Showcasing talent and skills from the island of Ireland

pastdrives is a new platform that gives you the opportunity to document and with a little luck, expand or complete your car's history. It's a way to share your cars and their stories, whether they're tales of epic restoration, drives to the Alps, or just polishing and pottering.

pastdrives lets you build your own web pages to showcase your cars, past and present, complete with their histories and ongoing adventures. If you spot one of your own past cars you can connect and help complete its history. And if the time has finally come to part with your beloved, you can flag your car as ‘for sale’.

With new cars and content every day, it's an indulgent place for petrol heads and for anyone else who loves the experience of classic motoring.

There’s also a tax disc style sticker for your windscreen that allows any smart-phone to scan and connect to your pages when you're out and about, as well as a myriad of other fascinating features to explore.

You'll find it all at pastdrives.com

Lifestyle Photography is about telling your story through a lens. The primary goal is to tell stories about people’s lives by capturing them in their real-life situations, events or milestones in an artistic art of the everyday.

The uniqueness of Lifestyle Photography is that it is “posed” in a way that the photographer gives some direction and then documents the resulting natural responses.

Lifestyle Photography is about the images that will become your legacy.

I am a long-term petrol-head and I have an interest in all types of transport. My car journey began with my first car, a light blue Maruti Suzuki 800.

The Maruti Suzuki SS80 with its monocoque chassis and front wheel drive weighed in at just 600kg while sitting on 12-inch cross-ply tires.

The 796 cc engine had a single carburettor which made 39 hp when new and had four forward gears with synchromesh on first. This car was good for 120 kph top speed and despite any real sound proofing to speak off, a normal conversation was possible at 100 kph.

Despite its looks the SS80 was a tough little car and withstood frequent overloading and poor road surfaces on long journeys into the country it’s three link set up with leaf-springs doing an admirable job.

I had great memories of this driving this little car around India.

When approaching the Ireland Made website, I wanted to ensure free flowing style and so I used the BeTheme as it gave the website a professional look from the outset. Essentially the brief was for websites within websites. Ireland Made being the holding site with a potential of thirty-two websites contained within.

My love of all things automotive comes from the aesthetics of good design.

The flowing lines of practical design can be found just as easily on a Ferrari as on a Ferguson tractor. While others may tinker and take apart, my own interest comes from the sensory-emotional values of practical design.

I especially love to follow the stories behind barn finds and how something that has lain under dust for so long can be brought back into the light. My favourite barn find was in 2014 when a treasure trove of rare classic cars was found hidden in a series of farm out-houses and barns in western France. Amongst names such as Maserati, Bugatti, Delage and Hispano-Suiza, was a rare Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder, hidden under a pile of vintage car magazines. It recently made a stunning $23 million at auction.