Issue 203 (May 2023)

Description

Heading up the May 2023 issue of Irish Vintage Scene is a fascinating American classic that’s hardly remembered today – the DeSoto brand was popular across the Atlantic throughout the thirties, forties and fifties, but lost ground in the late fifties against stiff competition and was axed by parent company Chrysler in 1961, making the 1956 Firedome V8 featured this month a rare sight. Our second featured car is another very uncommon machine, a 1937 Triumph Gloria Southern Cross sports car that’s been in the same ownership since 1990, and has recently been restored as a very special Father’s Day present!

Moving to tractors, this month’s featured beauty is a very distinctive yellow 1991 Massey Ferguson 399 that’s actually been that colour from new, as it worked at an airport in Scotland in its early life. It’s now been completely restored to a simply stunning level, ready for the classic shows. Our featured motorbike is a 1986 Suzuki GSX1000 EF that was seriously cutting-edge in the mid-eighties, while our commercial feature tells the long-running restoration tale of an extremely rare Austin A35 pickup, one of less than 500 ever built.