HCCS 2018 – hard work but a great success

I haven’t had time to post anything on here for some time… it’s all down to the classic car show we organise in our home town of Haslemere. For several months I have been involved in planning, booking entrants, sorting stalls, mapping the tour, getting advertising and sponsors, producing the programme and other advertising material so there has been little spare time for anything else. Even poor Mario has been abandoned but he didn’t sulk about it and came out on the day to help transport lots of essential stuff to the site and of course to be on display and meet his fans.

The build up started a couple of days before with collating all the material and putting together packs for the tour entrants. The day before we spent several hours, measuring and marking out the Green, we are very short of space so needed to position everything carefully on the day. Mario was loaded up with a little help from our cat Birkin and with a very special passenger but more on that later.

If you had seen the weather forecast for Sunday 27 May you would have thought that any event would have to be cancelled… I was practically in tears thinking all the hard work we had put in would go to waste but the people of Haslemere must all have been good, as despite the terrible predicted storms, the sun shone down on Lion Green and our 10th Classic Car show took place under glorious blue skies without a drop of rain.

The day started for 90 of our entrants with breakfast before they set off on a tour of around 60 miles, heading South of the town to Midhurst and then through Selham, Graffham and Fittleworth for a stop at the Stag Inn, Balls Cross where new landlords Jane & Mark Squire made them very welcome with coffee and biscuits before they continued via Wisborough Green, Alford and Shillinglee back to Lion Green. The route is devised by  James who puts his rallying experience to good use.

Back in Haslemere, we had been busy setting up over 50 quality stalls selling craft work, local produce, art and a great selection of food and drink, cream teas and entertainment from George’s Coastline Jazz Band. The tour cars arrived back and were joined by the show cars to fill the green, parked brilliantly by the local 1268 (Haslemere) Squadron ATC. We did lose some of the 230 pre-booked cars, as lots of them travel a long distance to attend and the weather elsewhere wasn’t as kind, so we weren’t as full as planned but the Green still had around 200 beautiful pre-1978 classics.

The cars made a wonderful display covering nearly 100 years of motoring, with entrants of all eras, styles and sizes from the smallest microcar to huge American cruisers. Many had been in families for years while others were new acquisitions but all were their owner’s pride and joy. Simon Dodd took this great Drone picture showing the Green filling up.

Crews are encouraged to dress in period to match their vehicles and Adrian Hardwick of Keats Estate and Letting Agents, the shows supporters, judged the entrants and choose the worthy winners. After some discussion the ‘style’ award  went to Dr David Nancekievill from Haslemere with his immaculate prize winning Daimler V8 250, beautifully attired wife Janet and some amazing period accessories.

Runners up were Alec Fry from Midhurst in an Austin A30 and Ivor Tanner from Ifold in a Riley 1.5.

We also have a ‘People’s Choice’ competition where show visitors vote for the car they would most like to take home. The overwhelming winner was Dave Melton from Haslemere in his newly restored Daimler Dart SP250 MK1, the Dart has gone from a total wreck to show standard in under a year and Dave has had the show as a target throughout the restoration. Runners up were Stewart Copps from Portsmouth in an MG PA which has undergone a family restoration over 50 years and Gary Bartlett from Winchester in his Immaculate Ford Capri MK1 1600GT.

Finally another reason why I have been so busy was our contribution to the Haslemere Hares – a community arts project which raises lots of money for local charity. The car show had sponsored a hare (in 2017 we had a Haslemere Hog) and this year I pained him. The theme was ‘the wind in your HARE’ a celebration of open top classic motoring. James started by modifying the ears so they looked like they were going back in the wind, then I hand painted his jacket, a decoupage local map bottom and ears, then original HCCS designed fabric scarf and a cloth cap. I was very pleased with the result. He will now be on display in Haslemere for the summer and then sold/auctioned.

So after all the panics and hours of work it was all over in a jiffy. Everybody seemed to have a good time and it is nice to give something back to our town and community. We never did get the threatened storms but you could see them on the horizon when we got home.

So that’s HCCS over for another year, once I’ve finished sorting all the photo’s updating the website and so on I will get back to updating the blog more regularly, we’ve still got adventures to tell about Members Meeting and the snow plus lots of exciting stuff coming up…

Thanks to Steve Flynn, Liz McDonald, Adam Simmonds, James Lynch for additional photos. All images are ©HCCS and can only be used with permission.

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The busiest day of the year…

May is always a very busy time for us as we organise the Haslemere Classic Car Show and tour in our town. 2016 was the eighth year we have run the show although it has grown considerably over the years. We launch the event in late Jan/early Feb depending how good we have been about getting our annual business accounts done! Luckily as the day is so popular we don’t have to do too much to promote it. We are limited in space by the size of the Green and this year for the first time we were full with advance bookings and even had a waiting list for the morning tour.

There is a lot of organising to do in 4 months, booking in all the cars, sorting the stalls and food, producing a lucky programme, advertising, posters etc plus a FaceBook campaign and local press to let the public know about the event. People come from all around the area and this year we had several entries from further afield.

After a busy week of final preparations we spent the Saturday morning, marking out the Green with a cricket pitch marker to a very detailed plan we had drawn to scale. This was important as we had limited space and we needed to use it effectively. A friend of ours used a drone before and after the show so we could see how well our plan worked. It would have been very successful apart from the St. Johns Ambulance parking in the wrong place and blocking the carefully planned access road, which we didn’t notice until it was too late!Homemade bunting using previous years rally platesAfter years of going to car shows ourselves, we have tried to make the HCCS the show we would like to go to. We like to drive our cars and so in the morning we organise a ‘tour’. Nearly 100 cars met on the Green for breakfast before departing on a 60 mile round trip through the beautiful local countryside of the South Downs National Park with a refreshment stop at the Goodwood Motor Circuit. We still managed to find some new roads that even the ‘locals’ hadn’t been down before.

The cars arrived back to meet up with the show cars and all parked up on the green to make a great display. The show is just an afternoon rather than an whole day and so people don’t get bored and the majority of the entrants stay for the duration.

Around the Green we have 50 or so quality stalls, selling crafts, local produce, vintage and classic car related products, together with a varied selection of hot and cold food, bar, cream teas, charities and local organisations. The Georges Regis Jazz Band entertains the crowds and there are amusements for the kids.

We hold a couple of competitions, the People’s Choice where the public vote for the car they would most like to take home and the Best Dressed Car and Driver, judged by James and show supporter Adrian from Keats Estate Agents. We also organise a ‘Bake-off’ competition for cakes that look good and taste good for adults and kids.

Yet again we were lucky and it was a glorious sunny day, the Green was bursting with fabulous cars, both the immaculate and the well loved. Mario was obviously on display. The whole day seemed to go very well with everybody enjoying themselves and we had lots of lovely comments. It’s just a shame that the day goes so quickly and we don’t really have the time to see everything and talk to everybody properly.

Organising the day just take a lot of hard work and effort which is all done voluntarily and in our ‘spare’ time but it is nice to give something back to your community and although we always go through a few moments of ‘I’m never doing this again’ we are already talking about how to improve things on 2017!

Mario chills in the sunshine with his friend BellaThree stunning cars from a local private collection caused great excitement. Lamborghini Miura, Lagonda Le Mans and Gullwing Mercedes. Best dressed Car and Driver Winner Lisa Costello. Lisa only finished restoring this lovely Isetta 2 weeks before the show and a day before she used it to drive to her wedding! Runner-up, Best Dressed – Richard Bourne from London in his immaculate 1965 Jaguar E-type Series 1 Roadster This immaculate 1972 Ford Capri (my Dad had one just like it) owned by Gary Bartlett from Winchester won the People’s Choice Runners-up – Dean Lucas from Haslemere in his 1965 MGB and Bob Marchant from Brighton in his 1967 Austin A35 Police Van  Busy stalls Town Crier Christian Ashdown was a Bake-off Judge Winners of the Bake-off, Mother and Daughter effort from Debbie and Kate Valentine Best dressed car and driver entrants Bright and colourful show Time to go home…

 

Memories of vehicles from our past…

It’s been a while since we blogged but it’s a bit of a quiet time car wise, Mario is safely tucked away from the inclement weather and the new season’s events still seem a while away (although it is less 5 weeks to the Goodwood 73rd Members Meeting). Plus we have had most of our spare time taken up with organising the Haslemere Classic Car Show & Tour!

However while looking through some old photo’s I got to thinking about the cars from our past…

As a child my father was car-mad following formula one and rallying but with his own transport had rather dubious taste. He has been a ‘Ford’ man for his entire driving life (and while we’re about it always used Michelin Tyres and Shell Fuel) starting with a Ford Prefect before I was born. After I arrived he moved on to a Ford Anglia, this was crashed into and rolled when I was a baby – asleep in the back, I was handed out through the broken rear window into the arms of a passing woman who nearly dropped me as she thought I was dead! In fact I slept through the whole experience and have just a fleeting memory of a Doctor telling my Mother to keep me awake in the hospital. The Anglia was brought back from the insurance company and repaired but my Mum never liked it again and so it was passed on to my paternal Grandparents who kept it for years and I enjoyed many happy days out in the back.

My Dad progressed through a series of Fords – White Cortinas which I remember on holidays in Cornwall and the endless telling-off’s for filling them with sand and wildlife! He progressed to an Escort Ghia, pictured here in Wales in 1978 with a ‘glamorous’ 15 year old model. In a very 70’s bronze with a black vinyl roof, the personal numberplate came from the previous owner believed to be the actor Terence Rattigan.Dad went on to have a Mid-life Crisis and owned a bright red Ford Capri before settling down to more mundane Orion (which was Stolen) and a Focus. With this rather restricted experience of cars one could wonder how my own love of cars developed but my Mother and maternal Grandfather, who lived with us, more than made up for Dad.

Grandad, who I adored had a very varied selection of what now would be considered ‘desirable’ everyday classics, a Wolsley, Morris Minor, Triumph Dolomite, a gorgeous primrose Yellow Triumph Herald, an Allegro, a Peugeot 104 and a Triumph 1300, which the steering wheel came off while driving down the A3!

My mother who, while I was small, transported me around on the back of her bicycle upgraded to an A30 when I started school, I have very fond memories of piling in the back with, what was probably an illegal number of friends and setting off for days at the seaside, having to park on the flat as the handbrake wasn’t very good. I also recall waking up one morning to find the A30 up on bricks as the wheels had been stolen, and no my parents lived in a ‘good area’. The A30 was upgraded to a white Mini Countryman ‘Snow White’ – room for more kids in the back and then an Anglia Estate, as we got bigger.

By the time I reached 17 I was desperate to learn to drive, I’d already been taught the basics on the old army camp up the road and on the morning of my 17th birthday proudly set off with my Mum in our Fiat 850 – called Tetley as it had 1000 little perforations, if you are old enough you will understand!Poor Tetley’s perforations got the better of her and she didn’t last long and I took my test in a Ford Escort 1300GT, the shame of a two Ford family. By this time James and I were an item, he’d been car obsessed since he was born, amazing as his family only saw cars as transport and had to buy a Ladybird book to keep up with his interest. He started big with a Maserati 250F..…but by the time we were dating has ‘progressed to a Gilera Motorbike, this was incredibly noisy and I could hear him arriving from a mile away!

We both had a love of cars and used to visit shows and events. James’ first car was a Mini, this was followed up by an Avenger which he wrote off and a Ford Cortina with a Webasto sunroof and a brown fur interior – you would have thought this would have put me off but it was the early 80’s!

The roll call continued with a Fiesta and then a Renault 5 Gordini, this was a lovely car, fast – I drove at over 100mph for the first time! We took it on holiday to Europe.

 

The Gordini was sold to fund the purchase of his first real classic, a 1961 3.8 Mark 2 Jaguar. Again we took it all over the place to lots of shows and it was a lovely car, although it did catch fire once on Hindhead Hill! Pre-mobile by the time somebody had driven to call the fire brigade James had put it out with a blanket, I of course was paranoid that it would blow up like all the cars in the Movies. The Jag was used as a wedding car for our oldest friends wedding in 1988, James as Best Man had to be at the church so he had to intrust the job of driving the bride to church to my Dad, I don’t know who was most relieved to see the car show up James or the groom!

James continued with more Mini’s, some for the road and some for Racing and Sprinting and a 1275GT, rolled by his cousin on one memorable boxing day when they popped out for a ‘quick spin’ returning about three hours later on a tow truck. Plus of course he had numerous cars for rallying which I wrote about in the last post and another bike – a Triumph Bonneville.

When I was at college James brought me my first classic a 1950’s Austin A35 in Speedwell Blue, I loved it and we went all over the place on A35 club events. On the way back from Longleat we had severe overheating problems and the head gasket had failed, this resulted in us taking the car to Kent to use a friends garage and completely overhauling the engine. This was my introduction to being ‘Mechanics Mate’, being given all the dirty jobs and I still wasn’t put off. I loved the A35 and it was great fun, however I eventually was given a company car and had a new shiny Peugeot 205. This was the first of a series of small Peugeots and I still have a, now rather old, 206GTI as an everyday car today.The convenience of a new car and with our time taken up with houses and jobs the poor A35 was left at my parents and needed rather a lot of work to get it back up to scratch. So in 1994 when we decided to buy Regie a Renault 4CV convertible from the South of France we popped the A35 on the trailer and gave it to some friends in St Paul de Vence, it’s probably still in the garage we popped it into 20 years ago. We took Regie home and restored him as per our previous post, then around 1996 James popped off mysteriously to France and came home with a Citroen H-van or ‘Grumpy’ truck. I’d been coveting one of these for years but it was a complete surprise when he turned up with one off the ferry at 6am. We had great fun with the truck putting upholstered bench seats in the back so large groups of us could go out and picnic at events such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We also took the truck on one of the Footman James Retro Runs to Silverstone where we got to do a lap of the track – dressed as french farmers with a Pantomime cow in the back Silverstone had seen nothing like it and we won the C&SC Spirit of the Event award, I believe that the historic lap was captured on video, I’d love to see it if anyone has a copy.Unfortunately the Grumpy Truck really needed too much work doing to it and we had neither the time or money so it was used as a ‘shed’ for a number of years until it was eventually sold for spares.

The next classic was  of course Mario followed by Nippy the Subaru 360, both of which are still in the family and have of course Regie and are all here to stay. So who knows what the future will bring, you’ll have to keep reading the blog…

 

 

 

A perfect day for going topless!

Not wanted to cut Mario’s roof off, we went to the Goodwood Breakfast Club – Soft Top Sunday – yesterday in his elder brother ‘Regie’ the Renault 4cv Convertible. It was a beautiful ‘topless’ run down from Haslemere to Goodwood, other than the total a**e in a Porsche who proceeded to ‘boot’ it, overtake his mate, then slow down and pull over to let his mate pass back before pulling out right in front of us! All this on single carriageway roads with bends and dips and while he had his small children in the back! Unfortunately these idiots will end up spoiling breakfast club for everybody, as it’s only a matter of time before there is an incident, luckily it wasn’t us yesterday!

We arrived at the circuit and were let straight in with our pass and managed to park at the end of the start straight. The circuit was heaving with cars parked right round to Lavant – reports have said over 1000 cars in the circuit and 3000 in the public car parks, a popular event helped by a lovely sunny morning. We were snapped by Goodwood driving up the grid.

We met our mate Craig who was there in Victors D-type replica.

Again there were a lot of standard modern convertibles about which really don’t interest us very much but unlike super car sunday there were many more classics, interesting stuff which you can’t see in any supermarket car park. This Citroen Mahari was lovely.

An Invicta and a Hispano Suisa made an impressive sight. A great ‘shedy’ Austin 7 with a rather strange bonnet mascot. My first classic was an Austin A35 so thought this converted Austin was great fun. It didn’t appear to have any weather protection though so maybe not so useful in the UK. Really like this little Honda S800, in fact most of the small Japanese sportscars from that era are very appealing, maybe ‘Nippy’ the Subaru needs a friend!
This ‘Alfa Romeo’ was a brilliant project car made from bits of all sorts of things as the owner fancied a racing car and couldn’t afford one. Built very much in the spirit of the pre-war specials it was a lot of fun and was attracting a lot of attention. You just have to love the ‘Argyle Sock’ – a Mazda MX 5 with a special paint job – sold in the UK in a limited set of 24, commemorating Mazda’s overall victory at the 24 hrs of Le Mans in the Renown Mazda 787 driven by Weidler, Herbert and Gachot in 1991. (seen here at the Festival of Speed). They were apparently imported into the UK in plain red and repainted, a major job as the whole vehicle including the engine bay has been sprayed. Wonder if this cute Figaro used the same paint shop as the Stag. Finally a few pics of Regie on the circuit after the crowds had thinned out. As it was such a lovely day we went on down to seaside and then took a lovely country route home… a perfect day for going topless.