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The 29th
British Car Day
8 February
2015
by Rob Jones
Triumph Tigress x 4. A new exhibit greatly
enjoyed by many.
As a past
president of the British Car Club and as Chairman of the
BCD organising committee for another 4 or 5 years the show is dear to my
heart. There are many of us who have grown a lot older together
attending this event and sadly, quite a few who are no longer here to do
so. To this day I still publicise the event in the Wairarapa and
organise various supporting ventures as I might come across them, like
the selling of Girl Guide biscuits this year.
Every year we see more cars, new
restorations, a Bradford van, cars that have never been before, a
Triumph 2.5 race car, the Austin Princess parked with the P76’s, a 1906
Alldays and others including Daisy, a Morris Minor that finally
broke the MG stranglehold on the People’s Choice. Newly acquired
cars like the XK150S and many others I could name.
Most marques are represented, some in
bulk like Jaguar, Daimler, Land Rover, Vauxhall, MG and of course all
types of Mini. All Rootes variants, Rover, Ford, Austin, Morris,
Armstrong Siddeley, Riley, Triumph and Wolseley are also strong
supporters and then you get a bunch of Jensen’s, Jowett’s, Reliant’s,
Morgan’s and a good selection of Rolls Royce and Bentley models with
Leyland, Aston Martin and Alvis amongst others to fill the gaps.
And the motorcycles too!
The show supports Wellington Free
Ambulance and it is a few months later that a substantial donation is
presented to WFA. I’d be interested to see how many thousands have
been given over the years.
This year’s show was again supported
by the British High Commissioner, or his representative and it was a
proud Trevor Stone of the WVBC that received the Best Club Display prize
from him and Club president Stan Edmonds. Trevor might well have
got People’s Choice for the outstanding restoration of his PAX Vauxhall
but John’s Morris had the novelty edge!
Representing our Club were Paul and
Linda with his PS S V8, Ron with his TFR and all of us, me, Sonya, Megan
and Abby in the AEB D6 and we were supported by the welcome visits of
Hugh and Bronwyn and Bryan and Beth Lawrence whom we haven’t seen in a
long while.
Ron and Paul decided we needed an
edge so produced the highest by far flag pole on which we flew our
Leyland flag. They combined the two poles into one really tall
one. We shared Ron’s gazebo, brilliant things these are, filled it
with our chairs and a table and coffee, food etc and made everyone
welcome. We get a lot of visitors from all over as that is what
the event is like, an enthusiast’s reunion. Sonya worries that I
know so many people!
It can be a long day and one may have
a very dry throat by days end, too much chatting!
Photos will follow along the same format as
before but on the day I met an Englishman, Chris Caffin, who told me
that this was the first P76/6 or V8 he had seen since 1973/4 when he was
visiting the Leyland plant in Capetown, South Africa. He
absolutely remembers seeing a P76/6 there, it having been sent out for
evaluation. He doesn’t recall the colour! He didn’t
recall anything else at the time and was heading off overseas a few days
later but I will be in touch with him again for sure. Where is it
now I wonder?
Below we have Pauls photo of the
Leyland line up with visitors checking out Ron’s car – check out that
flag atop the long pole! Yes we are always on the outside rim of
the display area.
And below we have the 1906 Alldays
Light Car #2 in case you were wondering what one of these is. I think we have since determined this to be the
second oldest car to attend British Car day after a 1903 Wolseley
visited several times some years back. This is before they combined with Onions and
became Alldays and Onions. True!
More BCD photos.
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