Motors, Rebuilds and Roman Horses

Went to Blackbushe car auctions on Friday to collect a car and spotted these beauties going under the hammer:

I then did a quick detour to a place I used to haunt a couple of decades ago when I lived in Reading and had my last MGB - Beech Hill Garage off the A33; a specialist MG restorer, but they're not restoring as many as they used to.

This is a friend's MGB GT, which has been languishing at a local garage, slowly decomposing, for the best part of a year. It was an impulse buy, which he's now regretting. I'm hoping he's going to sell it to me at a very reasonable price so I can restore it.

Mechanically it's very sound and the interior is not bad at all - just needs stripping back, new wings (front and rear), new inner and outer sills, new door skins, some chrome and an engine-out respray. Probably about £6k of expenditure, but well worth it to end up with a classic that could be worth twice that.

I saw this registration on a van on Friday - never knew the DVLA were doing Roman registrations...

OK, I realise it's not a valid number, but it looks like it is. 1052 followed by 15, but the final X throws a spanner in the works. As a friend said to me yesterday; "Possibly owned by a Woderick or Wodney, or some wapscallion."

Here's another local wagon with an apt registration:

Might become an interesting registration spotter...