Haugland Collection

I've been doing a terrible job of posting photos from this trip to France and Switzerland our first car-related stop was near Beaune. As an Abarth collector, this was a must visit museum. In a building of the chateau, there is one of, if not the largest collection of Abarth cars in the world. It certainly has my 11 cars beaten with several pure race cars that you won't generally see anywhere else. If Abarth s aren't your thing, there's an even larger collection of motorcycles, model airplanes, tractors, fire engines, and outside a collection of historic military jets from around the world. It's definitely worth a visit, in a beautiful part of the country, and the wine is quite nice too!

and I are in Paris right now, visiting France in order to attend Retromobile this week. We'll be in France until mid-February travelling and visiting other car museums, etc. as well as eating and drinking fantastic food and wine. As usual, I'm enjoying spotting cars on the streets, with the usual 2CVs a rogue Fiat 500 as well as this much more unusual Renault. I haven't been to France in probably about 30 years so everything is essentially a new experience again.

has finished painting my 1967 Mini Cooper S Mk1! This was a largely original car to start with and I've had this car largely disassembled for several years waiting to move forward and I'm finally getting around to getting it back together. The paint came out fantastically, in period correct Island Blue with an Old English White roof, Instead of the original Almond Green/OEW (my least favorite Mini colour). I have a large stockpile of new and original parts to get this reassembled, so hopefully will have a running hydrolastic suspension Mini on the road soon. has rebuilt the subframes and will be assembling the car. did the engine work, so this is definitely a multi-shop effort and I'm looking forward to being able to drive it again! #1275