A fabulous weekend… part 2

We couldn’t believe how fast the weekend was going, Sunday already and the final day. Up, ready and back at the circuit early as usual for the morning run of pick ups from the Kennels and Hotel, plus several runs out to Lavant, all going smoothly as they had all weekend. 

Again things slowed down mid morning so the ‘humans’ set off on another little wander, this time down to Tesco. This great store recreated as a small supermarket in the early 60’s is a brilliant mix of fake period stock and items for sale such as sandwiches, chocolate and drinks, many of which are in vintage style packaging. It’s very popular especially as it’s the cheapest place on site to buy lunch!

We wandered around the stalls in the vintage village, a vast array of vintage clothing and accessories and car related goods and art. The SU carburettor stand was superb as a wartime bomb site, even the baby was in perfect period dress.A trip around the vintage stalls couldn’t be made without a small purchase – note the change of hat since the earlier picture! This lovely confection of gauzy ribbon, raffia and ribbon flowers had come from Germany and again was a perfect match with Mario and the Sunday frock, it stayed on much better especially with getting in and out of the car all day, a lady must consider the practicality of these things.Back to work and another busy period with everybody wanting to get into position for the big events of the day. We set of with some journalists and photographers who wanted to go out to St Mary’s, we hadn’t been right round the track yet and were pleasantly surprised at how easy and free flowing the perimeter road was. After dropping the passengers we spotted Craig and Kato having a break and watching the St Mary’s Trophy. We stopped and took a few pics of the on track action including ‘Little Regie’ who unfortunately had problems and run at the back although James’ was convinced that our ‘Regie’ with his 850 Dauphine Gordini engine would have been quicker.The next thing on the timetable was the Dan Gurney Tribute parade which we had been very keen to catch all weekend, as Dan’s Westlake Eagle was one of Jane’s favourite cars and although we’d seen it at the festival of speed, we’d never seen it on the racetrack even though it would be only parading and not being driven in anger. However the taxi’s had been very busy and so we were good and started to make our way back to base. Fate took over though and the perimeter road was closed for the air display so we were trapped and so took the forced opportunity to watch the parade. Dan was driven first by Lord March and then by Tony Brooks, other significant drivers such as Jackie Stewart also took part.Once we were ‘free’ we headed back to the taxi’s and spent the afternoon doing various runs and chatting to the drivers about their day. In no time at all, the meeting was coming to a close. We missed the presentations as we were still working and we were just finishing when Jochen Mass appeared wanting another ride to the hotel, after posing with the ‘team’ we set off on our final run, Jochen was charming as always and said he’d book us for next year. After we had left, Adrian Newey, quite often our final drive of the day turned up from the presentation of his TT win. Craig took him back in Kato and Adrian let them try out his winners laurels for size.We headed back to the circuit for one last time, Mario had completed 280km and performed perfectly all weekend. We spend so long looking forward to this event and it seems to go quicker every year but we are left with wonderful memories of all the fascinating people we have met and the sights, sounds and smells of what is just the best weekend ever… until next year (we hope).

A fabulous weekend… Part 1 Saturday

Firstly apologies for the lack of updates over the Revival weekend, a combination of lack of WiFi and being so busy but we’ll try and rectify this now with some great pics from the most brilliant weekend of the year.

Saturday was a glorious day, clear skies, sunshine and all the sights, sounds and smells of historic racing and vintage fashion. Being part of the GRTC (Goodwood Revival Transport Corps) is great fun but very hard work, we are basically ‘on duty’ from 7.30am until the event finishes for the day and often beyond. Our remit is to keep the event running smoothly and transport, drivers, ViPs, staff, press, members etc around the circuit and between the house, hotel, Kennels and circuit, this all helps add to the feel of the event and is essential within the circuit where no post 66 vehicles are allowed. Of course we have to be in period dress and Mario’s ‘human’ Jane has the perfect excuse for a wardrobe of beautiful 50’s clothes and ever more flamboyant hats – Saturday was ladies day and the new essemble was rolled out including this fabulous rose hat recently acquired from Crinoline Lady on ebay. Jane’s outfits are of course put together to match Mario perfectly!

We met up with our friends from Deryshire who come every year dressed as James Bond and the evil villains complete with the most impressive picnic in a wheeled hamper complete with ‘lazy susan’ which could only have been designed by Q.We share the taxi rank with the Glam Cabs from the Carry on Movie, the attractive girls create a great deal of attention but they and the Cortina’s are set dressing and it is the rest of the cars which do the work. A mixture of traditional old style London taxi’s, Vauxhalls and other pre 66 vehicles. One of our group got given a great tip this year…First thing it is always busy collecting guests from the hotel but there is generally a lull mid morning and we took the opportunity for an hour or so off to look round the infield. We’d timed our visit to perfection meeting Jean Alesi in the paddock, he appeared very interested in Mario and kept his card so who knows he may be reading this…

 

Next we saw the cars leave the paddock for the Settrington Cup – this newly introduced ‘race’ was for A40 Pedelcars driven by 5-10 year olds who all looked so cute.

We then head off to have a look round the Freddie March Spirit of Aviation concours for planes, there were some beautiful and usual entries including a great flying boat with an amazing bubble cabin. While wandering around the Spitfires took off for one of their displays so we had the perfect view.

On the way back to the taxi’s we spotted the St Mary’s paddock and a 4cv – Mario was delighted to see this racing version of his ‘brother Regie’ and even more impressed that it was called ‘Little Regie’ we will be able to see it on the track on Sunday.

After our interlude it was back to work, lots of runs up to the Kennels for lunch, out to Lavant which always gives a good opportunity to catch a little track action and back to the hotel. We meet such a lot of lovely people and hear all about the weekend from so many different viewpoints, it’s always fascinating to hear how the day has gone for the drivers.

Saturday always finishes a little early as all the teams and sponsors are off to the ball. It’s a bit manic for us as everybody wants to get back quickly to change into their costumes – this year the theme was Dr Zhivago, lots of fur and cossacks, we didn’t get to go this year but apparently there was lots of snow, pretty amazing in an aircraft hanger in Sussex! Finishing a bit early gave us the chance to see what was going on ‘Over the Road’, new for this year entertainment went on into the evening and the period fairground looked pretty in the dark. We popped into see the Haslemere Wardrobe who are our vintage partners in the Haslemere Classic Car Show that we organise. They’d been having a great weekend and introduced us to a lovely couple who had just got engaged in a De Havilland Dragon Rapide while flying above the circuit, how romantic is that? The pic shows John, Kate and others from Haslemere Wardrobe pointing at the ring.

Well that’s Saturday over, Mario had completed nearly 200km by now and used 19 litres of fuel so he was ready for a rest and the humans off for a much needed supper. Report on Sunday to follow…

 

 

 

 

Day two…

Sorry only a short blog tonight as no wifi in the pub! Mario has had a lovely second day, hot and sunny. We have now done nearly 200 km and met lots of lovely people. Jane got a cuddle from Jean Alesi and he kept Mario’s card. Will try to update with pics In the morning.

A very busy Friday…

What a busy first day of the Revival, Mario has covered more than 100km doing runs around the circuit and to the house, Kennels and hotel. As always really popular with the crowd with so many people taking photographs. Our old fan ‘Adrian Newey’ designer for Red Bull F1 stopped to say hello. This evening we took Jochen Mass back to the hotel and he was delighted to pose with Mario. We had a great view of the Battle of Britain flight and the park and circuit looked beautiful in the early evening sunlight as the racing went on until dark in a recreation of the traditional nine hour races held at Goodwood in the 50’s.

Great start to the Revival weekend

Well here we are moved in and waiting for our taxi drivers briefing which is held in the drivers club giving us a great opportunity to se the great Lawrence of Arabia set dressing. We had a beautiful sunny drive down, Mario being useful as usual as transportation for all the frocks and hats. After filling with fuel and checking into our room we had a lovely afternoon at the cricket match. The annual match between the drivers is a great relaxing way to start the weekend with a mock tail and meeting up with old friends including the marvellous Hardy and Laurel. The afternoon finishes with a spectacular display from the Spitfire, we also saw lots of the planes arriving for the Spirit of Aviation. Now off to supper and a good sleep before we start in ernest tomorrow.

Off for the best weekend of the year…

Mario is off to Goodwood today for the Revival meeting where he will undertake his usual taxi duties. check back here over the weekend and on his facebook page to see what he’s been up to.

Lime or Yellow…

… that is the question where Mario is concerned.

Ever since Mario was first restored 12 years ago his paint colour combination has caused much discussion. In his original guise Mario was blue with a white roof and we couldn’t decide what colour to paint him. His ‘brother Regie’ a 4cv convertible is Bugatti blue and we wanted something different, an outline drawing was coloured in many combinations until we found something that was colourful, interesting and we liked! A trip to the paint mixers with the drawing found two perfect period Fiat colours that matched the design, although they were never originally used for a Multipla. We loved the result – quirky, stands out and suits Mario to a T while still having that pastel 50’s ‘ice cream’ feel.

However women always say he’s green (lime) and blue while men think the colour is yellow! Well it looks as if there is a scientific reason for this. An article in the Daily Mail today talks about research undertaken by the City University of New York which has shown that male and female brains process colours in slightly different ways.

This means that if both sexes look at an orange, it will appear redder to the man than to the woman. Similarly, grass looks yellower to a man and greener to a woman and this would explain the difference in opinion over Mario’s colour.

Researcher Professor Israel Abramov said that differences between the sexes’ colour vision cannot be explained by differences in the structure of the eye. Therefore, the answer must lie in the way the brain, with the male sex hormone testosterone likely affecting how it processes and makes sense of the information taken in by the eye. The professor, who described the sex differences as ‘small but very real’ said: ‘We hypothesise that testosterone plays a major role, somehow leading to different connectivities for males and females.’

Even in photographs of Mario there is a huge difference in the colour depending on the light with some pictures looking much ‘greener’ than others. This makes trying to find a wardrobe to match Mario very difficult – we have been working very hard at this and there should be a new ‘matching’ outfit making an appearance at the Revival next week.

When Mario was photographed for Stephen Bayley’s book CARS the images were all produced in black and white so the form of teh vehicles could be clearly seen but Tif Hunter the photographer subsequently produced a stunning print of Mario in true ice-cream colours, although in this Mario definitely looks yellow!

So Lime or Yellow? let us know what you think…