Roof racks are cool aren’t they? Well, I think so. Not on a modern car you understand, but a decent classic rack on the right classic car is a winning combination and instantly conjures up images of hardy owners battling across the alps with skis roped onto a wood-slatted rack, or a Miki Dora wannabe making his way to Malibu State Beach with an 8’ pin tail board up on top.
In search of being ‘cool’, my fascination with a nice roof rack has led me to buy several over the years and occasionally fit them to whatever car I’ve owned at the time.
An ebay listing that failed to sell a number of years ago was picked up for the princely sum of £5 and briefly appeared on top of a Mini before making its way on to the Porsche. In truth, it didn’t really fit: the rubber feet didn’t match the contours of the shapely bodywork and the most I ever strapped to it was a small spade when it snowed rather heavily one year.
The previous owner of my Scimitar offered to sell me a Desmo rack that he had used for European jaunts. Although practical, it just didn’t look the part – it attached to the gutter trims and sat about 10 inches above the car.
Since then, the hunt has been on for something more suitable and eventually a web search showed me what I needed on top of a Scimitar in sunny California. “Anyone know where I can get one of these?” was posted on the club forum and one immediately turned up in Basingstoke. More North Hants than SoCal, but the wooden-slatted chromed rack sits nice and low on the GTE and looks about as good as a rack can get on a Scimitar.
