History of the SOL rev. 9/17/1997  rg

A spin off of the Internet rec.autos newsgroups, by a bunch of good folks who got tired of the same old generic discussions usually found there, and wanted a better way to talk about "our cars" without weeding through all the noise. The British-Cars mailing list was first started around 1986 or '87 by OVR FOVNDER, Dale Cook. Due to loss of access, or unstable machines, it moved around to various sites for a while being hosted also by Jim Muller, who was then "Keeper of the Flickering Flame" for a while. Back then there were just a dozen or two of us, but we had lots to talk about. At times, we'd generate as many as 5 to 10 messages a day!

The list was finally picked up by Mark Bradakis, host of the Autocross list, around the begining of 1990. Under Mark's caretaking, readership grew to over 1000 British car lovers worldwide by 1984. Since then, the original list has spawned many sub-lists, for specific marques and even models of the most popular British Cars. Many of these lists are also hosted by Team-dot-net, while others are hosted on on servers spread throughout the world.

The Team.Net server first offered ftp access for archiving of information files, and expanded to include the World Wide Web in 1984. Mark created a couple initial pages, then Roger Garnett, author of several tech documents & FAQ files picked up most of the web management. Today the SOL Web shares part of the Team.Net file server, offering FTP and World Wide Web access to archives, tech info, pictures, and much more. Several Team.Net webmasters maintain sites for their favourite cars.

Many other early members are still around, altho some just "pop in" now and then, as time allows.

Keep an eye out for the SOL Union Jack and crossed spanner logo on cars and people at car shows and vintage races. Where there's British cars, the SOL are there. 

British Cars  Web