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Petrol Head's views - November 2004

This seems as good a place as any to vent my spleen. I get more and more infuriated that those of us who choose to run old motors seem to be the ones always made to suffer.

Why is it that the government always try to extra the last ha'penny from the poor old motorist?

Petrol prices are on the up, but if that's not enough, the buggers are now picking on the classic car owner who doesn't even use his car on the road!

We already have to fill out a Statutory Off Road Notice (SORN) while car the sits in the barn waiting to be restored, and now they want to charge us a fee for doing that. I suppose it's their way of raising more cash to cover the cock ups they have made in other areas.

It's recently been announced that another part of our motoring heritage is soon to be dead and buried. Confined to the cemetery of things that once made Britain Great.

Ford have decided that it's to close the Jaguar plant at Browns Lane in Coventry. Along with that, the Jaguar/Daimler Heritage Trust Museum will no doubt bite the dust.

So how many jobs will be lost? How many families will suffer in the process?

All this as a result of those faceless sods who run the Ford Motor Company wielding the axe. What's next? Maybe Aston Martin?

I went to Silverstone today to see the Historic Sports Car Club meeting. It absolutely bucketed down and after getting soaked, I had to stump up what amounts to an hours pay for most of us, to pay for the dearest cheeseburger on the planet.

Bernie Ecclestone is right to tell the BRDC that they must either get the place up to scratch or lose the Grand Prix.

Silverstone may have spent a lot of money on the track, better access roads, the grandstands and new toilets, but when it rains the place is a bloody quagmire. In sunny July, that doesn't really matter too much as the big corporates will still flock there for a piece of the action.

If they loose the Grand Prix, then maybe they will be forced to put more events on that will attract the genuine motor racing enthusiasts who could never afford to go to a Grand Prix.

I ask you, what's happening in this country?

Petrol Head

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