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Editor's welcome - August 2004

Welcome to this, the August 2004 edition of Classic Car Times. Last month I predicted that July would be a good one for me and it certainly has been.

Firstly I had the Mini Cooper trackday that I briefly mentioned last month, and sure enough it was better than I could ever have expected. I won’t say any more about it here as you can read about it elsewhere on the site.

In addition to this, I am very pleased to be able to announce that we are once again able to offer a free readers prize draw generously sponsored by Haynes. You can find full details of the competition and a review of the book being offered as a prize in this month’s edition of the site.

Esmond sends his apologies this month for not being able to provide us with an update on the progress of his Daimler Dart restoration. Progress has been hampered by that traditional seasonal problem of the summer holidays. I’m sure that his disappointment will be greater than ours.

However, to compensate for this, I am very pleased to have re-made contact with Rob McCall, our teenage restorer who you may remember from past months. We lost contact when he had problems with his PC but has now provided an update on how his restoration is progressing.

Unfortunately, there has been an incident that has tainted this month. One user on the site has been contacting others expressing interest in buying from them. There is every reason to suspect that this was a common scam whereby they then send the seller a cheque for more than the selling price and ask that the change be sent on. Ultimately their cheque bounces and the seller is left out of pocket.

On this occasion, it was quickly brought to my attention by a couple of alert readers and I was able to put an end to it before anyone got hurt. I contacted every seller that the fraudster had contacted and warned them what was going on, cancelled his account and then emailed him advising him that if he attempted to use the site again then the police would be advised.

So, nobody was defrauded on this occasion, but it still leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. Unfortunately this is the nature of the Internet. The reason I have gone to lengths to explain it now is that as I said, it is a common scam, which I wanted to make everyone aware of.

Anyway, that’s enough of the doom and gloom.

Hope you enjoy the site,

    John Cooper
    Editor

editor@classiccartimes.co.uk