Money Talks

The R34 skyline GT-R is caught up in a whirlwind of investment and fresh interest. Luckily, this fine example, tuned by Japanese Nissan specialists signal auto, hasn’t lost any of its soul along the way...

- Emma Woodcock 

Digbeth, a small strip of land immediately south of Birmingham city centre, has always been more cut glass than rough diamond. Typhoo Tea was once based here, as was Birds Custard, but those days are long since past. Only the factories remain: derelict mausoleums of industries defunct or relocated, they crowd the streets, a claustrophobic presence that glowers down at the potholes and bus stops below. They’re matched by a coach station of reddish brick and concrete pillasters, a great brute of a structure that vomits passengers into the unvarnished reality of Britain’s second city.

Walk the streets and things feel bleaker still. The sun shies away and the sky shouts grey and black down on a world of Victorian utility and crumbling post-war Brutalism. Some doors are shuttered, some doors are caged and, as your steps carry you deeper into the back streets, you’re soon surrounded by shuttered pubs, under-arch mechanics and the conspicuous inconspicuousness of a dozen adult shops. One of the car park owners has bordered their property with cubed cars and giant, defiant flaming torches. Bleak yet bombastic, their Thunderdome aesthetic would feel out of place anywhere else. In Digbeth, it’s just another piece in a jigsaw of dilapidation and systemic local neglect.