1969 Buick Colors Sales Brochure Leaflet With Paint Chips Original on 2040-parts.com

Festival of the Unexceptional: the bad cars we love

Ever been to a classic car show and noticed how many old MGBs and sports cars of yesteryear have turned up, driven by their proud owners, but wondered what happened to all the more mainstream stuff? There are twice as many Ferrari 308 GTBs on the roads in the UK than Austin Allegros, because the everyday cars of the past fail MOTs, get chucked away and replaced with shiny new hatchbacks. Fortunately, there is a select group of people in the UK who care for the mundane stuff of yesterday and, because of this, a new event for “unexceptional” cars will be taking place this summer.

2009 Mercedes-Benz S Class

The Mercedes S Class has long been at the forefront of car technology. You can bet your boots that what we see on any new S Class will be where mainstream makers go in years to come. The S Class was first with things like inertia reel belts and air-bags, and the 2009 Mercedes S Class (perhaps we should call it the 2010 Mercedes S Class in deference to our US friends) – although an update rather than new model – follows this tradition.

BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor arrives. It carries bicycles.

BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor (pictured) carries bicycles We’ve already had a preview of BMW’s ‘Green’ take on the new FWD 1-Series with the Concept Active Tourer ahead of the Paris Motor Show last year, and now we get the ‘butch’ take on the same theme – the BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor. But unlike most car makers, who make their pseudo off-road saloons ready for the great outdoors with raised ride height and bolt-on plastic cladding, all BMW seem to have done is fit the Tourer Outdoor with a bicycle carrying system. But unlike most bicycle carrying systems that bolt the bikes to the back of the car, BMW’s system puts the bikes under cover in the back on built in, retractable carriers.