pair.... Did I really want to spend £60 just to make the road a little brighter?

One more journey in the dark gave me the answer... YES!

So, I then dared to dive into ebay... and suddenly the prices didn't seem as extreme! In fact, roughly half as extreme!!!

I decided to buy from ebay seller wattbulb07 .... You can't generally argue with a 100% feedback rating...

The next day a package appeared......

So, £35 and a couple of damaged knuckles from the fitting, (that's a different story!), and the road ahead is, once more, a brighter place...

I guess this kind of thing may well sound trivial, certainly not as thrilling as driving the new Bentley or Aston, but in terms of road safety, and saving your eyes whilst driving at night, I find it money very well spent...

Of course, a lot of cars have clever headlight arrangements these days... HID, projector lenses, DLR, LED.... the technology and acronyms are endless... But if you go and put a "dull" bulb behind them, they might as well have candles!

Andrew Denyer

Land Rover Rally - Rural Life Centre, Tilford, Surrey

Can anyone think of a better way to spend a few hours on a Sunday than walking round a collection of Land Rovers, new and old?

OK, I can hear some sarcastic comments so don't answer that....

As regular followers of UKMotorTalk will know, 4x4s, and specifically Land Rovers, have long been my particular area of interest in the motor world... A Ferrari just doesn't have the same appeal to me as a Series 1 Land Rover!

So, a slight drizzle in the air as we arrived at the Rural Life Centre in Tilford in Surrey was not going to dampen my spirits...

Set in the fascinating surroundings of the museum, (well worth a visit any other day!) this fine collection of Land Rovers came from near and far... But, of course, it is not only the cars that we came to see, their owners were also on hand to chat to and share their own stories...

Amongst the early examples was this fine 1948 Series 1 which, as it says, was the second off the production line.

On a purely practical note, having information sheets, such as this one, on each and every Land Rover on display, was great for the casual observer... I realise that to some a 1948 Series 1 will not differ in any great way with a modern Defender (can I hear those sarcastic comments again?), and to have a concise note of age, model and any interesting historical points was really useful.

It wasn't all 60 year old nostalgia of course... We also spent many happy minutes talking to owners of much newer craft.... Freelanders, Range Rovers and Discoverys also being included.

On a very anoraky note, I was pleased to see a Discovery that was probably registered just minutes after my own... Its registration number only differing by a few numbers... Why does this give me a warm feeling??? Answers on a postcard!

All in all a really enjoyable few hours... Even of interest to the most junior member of the UKMT team... Though I will have to encourage him (and his father!) to not refer to all Land Rovers as 'tractors'! The owner of the Overfinch Range Rover would probably NOT be impressed! ;-)

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Sites of interest:
http://www.rurallife.plus.com/rlc/
http://csvac.com/