RE: I am back - a UK trip report.

["Ian J Haseltine" <Jim_Haseltine@msn.com>]

>London is one gorgeous city. Very friendly and works like a clockwork, 
>both observations are quite surprising, given it's size.  
Friendly? you should try coming north, but avoid the big city war zones like 
Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Bradford unless you like wearing body armour.
It works like clockwork with the main spring broken if there is any problem at 
Kings Cross.

>the lack of steering wheel in front of the *driver's* seat
This always gets me whenever I go to Europe, I collect my hire car and get 
into the passenger seat! Worse, when I get back to the UK, I do the same 
thing.

>the British are a live example of how efficient and 
>fast driving can be if everyone knew and obeyed the rules. My friend was 
>casually cruizing @90mph on M25, passing the slower and being passed by 
>the faster. During my stay I saw almost no police, no accidents, no 
>cutting off, no finger flipping, no clunkers on the road.
Yeah, lane disipline is pretty good on the M25 but only 'cos its so crowded 
that you can't change lanes even when you want to.

>American iron: one late Vette (parked in front of the Harrod's, along 
>with the Bentley and RR limos - must be expensive in the UK). One old 
>Mustang convertible. One Hardly-Davidson. End of list.
Vettes are expensive over here, the going price for a 79 350ci with history 
and 70k miles is about 8500GBP, late 60s models go at 20k GBP and 60-61 models 
at 25+k GBP . Trans-Ams and Camaros are more common, but about 4000GBP. There 
are quite a lot of Harleys in the country, most are the big V-twins but some 
of us have got more unusual models, I've got a SX175 in boxes awaiting a 
rebuild some time in the future.

Jim Haseltine
88 Ur quattro