Das Oldtimer Show, Ewald Mine

 Whilst staying in Recklinghausen, Germany, last Autumn, the Missus and me visited a fabulous vintage car show at an old coal mine.

Here's a few snaps, which I hope you enjoy.

Which is your favourite car?

Flat Battery in Thackley

Well, we are finally away from our daughter's snowbound Thackley Hill, but it wasn't easy.

After abandoning the car on Tuesday half way up the hill, we returned today to find the battery flat.

Being members of the RAC we asked for assistance and five hours later (we went back to our daughter's!) a very amenable RAC chap arrived in the dark. Sadly the battery was shot and a new one was needed. The RAC mechanic fitted it, helped us dig out the tyres and reversed us into a much safer downward hill start position.

£150 paid and we were away! Yay! 

A quick stop at McDonalds for some grown-up food and we're Moonbase bound!

Phew!

Have you ever had car battery problems readers?

Auf Wiedersehen Pupp

 A few final notes from abroad last month now I'm home.

I saw this toy cable car in a German shop window, which I thought was neat. Whether it moved I don't know. It didn't when I was there. 

I think the maker is Lehmann but I may have seen a Rigi one.

Me and the Missus said goodbye to everything in her late parents' apartment. Everything that we didn't sell at Flöhmarkten or give away. This old plaster grandma held on till the bitter end, finally parting with us in the final days before we closed the door for good. She just didn't want to leave.

This long model ship was in a Trödel Laden or junk shop. It will make someone who collects ships sehr zu frieden (very happy).

I snapped this hot air balloon as it was passing near our car boot stall. I hadn't realized I'd got the chap in too. He looks non-plussed! I've never been in a hot air balloon and with a bad fear of heights I wouldn't ever. I do love to see them though. You?

This beautiful Isetta caught my eye whilst we delivered a deck chair to someone. I remember these from being a kid in the Sixties. We called them bubble cars. 

Has any reader driven one? Have you ever sat in an Isetta?

And a final sad note: despite trying to re-home a lovely and large 1960's home-made Puppenhaus, or dolls house, with various friends, alas, it went back to the charity warehouse we bought it from four years ago to start yet another journey in its long life.

Auf Wiedersehen Puppenhaus.

Dean's Pop-Up Book of Motor Cars

New Zealand charity shops are not the wonderful palaces of rare and wonderful things that they are in Britain. However, there is one that is worth a look every time I am in the area, and my most recent visit turned up an old Pop-up book.

Dean's Pop-Up Book of Motor Cars was one of several transport-related Pop-ups produced by Dean & Son Ltd. The copyright date inside is 1961, but no author or artist is credited, although the cover painting is signed Gordon.

It is a small hardback book, 234 mm by 168 mm. There are three pop-up scenes.

The first shows a B.R.M. racing car on the track, with an empty oil drum marker. The next two pages show a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud and a Super Porsche 90.

The next scene has a fire engine on its way to a fire, with a Police car racing ahead to clear the way - 'just in case any cars, lorries or carts are taking up too much room on the road'. So, carts were still a traffic hazard in 1961.

Then a Formula Junior Lotus, an Aston Martin DB4, and the new Jaguar type 'E'. The final pop-up scene shows a Daimler double-decker bus over-taking the M.G saloon.

A nice little piece of history, and only $3 NZ (about £1.44).

I do not have a full list of these pop-up books by Dean & Son, but the transport series included books on ships, trains, trucks and tractors. But it seems there were none on aircraft ?

Paul Adams from New Zealand