MOPAR Muscle Day - Brooklands - 29th May

[Tony oily bike]

The Brooklands Museum, just a few minutes from Junction 10 of the M25 and the A3 London to Portsmouth trunk road, (assuming your not walking) is having a gathering of MOPAR muscle cars.

Entry charge includes access to the museum exhibits as well the site/track.


http://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/index.php?/events/details/mopar-muscle-day/


Just read the "Babs" is back at the museum for a while too.

Photo acknowledgement to Michael Ware and http://www.prewarcar.com/

The engine: A 24 litre V12 Liberty aero engine........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babs_(Land_speed_record_car)

[Manky Monkey]

I'll let Taz know -if we start pushing it now, we might just make it there in her Dodge by the 29th. Can't wait till we can drive hers up onto the banked circuit for the annual Mopar photo shoot.
Brooklands is a great venue -so much racing history there. Definitely worth a look if you've never been before.

[tazet]

This weekend  With luck, we might be there -just as spectators.

[Manky Monkey]

Mopar meet runs from 10am till 1pm.

[Manky Monkey]

"Mopar" is short for Motor Parts & is the automobile parts and service arm of the Chrysler Group. It's passed into broader usage among car enthusiasts as an inclusive word for any Chrysler built vehicle -most any Dodge, Chrysler, Plymouth, Imperial, or DeSoto.

-taken from Wikepedia, the home of all factual information.

"Mopar" seems to mean different things to different people -usually depending on what car they happen to own.
Personally, I see it as an all inclusive term for any classic American muscle car built somewhere between the 60s & early 70s.
"Muscle car" can mean a lot of things too of course. When the American auto industry first discovered a whole new youth market in the early 60s they began turning out what the kids wanted -speed & lots of it. In typically Yank fashion though, there's nothing remotely subtle about it. No clever steering geometry, braking or suspension -just the biggest V8 motors they could produce, shoe horned into even bigger cars. Aerodynamics were far less important than an aggressive stance & a cool name -Charger, Challenger, Fury, RoadRunner. It was all about being the loudest, fastest, coolest kid on the block.

Those cars are now all well over 40 years old & like most of us middle aged, can't really cut it with the younger, more sophisticated generations. There are tiny, tinny, foreign 1 litre hatchbacks being driven by foul mouthed, baseball hatted yoofs, that could easily run rings around the Mopar dinosaurs. Only the mid life crisis generation can afford the petrol to run a 7 litre V8 these days. With parts getting scarcer, prices for good condition cars have stayed high, although rebuilding one can cost 3 times it's resale value, (yeah, I'm speaking from personal experience).
So what would induce any right thinking person to buy such a machine?
Sit in one, turn the key & hear that huge motor bellow into life, feel the vibes run right through to your very soul, peer out over that enormous brightly coloured bonnet & feel the beast just straining at the leash, waiting for you to snick it into gear & take off in a smoking, tyre squeeling cloud of pure adrenaline -& you'll know.
Muscle cars are just effortlessly cool.

[Manky Monkey]

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