Category: Car

Culford Car Show 2021 (part 2)

This is the second part of the Culford Car Show from 18th July this year. As I left the show I managed to take this picture without any photobombing of other cars or people wandering into shot as a lot of the cars had already left for home and I found a little open space.

But, my best efforts are not as good as some. I mentioned at the end of the last post that I met an interesting guy and we had a quick chat. It turns out that Steve Armon is a photographer who wants to take some pictures of my car for his ever growing portfolio. He has posted three pictures of my car along with some others on his Instagram account ‘trigpointpictures’. Stop by and say I sent you. Here are those pics he kindly sent to me and I just love them. Thanks Steve for the permission to use them.

Back to the show where I was wandering around still, and a reminder of the beautiful location first;

The cars, again in no particular order;

There was a hot rod section that i spent a little time hanging around for some obvious reasons. That Plymouth Super Bee was something else!

There was a Ferrari club there with some rather unusual examples there.

The award to the biggest set of rear wheels goes to;

At the front of the school;

Back up the other side of the grounds on my way back to the car.

Then I spotted this little animal, these rare MG Metro 6R4’s were in the Group B rally class. They were banned as they and cars like them at the time were often classed as ‘to fast to race’ in the 1980’s.

It was really hot to say the least and to eventually sit back under the trees and chat to the guys next to me was a very welcome relief along with the litre of water that I downed almost in one! The trip home had the manual air conditioning on full. The windows wound right down! Another wonderful trip through the country side with nothing but a v8 for company and have it barking at me when I occasionally pressed the loud pedal!

I hope you liked the pics as much as I liked the show itself.

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Bearing Up

This year I have taken my car out for a couple of shows and I have developed a rather annoying squeak from the drivers side front wheel. I have taken the wheel of and greased everything that had a nipple on it. I squirted, white grease, silicon spray, Würth Water Dispersant, WD40 everywhere I could. Nothing. It was still there.

I spoke to Adam a couple of times about it and he advised me to bring it down and he would have a look at it. So I did just that.

The photo’s in this post I’m using have been given to me by Mustang Maniac and saved me taking the pictures; big thanks to Mustang Maniac for that. They told me they were probably going to use them this weekend. It looks like they beat me to it by posting first. So we have a little overlap although they have a couple of different pictures on their post.

Adam was walking to the yard and heard the squeak as I was turning into the yard’s driveway. I explained that I think the steering doesn’t feel right either. He listened intently and promptly jumped in my car and took it for a test drive up the road.

We swapped places for the driving seat as Adam need to swap a few cars around in order to get a clear run for my car onto the ramps in his workshop and I drove it in. Reinforcements arrived in the form of Yogi who had emerged from his workshop to help out with the diagnostics which is a two man job.

First thing they noticed was that the idler arm had some play. It looked like that over time standing in my garage the rubber had perished and broken down when the car came out for some shows this year.

You can see them when compared just how much the old one had broken down. The new one is on the left of each picture.

The guys checked everything else over on the suspension and I received my bollocking for a couple of other nuts that were loose. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Probably down to the play in the idler arm making things worse. Adam and Yogi both worked up and down under the car to check everything was tightened up as it should be. A couple of rear axle nuts were not as tight as they should be and Adam again tightened them up. I would like to say that in my self defence Adam does have a two foot long Snap On 1/2″ fitting breaker bar, to make sure things were properly tight.

They fitted the new idler arm and checked that the the locating bracket had no play with the arm fitted in place. Once they were happy I was sent out on another road test. Both Adam and Yogi told me that the steering would feel very different. The picture below is the new idler arm being fitted before full greasing.

I got out the main gate and and immediately the car felt different. I couldn’t believe just how bad it had gotten over a course of couple of years. You just get used to it and think no more of it.

I turned back into the yard happy, the squeak was still there, although not as bad now. Straight back onto the ramps and up in the air again. The guys decided that the wheel was to come off and have a look. They did all sorts of play checks and listened to the rotor spinning.

A decision was made fairly quickly. Yogi dropped the outer bearing out to check the look and feel of it. He wasn’t happy with it. Yogi then cleaned it up and Adam had a second look under the big lighted magnifying lens on his bench, nothing visibly wrong with it to look at. He stuck the bearing on his fingers and felt it, spinning it fast, slow and twisting it etc. Adam said “although it looks fine, I just don’t like how it feels, nope, I’m not happy with it”. With that he went of to the shop to go and get a new one.

In the mean time Yogi cleaned up the track of the bearing and made sure it wasn’t damaged by scoring or pitting. Luckily for me it was OK. The inner bearing was still fully packed. While we waited Yogi then proceeded to grease everything he could see, upper arms, lower arms, steering, bushes the lot.

Adam returned with the new bearing repeating his feel tests as he walked back to the ramps. “That’s better” he announced handing it over to Yogi. He repacked the new bearing with grease, rechecked it and fitted it back into the hub and adjusted it up correctly. He then replaced the retaining washer, split pin and the bearing cap. The wheel was put back on and retested for play and feel before letting the car back down.

I was then sent back out on the second test run to see how it was. I arrived back with a smile as big as my front grill. The noise had gone. Sorted 👍

Before I set off for my run I was told that if all was OK, to park out the front of the offices. Which I duly did as i was now well chuffed. They asked me if it was OK to use on the their blog posts. Of course I had not objections at all, they then took a number of pics of my car for their ‘Park & Pic’ section on their forth coming blog. Www.mustangmaniac.org

I love this picture as there is an early Falcon convertible, which of course was the Mustang’s immediate predecessor that shares the same chassis as First Gen Mustangs, and also a later Mustang all in one shot.

I sat in the offices with Adam and we had cup of tea, well he did and I had a cold can of pop. We put the world to rights, sorted out the bill before I left for home. The journey home was a pleasure until it started to rain. I was not impressed that my car had now gotten wet of course. But, considering the car was now in a another league, I wouldn’t mind.

I arrived home some hour and half later after filling with fuel (again). I just had to clean my car before I put her away and cover her up. I then plugged in the battery maintenance unit to keep the battery in tip top performance.

Again a huge thanks to Mustang Maniac (Adam & Yogi) for fitting me in and sending me home all on the same day. That is what I call “proper customer service.”

Before I sign off I just need to wish my friends on the other side of the pond;

Happy Independence Day.

Have a great day and have a beer for me. 🙂

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2021 Off To A Bad Start

Over the course of the Holidays and various forms of tiered forms of lock down that nobody really adhered to, I took my Mustang out. Now to be within to rules I took the car out to place where I could exercise after parking the car up. It just so happens that the car was parked in a pretty good place to take some photos while I was out exercising. There was nobody about, the odd car now and again going past, that was about it.

The garage was opened and the dust cover removed and placed on top of my tool chests. Excited to see the car after a number of weeks I got in and started the car, well tried to start it. The car was turning over fine but it didn’t fire up. I opened the hood and had a general look round under there. Fuel filter, yep fuel in there. I took the air filter off and checked the carb was squirting fuel, yep it was. After putting the bits back on I jumped in the car thinking it was just standing time issues. Turning the key the car started to turn over again, still but no fire up. Now I could smell fuel quite strongly, so I decided to leave it for a few minutes with the hood up to evaporate the fuel a bit. As it was getting late in the afternoon it was worth one more try before I give up and look at it properly another day. Third time lucky? She again spun over the crank slowed down and “BANG”. The backfire sounded like a grenade going off in my garage which made my ears ring, timing was obviously out to ignite at the wrong time. The car was running now a few seconds of really rough idle then it settled down to a smoother choke running. I backed the car out OK and drove of fine. However, there is a lot more to this story a little later…

The pictures:

I parked up and took some pictures before my little walk somewhere different. It just so happened where I was parked up would make a good backdrop. I took over 200 pics that afternoon, but this little selection are my favourites so far. I even done a black and white variation on a few of them. The pictures are variations on angles and lighting etc.

The next couple of photos I tried to start of with colour on the right and gradually fade it to black and white on the left. I played with the contrast to make the bottom one more antique and faded too. It sort of works I think, let me know if I hashed it or smashed it! I may even do some sepia variables as well.

The Journey Home.

I got back into the care and started the car, eventually after a few seconds it did start, but it was unusual to take that long. The drive back was about ten minutes and were not right. I got a few hiccups under mild acceleration from a standstill and the odd flat spot on a 40mph straight. I can’t deny that I was a bit worried. The car was parked up in the garage and covered her up with a nagging feeling in the back of my mind.

Next day I went out to the garage to just start her up. Turn of the key and the car spun over, then over and over. I tried to start her a number of times and smell of fuel was quite strong. I had a problem that was evident.

I sent Adam a text at Mustang Maniac to ask for a little advice when he had a moment. Adam being the kind soul that he is told me to get to my tools and he would call me back in a few minutes when I was ready. To his word he called me and talked me through some tests to look at with him over the phone. We swapped out the new coil with an older one that I had with the same result of spinning over with no fire up. We swapped over the coil HT lead to the distributor after testing with my multi-meter Ohm settings. Nothing. We then earthed out the coil HT to the engine to see if a spark jumped over to the engine. How did I manage that? Simple I talked sweetly to my wife who came out for a couple of minutes to turn the car over for me.

The diagnosis was narrowed down to the Pertronix ignition sensor which has gone to the great scrap yard in the sky! I needed a new one, it was a simple as that. Adam said he would get one out to me via mail ASAP as their location was in a high tier restriction for Covid reasons.

The next day my courier turned up with the part. I took a drink along with the part into the garage, unlocked the tool chests and settled down for a few hours. The distributor cap was removed and the single screw was removed the Pertronix sensor. The downside was the wiring loom had to be cut open to expose the wires for the sensor.  The fitting of the Pertronix sensor can be found here.

I done a rough fit without the neatness of wiring loom and connected up ready for the start up. I got in the car and turned the key. The car fired almost instantly and run smoothly all the way to the choke coming off. I let the car cool down and got back to routing the wires back into the loom and neaten it all back up again. A couple of hours later the work was finished and up to my own self imposed high standards. The aftermarket part is now looking like part of the stock loom again and I’m happy. I need to take the car out for trip to make sure everything is still as it was. But, as we are in a current national lockdown that is out of the question right now.

All that remains is for me to thank Adam at Mustang Maniac for his time, even though he was officially “Closed” over the holiday season. I needed the part and I paid for the next day courier service from his WebShop. I was offered the multiple choices of delivery and the costs options. Normally I would drive and pick it up, and it’s also a good excuse to catch up for a chat with some friends. There is a an advantage of being a loyal customer and personal friend with a Mustang parts supplier, who will help go out of their way for you when you need the help.

Since I refitted the new part, I have been on a number of forums about the Pertronix Ignitor series. It seems that I was a lucky boy after all in the fact I got home at all. Most of the time these units are absolutely fine and last forever and a day. But, if you get a bad unit they just stop dead. You could go down the road, pull out of a junction and it stops dead in the middle of the road as one person reported and that’s it. The same symptoms I had – no restart. I had issues where I had a cut out which progressively got worse to the point it didn’t start again. Now I intend to get an old school set of points and condenser to carry with me as an emergency get me home kit. If the points burn out after a few miles due to the hot coil 45,000 volts with 0.6ohms I won’t mind. As long as I get home they are cheap enough to replace again.

My 2021 didn’t start very well, in more ways than one. It could have been much worse of course, I’m just lucky it was a simple problem to replace. Onwards and upwards I guess.

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Hat Trick (Part 1)

The third show of the year was Sunday 6th September at Glemham Hall. This was a new show for me and located the other side of the Suffolk county for me, not far away just a thirty five minute drive with as many miles. We all had to be there before 10am so I left a little after eight fifteen as I had to get some fuel. I eventually got there at just before nine. Then it happened, I hit a traffic jam. I sat in traffic for forty minutes trying to get to a single track lane to get to the fields. I was watching my fuel go down and the temperature go up. Not the best start to the day I must say. To compound matters we had to cross to the other side of the road, that means the cars coming from the other side of the road just kept pilling in before we got a break by some kind soul to let us in. I later found out that the queues were five miles long later in the day. The local constabulary weren’t to impressed apparently.

Not only that when we got inside they then had side by side queues, they were let in a few at a time into the field. Which helped a bit, but there should have been a public access and exhibitors entrances. I hope the organisers are reading this as well.

Anyway this was a huge show and I will have to split it over two posts. I took loads of photos and I have filtered them out to my favourites. Panoramic 360 view is new one for me but here it is.

I parked up just anywhere so it seemed, as there was lots and lots of space.

As always in no particular order a selection of cars that caught my eye as I wandered around.

I will post part 2 tomorrow.

Teddy – Part 2

On the 30th of August 2020 I was at a car show at Lavenham where my little Mustang mate Teddy had a pic with my car. A very polite and respectful little guy. This was the photo I took at the time.

I mentioned that I didn’t manage to get one of him sitting in my car. His dad Graham emailed me the missing picture.

Thank you Graham for your permissions and for sending me the photo.

There you go Teddy – You’re famous again 🙂

Same time tomorrow for part two of this show.

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Making Things

Today is my car’s birthday. This day fifty four years ago on the 11th July 1966 my car rolled off the Ford production line at Dearborn, Michigan. USA.

1966. A Mustang hardtop coupe comes down the final assembly line at DAP.

Speaking of things being built, I was bought a model kit a while ago which was the LEGO GT500 kit, which I reviewed here. I thoroughly enjoyed it of course and wasted a good few hours making it. For my birthday (which was a good few months ago), I was bought another kit from my wife. I think it was to keep me quiet to be honest. This time it was a Technical kit which can cost between £75 and £150 depending on where you buy it. This kit is not an official LEGO kit but is pretty much identical to the real thing. I have done a full review of this kit here.

The kit is based on the official Hoonigan v2 made by LEGO with 3168 pieces. Model kits of this type differ in the fact it doesn’t rely on bricks, it relies on pegs and holes to fit together.

There is an option to be powered by motors and remote control which are purchased separately. An option I didn’t want to go for.

In the box was fourteen bags of parts, none of which were numbered like the Lego kits. There were bigger bags, the wheels, sheet of stickers, and then there were smaller bags of the pegs or fixings of different sizes and colours.

The instructions are not brilliant due to the fact that the print colours did vary a bit and the difference between the light grey and brown was difficult to spot on some pages.

There is a distinct pattern for the build as its cleverly build in a modular style. The smaller build part instructions are clear enough with arrows of what goes where. With the modular parts being added to the bigger build, it can be difficult to see where some bits are fitted together on the complex diagrams.

The model starts from the inside out, you build the differentials and gearing for the rear of the car. The diff then gets added to a bit of chassis which is ready for the next bit and so on.

As you build a part you can check the movement and operation. Little cogs marry up and are held by splines in part holes to allow it to move.

The rear suspension was fun and the way the whole section moves is very clever indeed. What starts out quite flimsy then with more parts it’s bolstered up and quite solid.

With the tunnel section completed in the middle the floor pans are added and all of a sudden the scale of the model becomes clear.

The build of the engine block has working pistons for you to see running off their own cam shaft.

The front suspension is complex and perhaps the hardest part of the model for me. Lining up the mini half shafts and gearing was a bit fiddly with my big hands. The curved sections are a long flexible spline that has tubes slid over it and the ends plugged into a termination point. Things like the headlights look great but can be easily dislodged, a little more on that later.

The fenders are built up to complete the look with the hood. The hood has a large cut out in the centre and does the frame of the hood a little fragile. Silver parts are added to the engine for the turbos and exhaust pipes.

The bag of silver parts some of which were obvious for the engine parts, the rest were for the seats sides and head rest. The steering wheel inside the car could in theory move the wheels, but it’s not strong enough for that and jumped a tooth or two on the cog, I had to jump it back again to centre the steering back up. But if you move the steering rack the steering inside the car will move fine.

The seats fit well into the car, but you have to be careful of the dash area not to dislodge the delicate steering joints.

The rear quarters are added and the wheel arches. Again these are twin flexible splines where the tiles are slid over and have to be even spaced out to look right. The fitting is plugged into termination pieces at each end and has to bend like a rainbow shape to fit. Give them a knock and they will come off which is very annoying.

Behind the seats is reinforced with more building. There is a silver part of the interior roll cage behind the drivers seat that attaches one end and just left to flap about inside.

This aggravated me and with some bits that were obviously going to be left over I made a little mod and attached it to a spare hole and attached it properly. Seen below with the left hand elbow joint. Also adding a little more stability.

The doors were straight forward enough, with a complex hinge mechanism which allows the door to open wide. The attachment to the rest of the car was more awkward as the one of the rubber bands that holds the doors shut pinged out of place which resulted in a deconstruction to refit the bands. Terrible idea I think as the band will perish and break leaving the doors to flap around at a later date.

The back of the car’s light panel gets built with lots of red and black thin bricks to make the tail lights. The result is a very effective and convincing light panel. Although no lights work on this car at all.

The trunk opens and closes with a hinge idea the same as the front hood.

The roof using the last of the long flexible splines threads the roof panels for the A pillars.

The front wheel arches are based on the same principle as the rears were and fitted into place, again not to a very secure fitting. But it does give a nice gentle curve with flat bricks.

The wheels were required to be fitted about two thirds of the way into the build. I kept knocking them off while turning the model over and around to work on different sections. So I fitted them as the last things on the car.

Once the model is built it does look really good and a pretty good representation of Ken Block’s Hoonigan v2.

Grievances I found with the model:

Wheel Hubs: A critical part of the ‘movable’ model. The wheel hubs; they are terrible. The wheels are held firmly in place to the hubs (brake discs) by three pegs. When you try to push the wheels into place the suspension moves and the tiny part of the UJ (universal Joint) that also has two little pins to turn the wheels from the gears pops out and there is no drive. If you are to power this model I promise you that the drive hubs will break loose on the front due to single point of fitting a UJ. This has to be the case as the wheels turn for the steering, rotate for the movement (using the two pins to stop it spinning within the hub), and to move up and down for the suspension. A three-way movement ball that is only a couple of millimetres wide at its widest part. I had to deconstruct the front end (twice until I learned my lesson), and some of the steering section to refit the part back onto the spline. The problem is that the spline is not long enough and allows a backward movement from the hub which should never happen. You could get round the spline movement by a blob of superglue to the UJ fitting end onto the spline.

Motorised Option: During the build for the suspension and the steering the motors instructions are an option. This will require a few tweaks to the construction. The motors will drive the rear wills via a diff and the front wheels via the second diff. The problem is that that the splines and cogs are a bit to delicate for my liking.

There is a super clever option to allow the car to ‘drift’ under it’s own power by a configuration of the diff. I have no idea how fast these motors are supposed to go. But guessing there is a drift option it should have a fair amount of speed to move the model.

Decals: These are cheap and obviously don’t say the correct branding due to the copy right. It’s very clever how the use of fonts and slight rearranging of characters can lead you to misread it as you know what it should say. The decals are not the water based style which leaves very little visible evidence of the background or clear parts. These stickers are self adhesive and clearly show on the black bricks of the model. The air bubbles are a nightmare and ruin the smooth outline. The decals are not cut correctly for some parts that go over some raised surfaces, such as the ford logo on the front, a sharp scalpel to cat the deal to allow it to lay flatter makes a big difference. An option is to even leave the stickers off the car. It will still look great.

These cheap decals seriously lets the model down for me unfortunately.

Tyres & Rims: The just slip over the rims and can be moved on the rims once fitted. I suspect that a bit of serious drifting will dislodge the tyres on the rims. This can be cured of course by a few well placed blobs of super glue to hold the tyres to the rims. But if you scrub the rather thin tyres out it will become a nightmare to replace them. The rims themselves don’t actually look like the real car! Something to do with copyright maybe I don’t know. But it’s a bit of big ‘error’.

Doors: The hinges are helped to stay shut via twisted elastic bands. Give it time like I mentioned above the bands will perish and the doors won’t stay shut if under it’s own power. They will probably fly open and shut depending on where it goes I guess.

Build Quality: Some of the parts will be knocked of and dislodged fairly easily, such as the headlights, front air splitter, the turbo parts of the engine and wheel arches in particular. Nothing which a bit of superglue wouldn’t sort out.

There are two options for the model and the static option looks great in a cabinet for display. The model is large and heavy. Trying to push the vehicle along will hear all sorts of teeth jumping and the engine pistons (which you can’t see anyway with the hood down) in particular getting stuck.

If you are going to motorise this then you need to beef it up with some superglue! The wheel hubs will dislocate from the centre of the wheels, this can be easily done by just pushing the car along, or trying to turn the wheels on steering lock.

The underside of the car has cut outs for the cogs, this allows for dirt and debris to contaminate the meshing of the cogs and will cause problems.

As the sales blurb says itself; “It is not really a toy, but rather a model for the showcase”.

The majority of the car is a real fun build and took me many hours to complete. There were no parts missing and all the parts fitted together correctly. The kit is indeed a challenge to build and I liked that. It sounds like a I had a downer on the model, but I actually don’t. If the model is left alone it will look great.

Now I have completed this model I need to look for the next one, quite where I’m going to put them is a challenge as well. The model is a lot of money and I hope it gives a rough idea of what it’s like as a model and to build it before maybe buying it.

Keep safe and take care.

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A Sickening Sound

This week has been a very stressful week for me as my pride and joy has had to go and get some serious repairs. During this Covid lockdown like many of us we are finding things to do and pamper our cars. I have been no exception to that of course, with a LED upgrades going on, carb spacer swap out all of which I have to post about and will be coming soon. But this update jumps the queue. I said when I was restoring my car I would post about the good, bad and everything else. This is one of those gone wrong posts. Mustang Maniac may cover my story this weekend as well, to help each other out we have swapped some photos between us. 👍

Background is that I had a mini project to replace a carburetor spacer from the old metal 1″ style to the new phenolic spacer. This meant that I ‘had’ to test drive the car t make sure all was OK, while on my way to take some exercise of course. During the shortish journey of ten miles round trip or so the car started to make a whine noise, almost like a super charger. This annoying noise was coming from the gearbox area. The car started to make a significant thud when selecting reverse or drive gears from park or neutral. I called Adam at Mustang Maniac to explain what was going on. He listened to my explanation and said that he would open a slot for me at their yard.

I drove down on the Monday morning very gently I might add and the whine was getting worse. I knew something was wrong and hoped it was an adjustment somewhere. When I arrived and was greeted by Adam and Yogi, both said to put it straight onto ramps when they heard it. Within a couple of minutes Yogi had listened, diagnosed the problem and said gearbox was trashing itself, and probably the torque converter too. This was bad, real bad. The decision was made to drop the gearbox out to investigate after the dipstick for the gearbox was checked and was covered in foam.

The oil was drained out and the proper dark red colour was a foaming mess of pink slop.

While the “liquid gold” as Adam calls it, was draining out the prop was removed, the speedo cable, handbrake cables, and the exhaust split from the headers.

A conversation was had with Adam and I was given the option of what gearbox I would like and he went of to get it from his secret stock. The sound of expensive parts arriving in the trolley was sad sound to hear. Adam returning with the parts.

Yogi and Stuart jacked up the gearbox lift up to the gearbox to support the weight while it was lowered out.

These C4 gearboxes were clever for their time in the fact that they had cooling pipes that ran from the gearbox, up to the front of the car, which were then in turn connected to the bottom of the radiator. The pipes in the bottom section of the radiator shares the cooling with the engine block’s coolant. The cooled oil returns back to the gearbox ready to reapeat the process. The cooling pipes have their own entry and exit fittings to the radiator. It was here that the problem was caused; the internal loop of pipe within the radiator had failed somewhere. The water pressure from the radiator had forced water into the oil cooler channels because the gearbox oil is under less pressure than the engine’s coolant.

With the gearbox down on the floor the investigation could begin. Yogi had an airline on the cooling pipes which were still on the car, with a jet of air the water was expelled at a high pressure, confirmed water (and anti-freeze) was in the gearbox.

The bottom of the C4 gearbox has a removable pan that allows access to a serviceable filter to protect the delicate interior. The filter had done its job and stopped all sorts of debris and was getting near to clogged. The gearbox tension bands, seals metal on metal parts had indeed started to disintegrate. By feeling the gunge on the filter there was some swarf or tiny metal particles. Yogi was right, the gearbox was starting to eat itself, and it was very hungry.

The torque converter was removed and checked, draining the contents more swarf was found inside. With the oil pan emptied more traces of fine swarf were found at the bottom. The expense was starting to ramp up.

The water had in effect contaminated the oil and strated to break the oil’s properties down and failed to lubricate the gearbox along with the torque converter, thus unable to keep it all cool. The end result was the bands were slipping in the gearbox and the engine coolant had caused the gearbox to overheat. I was told I was a lucky boy as it could of just let go, dumping the contents of the gearbox on the side of the road leaving me stranded. The radiator was low and topping it up gave us an idea of how much water had got unto the gearbox. The top up was almost one liter.

The new gearbox was a genuine 1966 date coded C4 green dot fully rebuilt gearbox. This was a rare part, let alone to have a choice of them straight out of stock.

The new torque converter was screwed into the bell housing and the careful alignment to refit back into place. The gearbox was lifted up into place and little magic the gearbox was roughly in place.

With the gearbox now bolted into place, the finely tuned machine that is Mustang Maniac had a gearbox out and back in place within a day. Yogi was pleased with the day’s work, it was time for me to go home and leave my very poorly car on ramps for the night.

The next day I was back at the yard in the afternoon. Yogi had completed the rest of the refit and and all was back in place.

The next problem was the radiator the proximate cause of the problem. Again Adam asked me what style, cooling performance and look that I wanted. I went for the upgraded three row (which I already had) from the standard factory two row, with the OEM stock look. The expenses were ramping up even more.

Yogi pressure tested the old radiator and it had indeed failed in the oil cooler loop. A rare failure by all accounts that had catastrophic consequences on the gearbox. Why it failed we can’t be sure, perhaps a failed weld, or rusted out or crack? Without cutting the radiator open we won’t know.

The engine block had to be drained and flushed before the new radiator could be fitted and more fluids replaced.

The rest of the plumbing was reconnected and filled up. The car fired up and the gearbox whine was gone. Selecting a gear; there was no thud and the engine didn’t stall out.

The engine idle on the carb had to be reset and a road test. The was a little more dark art of carburettor fettling going on after the road test, the tuned ear of Yogi jumping from one screw adjustment to another and back again.

My drive home was a different car altogether, it was again effortless and a joy to drive. The joy of owning a classic car can be bitter sweet. I have had some wonderful sweet treats, and then this week the very bitter pill of a transmission failure. There you have it, a very big downer for me with things not going to plan. I was lucky that I got to Mustang Maniac how and when I did. Keeping it quiet is not what it’s about for me, this blog shows the good with the bad.

A huge “Thank You” to all at Mustang Maniac.

I have some mini projects coming up and detailing product reviews too, I will be posting them soon. But, first I have an excuse to clean the car engine bay again as it got a bit grubby after all the work being done on it. Many wouldn’t notice anything to be honest, as it was cleaned up pretty well. But I’m just pleased my little lady is back home and I again can pamper her and give her a nice clean up. I’m lucky to own a classic Mustang so I can’t complain. I don’t thrash my car so perhaps that helped me in getting down to the yard without a breakdown. If you own a classic car these things can happen, but not to often I hope!

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The Results Are In

At the end of my last post “Sweet & Sour part 2”, I asked for the my readers / followers view and response to my dilemma of the cheating allegations that I aimed squarely at Ted Brooke the owner of the 1961 Morris Minor. I won’t go back into what I saw over the weekend I have documented and evidenced that. I created a Poll and asked should I leave my cheating report up, or take it down?

Thank you to those that voted along with your support. The results were a conclusive and massive over 95% in favour to leave it up.

So my evidence of what I saw stays posted.

I have been asked how these posts even got to the point it has now. The answer is quite simple; people started to press my buttons, pressing my buttons does make things happen in my head, I just have to deal with it and can’t let it go. The most basic explanation is when I confronted those involved with the evidence I had, it was laughed off and laughed in my face, it was ignored completely, I was told to go away, I was called a “liar” and a “sore loser”, I was even threatened with legal action, and that little lot just started to rub my nose in it. A little gaggle of cheaters sitting behind the car laughing and celebrating that they had ‘Won’ the ‘well deserved’ trophy didn’t sit to well with me or the others that were there in either. So, not only did I/We witness bad things, but it was then blatant they had no qualms about cheating.

To the point of this post; behind the scenes I had told people I emailed Lancaster my concerns and if I got a response I would too also allow them their fair say. Lancaster did respond and so did Clarion. I will show what I wrote to Lancaster and the responses in a second.

But first; I would like to make it clear that I have no grudge(s) with organisers / partners of the event at all, in fact a little more respect as they had the balls to reply to me knowing full well I would be commenting on their replies, I know they will be reading this. So Thank You to those that have contacted me and replied to me. I will keep their personal contact details out of it as I see no benefit to splash that level of detail all over the internet. All I am doing here is fighting for a pure point of PRINCIPLE, I’m not here trying to ruin events or their jobs.

I wrote an email to Richard Morley, Operations Director, Lancaster Insurance. The email was sent Thu 14/11/2019 13:45  the cut and paste reads as follows; (including a couple of typos, I had at the time and still have tonsillitis, that’s my excuse for the unforgivable errors! 🙁

“Afternoon Mr Morley,

I would like to start of with big thank you for such an enjoyable weekend 8-10 November at the NEC Birmingham. I was one of the lucky 20 entrants able to display on the Pride of Ownership a real honour. However I would like to ask the official stance on cheating within the competition you are sponsoring. Throughout each of the three days at the event the owner of the winning car the pink Morris Minor, was seen cheating by myself and others. He filled in his own voting slips and putting them into the vote boxes, passing pre filled forms to visitors asking them to post the forms as well. He even told the visitors where to tick for his car, he also took wads of the voting forms to club stands to be filled in on a few occasions. As he was next to my car it was clear to see. The joining instructions clearly stated that any cheating would mean disqualification and be asked to leave. Especially as the joining instructions specifically said there was complaints and cheating the year before as well. Vigilance should have been a priority.

The cheating was reported to the NEC organiser who confirmed in a text to me that that the cheating votes were not going to be  counted, obviously many were going to be missed.

With such a blatant knowledge of his cheating the organisrrs and your staff still allowed the entrant to continue. I and others also reported the underhanded tactics to Lancaster staff in white t-shirts who didn’t seem to take it too seriously. Yet still he was not disqualified. I took a photo early Sunday morning where he was sitting at a table with voting forms going through his phone looking for contacts to complete the forms. I witnessed it.

As I’m a good sport I did not make a scene at the awards and spoke immediately to the guy representing Lancaster giving the awards and showed him the evidence. His response was an astonishing “I just write the cheques”. I showed the evidence to the Morris Minor owners club who just denied it and laughed. You representative was seen to go over to apologise the club for any misunderstanding. Again no offering to look into the evidence. I know thwt the Morris Owners club had stacks of forms on their stands, which shouldn’t of been there in the first place. I have the photograph and also the screen shots between me and NEC where the organisers KNEW of cheating and even acknowledged the cheating via text messages, yet still allowed the car to go on and win. By saying we removed the blatant cheating forms has condoned the practice to not remove the car. If you are caught cheating in an exam the exam is void, not just the question you cheated on, if you cut corners on a running track you are disqualified, not just ignore that little bit. I could have been handled without fuss by not placing the car at all, if you didn’t want the bad publicity. An even playing field was all that we requested now I feel that I need to expose this wrong doing. I am happy to have my message logs to be examined by the phone company to prove the messages were indeed sent and received as they were just text messages not WhatsApp encrypted. 

Please could you let me know if you want to see the evidence where I will be happy to send over. Also what if anything does your company intend on doing about the obviously squewed results. I don’t want publicity, i dont want free insurance, I just want the moral and integrity high grounds to be fought for. The guy wanted the trophy so bad be managed to pull it of in the biggest classic car show in the country and you (organisers) were told about it. 

I’m sorry that this has had to be noted to you in such a way.

Based on the experience of your company to date I feel that I can never be insured with you as I don’t know that I can trust the company as a whole. I am in no way suggesting you on any others at your level knew about it. But, it was raised over the whole weekend to many people. In fact there were others entrants also cheating, unfortunately I don’t have 100% proof of that. 

Sour grapes from me? Not at all I had a great time there. It just seems that my principles are greater than others. Many people are the opinion “let it go” but that’s not the point. I have no doubt what so ever than I will now be black listed for events as a trouble maker.

I look forward to your responses.

I’m very dissapointed and feel let down.

Regards,

Mart Dawson.“

Mr Morley’s job title is now different to the documents that I had researched at the time, so perhaps this wasn’t the idea person to speak to, but to be fair – Mr Morley took ownership of it and moved it along for a resolution. A good positive there.

‘Poppyseed’ Clarion’s PR Agency tried to contact me:

Wednesday 15th November 2019 at 15:38. I was unable to answer as I was unable to speak as I had completely lost my voice. A pleasant email was left on my voice mail to call back.

Monday 18th November 2019 at 11:14. I was actually asleep at this point (recovering from a fate worse than man flu obviously) although my voice was starting to come back to the dulcet tones of Barry White. A pleasant voice message was again left for me.

I tried to call PoppySeed on Tuesday 19th November 2019 12:53, unfortunately they were in a meeting all day. A text message very shortly after my call to me to say that emails were going to be on their way back to me later that afternoon. I was slightly surprised that written correspondence was going to arrive, but this is again a positive.

The first email response the next day was from Lee Masters of Clarion the ‘Show Director’ on Wed 20/11/2019 10:59

“Dear Mart

Andrea Seed from our PR Agency (Poppyseed Media) and Richard Morley from Lancaster Insurance have brought my attention to both a letter that you have written to Mr Morley and also a social media blog that you have written entitled ‘One Man and His Mustang’.

Firstly, can I thank you for your encouraging and positive words and photos that you took at the show. It’s good to hear that you enjoy the event as much as we do. I would also like to thank you for entering your superb Mustang into the Lancaster Insurance Pride of Ownership Competition.

It is with regards to the competition that I am writing, and I want to reassure you that your concerns about cheating are being taken seriously. The Pride of Ownership Competition has been running now for four years at both our March and November shows. The competition is about bringing together some of the UK’s best privately owned classic cars and asking the public to vote for their favourite (top three) cars. This is all done in a good-natured spirit of fun, enthusiasm and passion for the classic cars that we all love and cherish.

For clarity, the competition is organised and run by Clarion Events Ltd as the owners of the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show. Lancaster Insurance is the sponsor of the competition.  The organising, administering of the terms and conditions, voting process, vote counting and conclusion of the final results are done by Clarion, independently and without prejudice.

Should any of the competition terms and conditions be possibly contravened then the situation would be raised with me as the Show Director and reviewed by the competition organising team. I confirm that all of the voting forms for all competing cars were diligently inspected and a number of ‘non-qualifying’ votes were removed (not just from the Morris Minor) and were discounted from the final results. I also confirm that this did not affect the outcome of the top three places.

Whilst we do state disqualification in the terms and conditions, in most circumstances, once we have removed ‘non-qualifying’ votes there is not a need to take such action – it really is a last resort as we want this to be a gracious and good-natured public vote.

Finally, I don’t want you to be unhappy and we will as a result of your feedback conduct a review of our processes and Terms and Conditions for our next event. Please also be assured that you will not be black-listed as you put it. I see you as a friend of the show and your comments will help us in the future. As a gesture of goodwill, I would happily offer you guest tickets to our spring NEC show or Reis Race Retro if you would like to join us.

My very best regards

Lee Masters

Show Director”

Second email response was from Mr Morley Wed 20/11/2019 11:31 some thirty minutes later with the following: (Personal contact details redacted).

“Hello Mr Dawson  

Thank you for your email.

Apologies for the delay in my response, following your communication we have shared your email with Clarion Events and have been having discussions with the team there.

Pride of Ownership is an integral part of the weekend and we’re delighted that you were able to join us at the show. I understand you spoke to Andrea Seed on the Sunday of the show regarding your concerns and she has been trying to get hold of you following your email to myself. I’m sorry to hear you have been suffering with tonsillitis, I hope you feel better soon.

Lee Masters, the Show Director, has emailed you this morning and we hope that this has reassured you and addressed your concerns.

Please be assured that all feedback is greatly appreciated, and we certainly take on board all comments. We also hope to see you at future events.

Kind Regards

Rich Morley

Broking Director”

OK, really nice to get the emails which I won’t forensically deconstruct the emails which would be fairly easy to be honest, I will just point out a few little things for you. It’s also quite clear that they spoken with each other and the organisers and the sponsors are not going to throw each other under a bus for bad publicity that’s for sure. The show works well as a whole and I hope it continues to do so. It’s a great show at the end of the day.

We are not stupid either that the voting forms are also a way of the sponsors being Lancaster Insurance are gaining contact details for leads for classic car insurance with renewal dates. A little side note: Classic Car Insurance is a good risk for a number of reasons; people who own these cars trailer or drive them very carefully. Restricted number of drivers also tend to be in the more mature age banding. These cars are simply not thrashed around. They are very well looked after, more so than modern cars. Restricted annual mileage means less exposure to road risks. They are usually kept very secure. Although the downside is the value of the cars for a total loss which can be high, the overall claims ratios still make this a profitable book of business.

Lancaster’s response email from Mr Morley; is worth noting that their email didn’t address a number of my specific points directly about the insurance company itself. This is partially seen to be addressed by Clarion’s response(s). Hence Lancaster have played their keep it clean card to keep out of any potential ‘misunderstandings’ from the show. Lancaster doesn’t address the behaviour of their representative towards me either.

Clarion’s response email; This was always going to be a text book response for an email. They had the right to do what they wanted regarding the Terms & Conditions when you break down the structure. The ‘non-qualifying’ references instead of the ‘cheating’ which softens the public perception of the terminology is now being used. The fact that even with the ‘non-qualifying’ votes removed the results will still stand. In other words; we don’t need to recall the trophies, we don’t need to announce any ‘errors’ Ted Brooke and others are not seen as a cheater and all is good with the world. In fact the email states “a number of ‘non-qualifying’ votes were removed (not just from the Morris Minor) and were discounted from the final results“. So it seems rife that cheating takes place and acknowledged.

However – There is no way that you can guarantee that you removed all the cheating votes, hence the call for disqualification we wanted, or just not place the car at all would have been the easiest answer on the day. The Clarion email says this little paragraph;

“Whilst we do state disqualification in the terms and conditions, in most circumstances, once we have removed ‘non-qualifying’ votes there is not a need to take such action – it really is a last resort as we want this to be a gracious and good-natured public vote.”

So it’s OK for the cheaters that they weren’t going to be thrown out, and the other entrants may as well not turned up by the sounds of it.

The upside is that Clarion offered me a good will gesture, this was always going to be a difficult one for the organisers if they did it at all. To much good will would have looked like a pay off, and too little would have been a slap in the face. I think they got it right to be fair to them and a nice offer. To save any face on either side I won’t be taking them up on their kind offer, I know that on the day it would have be fine.  Thank you again Clarion for the offer.

Lancaster couldn’t do anything, as I already said I didn’t want anything from them, however they could of offered to try to beat or match my current insurance terms at renewal on a fair basis by speaking to them. I respect their response that they didn’t try that approach, by the tone of my letter they were not going to win my custom anyway. Again I would have declined any of their offers or quotes for this years premium which was a lot more than I currently pay anyway.

Conclusion:

Both Lancaster Insurance and Clarion replied. Their responses were nothing of a surprise to be honest. Organisers and Sponsors are both needed to make these things works. Both Lancaster and Clarion pull these shows off well. Both of the have taken my points on board to make it better. Despite how this reads I did have a great weekend with Andrea and she has a great sense of humour and we did laugh together. There is no animosity on my side that’s for sure. It’s also great to know that I haven’t been black listed, but the jury remains out on that one for a while.

There is nothing else I can say with my journalistic report on the weekend now. The results won’t change – that was always going to be a certainty. The explanations were always going to be text book responses and these emails are just great examples of that. My experience was tainted at the end knowing that this pink Morris Minor will be paraded around as a genuine winner.

It’s up to the readers now to make their own minds up.

Email’s now exchanged and they hope the man with a Mustang drops it and moves on. I can confirm that he will indeed now move on and not to keep bringing this up. But, if I am at a car show and I get asked what went on I will explain it. My quest is complete, I have exposed what went on, no more actions will or can be done now, those ranks have closed. I only wanted a point a principle to be upheld, you cheat – you’re out!

At the end of the day I’m just one man with a Mustang, what chance did I really have? My next posts will car related again you will be please to hear.

Thanks to Chris Tilley for these great pics more of these which will be on a post soon.

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Sweet & Sour (part 2)

The Sweet (part 2)

Saturday morning arrived all to soon and this was going to be killer of a day, 9 to 6.30 I virtually never left the stand at all. Like a regimented soldier I stood on duty, One of the other exhibitors had a spare chair which they lent to me and was a real life saver. My feet were killing me and so was my throat. I went in via a different route and took more pictures of different cars.

Saturday evening I popped round to see the Mustang Owners Club Of Great Britain to say hello while they were resting after a busy day too.

The Super Sweet

Later in the day there was a little group of people following a lovely model around, and I thought to myself, “I hope that lot comes over here, otherwise I will miss them”. They did more than that. The photographer approached me and said they wanted to take some pictures of the model with my car. I wasn’t going to say no was I? It turned out the model was absolutely fantastic with a great sense of humour and she kindly allowed me to take pics as well looking at me rather than her official photographer. I took rather a lot of photo’s should we say, hoping to get that one great photo.

Thanks to this lovely lady and model who had time for me at my car, she was professional, funny and courteous. The only down side? I hade to wipe the finger prints of my car. Such was the sacrifice I made in the name of my car.

On the Sunday mornin’ we finished an hour earlier and was also the award day. A good friend of mine Chris Tilley came to replace me by the car so I could have a look around, which was very kind of thim, thank you Chris. I was off like a ferret on a scent looking for more pics. I found the Classic American stand and the car I like the most won it and well deserved, what an amazing car.

I found my friends at Meguiar’s

Then a random selection of some cars that took my eye.

Then a new Hyper car LM69 costing a huge £1m based on the Jaguar XJ13 body and engine.

And the driving position of this car was just mad, almost laying down, lower than a GT40.

Awards

The award was to be voted for by the public, there is a voting form with all the cars on from the stand. You picked your favourite car and you put your name on the back, posted and job done. These forms were on the voting booths with Lancaster staff manning them to help along with trying to also get people to win a car competition. The little white boxed stand had a letter box style opening in the middle that was regularly emptied during the show days. Here is that form;

Voting slip Front
Voting slip Back

There was a winner and two runners up which were to be announced at 2pm on the Sunday. The winner getting a year free insurance and a glass trophy, all very exciting. The pink Morris Minor (one million edition – not the one millionth car) won the show, with the MX5 in second and the BMW in third place. The fact that I didn’t place wasn’t a problem as I enjoyed my time there taking part in a great show – I MUST stress that point again and a superb experience weekend.

BUT –  and a very big but…

The SOUR

I have seriously thought very long & hard about this next section and I need your help with it.

Do I leave it here or Remove it?

There was a covering email sent out to the entrants, for joining the show with this clause;

“It’s up to you if you stay with your car the whole weekend or not. Some owners like to stay and chat to visitors, even campaigning as visitors will be invited to vote for their favourite car of the 20 displayed. However, we have had issues with cheating and complaints in the past so please familiarise yourself with the attached terms of entry. Its important we all play nice and enter into the spirit of the event. Those who don’t and breach the T&Cs will be asked to leave the show.”

Those terms and conditions are as follows:

“Terms and Conditions:
Votes will be counted and verified by Clarion Events Ltd and the organisers decision is final.

Clarion Events Ltd will not contribute to any transportation or accommodation costs for entrants.

A car can only be entered once in a three-year period

An owner can enter one car per year, but can enter a different car each year.

While the owners can engage and campaign with other entrants and visitors, any form of intimidation, cheating, derogatory remarks or bad mouthing is not tolerated and those involved will be disqualified and asked to leave.

This is not a concours competition. However, Concours winning cars are welcome to enter but should not expect to be judged in the same way.

The competition is presented in the spirit of like-minded enthusiasts coming together to celebrate their vehicles and entrants are asked to keep this in mind when joining the competition.”

Bearing in mind the above statements let me explain a little more, then you can make your own minds up. Perhaps I should just let it go, or try and expose what I saw and witnessed along with others on the stand. This is a true statement:

Friday morning the box of voting forms were brought down to the stand and placed on stand up tables. At which point things immediately started to go wrong. The owner of the Minor took a wad about an inch thick and literally run of with them to club stands, a little later on similar thing happened again. At this point it was mentioned in conversation to the organisers.

I will refer to the organisers as ‘They’ to protect their anonymity, I’m not out to embarrass them, but it was mainly one person in charge.

Then I saw the forms being pre filled in with his own car ticked, when he spoke to people he gave them his pre completed form to be posted at the same time as the person’s own vote. This was on the Friday when I sent messages to highlight the problem as They were not about to see it. Noted here on the Friday messages.

Saturday there was more incidents and there was a large wad of forms placed in the box. This was formally mentioned to the Lancaster people and They when we saw them. Not just by me complaining, but others as well who witnessed it.

Sunday morning I arrived early to catch the owner with a few voting slips taken from the stands an being filled in at a table. I took a photo as he was scrolling through his phone for contacts to fill in. Note; the sideways picture shows the back of the voting slip. The slips shouldn’t even be there.

voting form

Again They were notified by various entrants and complained bitterly. Another entrant was told around lunch time that he and another were going to be disqualified. Maybe told that to us to keep us quiet? I don’t just don’t know, we were then a lot happier that we were on a level playing field for all of us.

At 2pm a celeb who doesn’t need to be mentioned (who obviously had nothing to do with it), gave the usual speech, plugged his tv show etc and then gave the winning award to the Morris Minor. Immediately after the prize giving I showed the picture to Lancaster and told them we had complained about the cheating. The head of the Lancaster I spoke to wasn’t interested and said to me, “I know nothing about it and I just write the checks.” I showed him the photo and screen shots he walked away.

I immediately texted They and sent the picture to which the second screen shot of the messages shows you. They response was obvious this:

“We’ve discounted all the forms that we can see are clearly cheating, same handwriting etc.”

So They did know of the cheating yet allowed the entrants to continue. Thus, They condone cheating entries as They didn’t disqualify him or the other entrant that we didn’t have as much proof only witnesses and verbal communication.

We remained respectful for the presentations like good sports for the event. However after a number of complaints made after the awards I showed the Morris Minors Owner Club the evidence to which they denied it but didn’t look shocked. The Lancaster representative went over to the Morris Owners and apologise for the ‘confusion’.

After a little research on the Lancaster Website this can be found:

“Lancaster Insurance has announced that it will be widening its Morris Minor schemes, further strengthening its association with the marque. The scheme, which is now live, is available for all Morris Minor enthusiasts, of all ages, who use their Morris Minor as a second vehicle with limited mileage.
Additionally Morris Minors Owners Club members will be able to take further advantage of the scheme with up to a 25% premium discount available for members as well as the option for multi vehicle, providing one is a Morris Minor.
Andrew Evanson, Senior Operations Manager for Lancaster Insurance, comments: “Here at Lancaster we have a close affinity to Morris Minors, with our Car Club Manager even owning several over the years. We’re delighted to be able to arrange cover for all ages providing they are using it in a cherished way.”

Source:

https://www.lancasterinsurance.co.uk/news/2017/march/08/lancaster-insurance-to-arrange-cover-for-all-ages-of-morris-minor-drivers/?page=28

So perhaps this is a genuine misunderstanding for Lancaster, maybe they chose to ignore it not wanting bad publicity for a scheme they have.

I will never insure with a company that knowingly knew of cheating but didn’t take steps to follow their own terms and conditions. Remember;

“any form of intimidation, cheating, derogatory remarks or bad mouthing is not tolerated”

I hope this guy can live with himself for knowing that he won only because he cheated!

As this gets posted today, I have also sent an email to Richard Morley the Operations Director for Lancaster Insurance on 14 November 2019 at 13:47

As yet there has been no response from Lancaster Insurance. If I do get a response I will post my email and their response too.

So there you have it, the sting in the tail was deeply troubling and uncomfortable as he was the car next to mine. That’s how I KNOW what went on as he was only a few feet away from me. The atmosphere after the awards on the stand you could cut with a knife, the winning owner disappeared for a while too, perhaps he was busy doing things.

I didn’t enjoy typing that report at all, I take no pleasure from it. But, if he admits he cheated then he is better man than I thought. Not for one minute do I think that will ever be the case though.

Am I a bad person for bringing this up and maybe bringing the show into disrepute? I suspect I will now be black listed for any awards or magazine articles, Not that I care. I’m not in it for trophies (although I have three now but have never posted about them), I just enjoy my car. The Morris Minor club is one of the biggest in the country and that has a lot of weight behind it with all it’s members.

I will say that I am a man of principles – I played fair and I expect others to do the same, after all it’s in black and white that we had to play nice before the show started. I was going to frame my certificate (as we all did), I got for the show as a finalist, but now I when I see it I can’t help but think of the man that got away with cheating at the biggest car show in the country. That grates on me big time. That certificate is now in the bottom of a draw and I doubt it will come out again.

Sour grapes for not winning? Nope not at all, I don’t like cheats. I had a blast all weekend I even met an elderly chap (like me now) with the same surname as me, he also has a 1964 Mustang. What are the chances of that? 😀

Like I said a number of times, a fantastic weekend wonderful people, some great chats, I put faces to names I have often heard about. The Mustang Owners Club visited me, and for some it got better as I lost my voice!

I am also a bit upset that the lovely model is having to sit within the same post as such terrible reporting of the show’s last few hours.

Please vote and let me know what to do?

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Sweet & Sour (part 1)

Over the weekend of 8th to the 10th of November 2019 I was asked to join the other twenty finalists for the Pride Of Ownership awards in the centre of hall three. I was thrilled to be a part of the show. This show certainly hit the sweet spot for me – Part 1.

During my time there I had a great time and spoke to many fantastic people and lost my voice as a result. Some might say that is good thing though! I even let a could of people sit in my car.

The show attracted over 3000 cars, some on show & some for sale, all of which made for a spectacular show. I took around 400 photos way to many to put on my little ol’ blog so I decided to split the weekend event into two sections. As the title suggests a fantastic time was had by all and i totally enjoyed my time there and a wonderful experience I doubt could be bettered. However – it was badly tainted with a nasty twist and sting in the tail, I will explain all of that in part two in greater detail.

I will start with the events up to the opening. All entrants for the show needed to arrive on Thursday 7th from 10am onwards up until 8pm when the building was secured for the night. I set off from home just after 7am in the rain. Yep I got the car out and it rained. I didn’t stop raining ALL the way to Birmingham all be it in various intensities I should say. I eventually arrived at ten past ten a little over three hours later. There was a couple of us early birds, promptly followed by a few more a short while later. The organisers directed us to the parking positions on the stand, well a bit of carpet actually. This is view of the hall before it started to take shape, a few behind the scenes as it were. There was a long que to get us into the correct area locations.

I started cleaning from 10:15am until 7:45pm when the place was being shut down and us stragglers who were there got turfed out for the night – I was still cleaning at that point.

The car was the dirtiest it has ever been. Chrome looked like faded aluminium and the paint a shade of grey dirtier.

Some other cars arriving as I was cleaning, these guys took it super serious with ramps and all sorts with mirrors under the car, some even trailered in with plastic wraps on the wheels.

I decided to waterless wash the car twice very carefully, then i wanted to strip the old wax off and start again. That was done by 70/30% mix of isopropyl alcohol and water. With that done I could then start to add a couple of layers of clean wax to build it up again. I took my pre packed case that I thought I would need- I needed it all.

With the car pretty much where I wanted it to be I could cover it for the night and start early in the morning for the interior and finish the wheels.

Early on in the morning there was out info sheet that was to be put into the stand next to the cars, this was mine.

 Here was the stand ready for the press and some public at 9am on the Friday morning. The Ferrari wasn’t completed as it turned up, but a few guys worked wonders on it ready for the show. then carried on with the work after the show, each day the parts boxes getting less and less.

At 7.45 we were not allowed in even a few minutes early as exhibitors, mainly down to ‘jobs worth’ security guards. So a few of us sat here looking at this for quarter of an hour.

Early and late evening I could wander around and take a few pictures without people in the way. So in no particular order because I can’t remember here are a number of pics.

So real nice old timers.

 

Something different, not everyday you get run over by a tank!

Once the day got busy I hardly left the stand. The other exhibitors were great looking after each others cars (except for a couple of owners).

The car got plenty of attention throught the day and weekend and was non stop.

So what got me so fired up? Read the next post and find out, it’s not pretty reading!

Part two will be at 2pm tomorrow! 

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Not The Last Car Show After All!

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had attended the last car show of the season, with a possibility of another if didn’t rain. Well, that was indeed the last car show for me as the next intended show did in fact rain so I didn’t go as my car has gotten wet enough this year already. However, earlier in the year I had applied to the Lancaster Insurance Classic Car Show to be considered for the “Pride Of Ownership” section of the show. The expectation was not to hear anything due to the standards of cars out there. Then I got an email to say that I had been selected as a finalist at this years show. That means I will be going to another show, hosted inside the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, UK.

The Birmingham NEC hosts and boasts the largest classic car show in the country with over 71,000 visitors across 7 show halls over a very busy weekend. This year the sights have been set even higher for even more visitors. The show is a full on Petrol Head event with over 3000 cars, many, many trade stands, autojumble, talks, live demonstrations and they are trying to build an E-Type Jag in a weekend!

There will be a total of 20 cars in the Pride of Ownership final, the winners will be decided by the visitors voting on the show days at the stand. The Lancaster Classic Car Show and the Birmingham NEC have been posting regularly now on social media and email shots. My car has been shown on a number of posts with this one taken at the Mustang Maniac yard;

This is the first press release on their website to show the first 10 cars selected for the category.

If you click this picture it will take you to the home page of the LCCS so you can see what is going on if you want to make a day or two of it.

My car was last at this show just after the restoration was completed in 2015 on the Mustang Owners Club of Great Britain. That was a manic three days where I started to loose my voice at the end of the weekend talking so much.

I’m so excited this year about being there again as an exhibitor and hope to see lots of people all weekend. Please come over and say “Hello” to me and mention my blog so I can meet some of my readers with little luck. Of course if you then think I’m a proud enough owner of my car more so than the other car owners, then maybe drop in a vote for me.

There is going to be some amazing cars there on this stand as my competition, actually that’s a little unfair, they are all fellow enthusiasts just like me. Win or loose it’s a privilege to be selected to appear at this event regardless. In fact I already consider myself to have won, just because I’m taking part. Sounds corny right? Maybe, but its true. My car is for me to enjoy driving it about and is not some trailer queen just for show. If I don’t win then I can at least enjoy my trip back home again. As you probably know I also use and show the car for some good causes too.

The journey will take me a little over two hours according to my mate Tom (Tom Tom Sat Nav), so I can add another half hour to that as I wont be thrashing the ol’ girl up the motorway to do the 120 miles fast as possible. I will not doubt be travelling in the wind & rain to get there and spend a total day getting her cleaned up again after I get there. ‘Cause lets face it with my luck this year it will rain, won’t it?

Oh, just for the record I’m not on commission for the event, I just wanted to shout about it as I’m mega excited and just can’t wait to be there. There is even a countdown timer I added to the show opening.

I honestly hope to see you there. 🙂

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