Club Trip - Gaydon

18febAll DayClub Trip - Gaydon

Event Details

We are visiting the British Motor Museum at Gaydon. The museum features a new “Collections Centre” opened in November 2015 as a store for the reserve car collections of both the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust and we have arranged a behind the scenes tour.

The club have negotiated a reduced rate of £9 per person instead of the normal £12 cost and we will be arranging a free minibus. Places are on a first come first served basis – contact Nick Wood on 0778 6936941 or nickswood@hotmail.com

Time

All Day (Saturday)

Results

Wearing my IAM hat I joined some IAM members for the visit to Gaydon, at the Cross Hands Old Sodbury and jumped into Graham Volks lovely little Lotus Elan +2, Ted was in the Ex Cross Engineering development Rover P6 V8S.

We had 5 min comfort stop 2/3rds there and I took advantage? to swap Lotus for Rover power in Ted’s ex Cross Engineering development Rover P6 V8S.

We arrived with small separation in ample time for opening, in the Café and met the Pegasus Mini bus crew and exchanged greetings!

At 11 we started a tour of the newly opened section… first floor the overflow “reserve” exhibits, some of which are not in full display condition but very interesting none the less, Ted was of course interested in the London to Sydney Landcrab that his very impressive ‘lookalike’ is based on.

Downstairs houses the Jaguar collection, everything from pre-war to present day via XK120, D Types, E types, Mk1 to 10, X, S Types, prototype V12 all wheel drive XK220 and Le Mans winning 1988 XJR 12, literally millions of £s worth of Jags!

We returned to the main museum for a snack lunch then we did the full visit of the main building – it’s a fantastic tour de force incl all the Monte Carlo Rally winning Minis from the 60s. Again everything from early 1900 aero engine wonders to a modern Mclaren and Rolls Royce, the British design ingenuity and flare on display emphasis the shame that so much of UK car industry today is foreign owned.

We took tea before setting off back to Bristol, Ted had promised me a drive in the V8S since I had not driven it since its gearbox had been overhauled and power steering had been fitted – it still has lots of grunt but is now a bit more user friendly to us non classic car drivers used to over lightweight modern controls!

It certainly keeps up with modern traffic and was great punting it down the Fosseway, even surprised someone with a quick overtake..

So a fun day enjoyed by all I think.

Pete Goodman

View all the photos taken during the club visit