Hello NW section,

Nigel Morley is looking for a show of hands. The organisers want your vehicle there Friday through Sunday 16th – 18th I believe. Nigel has a new phone number which I will pass on to you if you want to contact him to register your support. Otherwise use the form and I will pass your comments on. Link on the right under Blogroll. Named “Form at JowettNorthwest”.

I find it all a bit bewildering like the poor chap below:-

But here is to next year being the best Jowett year ever.

Most car owners would be alarmed to find out that their vehicle had been in a crash and that its body had been repaired using second-hand parts. Not so the owners of Jowett Jupiter JUN 70.

Some dedicated car club members have been trawling handwritten records to find the whereabouts of some 901 Jupiter cars manufactured in the 50’s. There is a door here, a boot lid there, and would you believe a very special bunch of spares.

In 1951 a Jowett Jupiter GKY 106, the 4th Std Jupiter ever produced, was raced in the 1951 Monte Carlo. amongst many other things.

Sadly by about 1970, the chassis had been scrapped and only bits survived. Someone has the spare wheel door and others have other bits.

However the bonnet was sold to a Mr S, previous owner of JUN. A recent visit to his widow, Mrs S revealed that yes indeed he had bought a bonnet from ‘down south’ after the car had been involved in a prang.

It is fairly certain that this is the bonnet on Jupiter #946 (Jun 70). So our bonnet raced in the 1951 Monte Carlo Rally!

‘Im in the garage outdoors, has been searching under the lid to find the necessary number stamped into the metal for definitive proof, sadly yet to be forthcoming. But fading eyesight is not good for this task and layers of paint and waterproofing may just have obscured it.

But I will be happy to tell anyone that parts of my body moved at speed, once.

Click here. This site was pointed out to me a little earlier today

Dianne says:-

The Bradford is slowly being sorted out. Glyn has painted the bulkhead
some of the chassis and on Sunday we put the engine back in, after a bit
of an issue with one of the engine mountings, it is now sitting quite
happily where it should be. Nothing is actually connected up yet, but it’s
getting there. We need to get a new silencer for it and then hopefully
everything can be reconnected and we can have it running.

I have finally tracked a picture of the Jupiter mentioned in the previous post comments. It is all dressed up as a wedding car here but the photo is recent.

Maid In China
Nearly every home in Shanghai has a maid, or Ayi. The word Ayi means auntie but an interesting side affect of the Country’s one child policy is the disappearance of some words from the dictionary. For example, Mandarin has separate and distinct words for older brother and younger brother. Likewise the names for sisters – mei mei and jie jie. In time siblings might expect to become aunts and uncles but no siblings means no aunts and as no one under the age of thirty has these relatives, the words themselves are becoming as extinct as a panda.
There is an Ayi where I am staying. She works six days a week, arriving mid morning and leaving at 5.00pm. An Ayi is most likely to be a woman from one of the poorer provinces. She will have a child and possibly a husband back there, whom she will visit only once at Chinese New Year. Then, the bus and railway stations of Shanghai are thronged with migrants. There has been a reporting of a new trend in ex-pats employing a male to undertake Ayi work. With great
imagination, they are known as Man-yi. Man or woman, they are much more than a cleaner. They get roped in for all the activities of the household from dog-walking to child rearing. Often ex-pats will declare, ‘my Ayi will do it/ collect it/ deliver it. And they do. Shopping for the family, they get the best deals in the markets too. Of course there are the tales of Ayi catastrophes from shrinking the best cashmere sweaters, to letting the children play on the roof. But the stories of ex-pats flying off home, then returning to find film in their camera of their Ayi and her friends dressed up and smiling in her family’s clothes must be an urban myth, surely.

Today l took the bus. But first, my outward journey in a taxi took about 20 minutes and cost about 1. 50. The driver in a sort of uniform jacket and wearing white gloves is seated on the left. His chair is partially encased in a plastic bubble, which means that the exchange of fare and receipt requires contortion and skill by both parties. When the meter starts, a friendly recording in English welcomes you and thanks you for taking this company’s cars before urging you to put or your seat belt. However, as the seats are covered in a white sheet, this is an impossible task. The taxi weaves crazily across the lanes with the Passenger clinging on to the grab handle above the door. Until recently, all this activity would also be accompanied by loud regular blasts on the horn. That is now forbidden by law, though it doesn’t take much to irritate a driver into blasting away. The safest way of telling the driver where you want to go is to have the address written in Chinese. The amateur linguist can make Nanjing sound like nanchang to the driver. Their knowledge of the city is excellent but should they get lost the meter is switched off and of course there is no tipping. It’s possible to hire a car and a driver for 50 GBP per day but my favourite means of transport is the bus, packed with commuters, school children, grannies and on one famous occasion, a basket of Chickens. Buses are clean and comfortable (if you can get a seat), and also bilingual. An LED display and a recorded voice announces the stops in English and Chinese. There is a conductor always a female who will swap your flimsy paper ticket for 20p 1/7th of the taxi fare. If the bus is packed the passengers will pass the fair along the bus. Today the bus driver got into a bit of a rage at the shocking lane indiscipline of white van man. I told him not to worry, it happens in the UK too. But he was too busy hurling insults in chinese for all to hear. I added mine in English, to further entente cordiale.

The ability to have a really luxurious lifestyle comes relatively cheaply in Shanghai and the Hotels have mastered the art of Customer service to a very high degree. Our Choir rehearsals are sponsored by, and taking place in a city centre Sofitel, where we have the use of a large function room with piano and bottled water (on tap so to speak) So every evening this week we will gather there to go through our notes in a warm and comfortable environment. But for real luxury nothing can beat Sunday brunch at the Westin Hotel. For the price of a good night out in Bradford, the most amazing buffet is spread out, ranging from caviar through lobster and crab piled high on ice, onto roast- dinners, stews and stir fry, passing every nations signature dishes (sushi, pasta, dim sum ) on the way. Washing all this down is free flow Champagne and wine. But should you fancy something else, cocktails are also available with today’s special introductory drink Caiprhina which I can’t spell even when sober. If you prefer a more healthy option there are Salad bars and fresh fruit of every colour. While chomping through this feast a variety of entertainments happen including a full orchestra and choir with soloists that would have walked away with the X factor. Although the Westin is the best, every hotel lays on a similar feasts, maybe as an alternative to the wall to mall shopping experience. Having indulged ourselves just a little (no caiprhina for me) and had a good wander round avoiding the salad bar it was time to go and rehearse, though a nap in a dark room would have been a possible and dare I say welcomed alternative.

Today, I was showing Jowett photos to a Chinese friend. He can’t understand the attraction of an old car, aspiring like 1.2 billion of his fellow countrymen, to a brand new vehicle and every month 8000 reach their dream in Shanghai alone! To lure them out of their car seats and onto public transport, huge free car parks have been created at the ends of the metro lines. There were only two metro lines in 2006, today they opened the seventh, and at least three more are scheduled to open by 2010 in time for Expo. The centre city car parking charges currently standing at 1 GBP an hour put off some. So as you can see, in this most capitalist of communist cities, market forces rule and whereas in the past an edict, issued from the government in Beijing would have sorted the problem, it’s the yuan in your pocket that matters now.