2008 Event Reports

[January Pub Meeting] [February Pub Meeting] [March Pub Meeting] [Duxford Tiger Meeting]

[Detling Kit Car Show] [Stoneleigh Kit Car Show] [Tiger Open Day] [June Pub Meeting]

January Pub Meeting by Giles Cooper

Well we chose a good day weather wise! Possibly the worst rain this year - unfortunately it had stopped raining as I was about to leave and having just checked the BBC weather forecast I decided to take the Tiger.

Big mistake - flooded country lanes and small sportscars don't mix and I ended up completely soaked. At the time of writing (6 days later) the carpets are just about dry although not yet fitted into the car.

Besides the weather what actually happened, well for a start after some 'interesting' dialog via email we still had a good few members turn up: Tony and Liz Haggie, Russell Morgan, Mark Bristow, Adrian Gibbons, Steve Tuck, Reg Williams, Mike Finch, Paul Browning, Malc Brown, John Holmes and myself. Amazing that abysmal weather and more people turn up than we had before Christmas!

There were plenty of interesting discussions with quite a few about plans for events, what the club is planning for this year - all of which is still up for discussion so it is not too late to put a suggestion or two into the pot - just email the club and all comments will be listened to.

No photos from the meet though as I don't think a camera would have survived the journey down.

February Pub Meeting by Giles Cooper

Have we upset someone.... First the January Pub Meeting was a slight washout. The February one was fog bound. The fog was so thick that on the way down you were down to 20mph or less when trying to find the road you wanted. Chris Davison and Mervyn Garner reported seeing someone drive off the road in the fog on the way down!

However a few of us did make the journey, Alan and Eve Whale even managing it in their Tiger (braver than me!). We also met a new member of the club David Benson who had made the journey as well.

We did get a reasonable turnout despite the weather and plenty of stuff was discussed.

However I did hear of something rather strange after the meeting. Apparantly a non member came down to the meeting, sat in the bar for an hour or so and then left having failed to locate the Tiger owners (despite having seen one in the car-park).

So to all of you who haven't been to a meeting before - if coming to the monthly pub meeting then just ask at the bar as we have been going to the same pub for a couple of years and they should know who we are!

Hopefully next month will be dry and starting to get lighter so we shall have a load of Tigers in the car park and we may even be outside.

March Pub Meeting by Giles Cooper

I don't know what happened we had a dry, clear evening for the pub meeting! For the first time this year we had a decent weather wise evening. It should be said that we also had a total of five tigers in the car park:- myself, Niall Turner, Dave Sneesby, Alan Whale and David Benson.

As a result of this (and including those who could have turned up in their Tigers) we had one of the best turnouts for a long time with a total of 15 people present. Although it was a dry and clear evening it wasn't quite enough to persuade people outside for more than a few minutes. Plenty of topics were discussed most importantly getting a good turn out for Duxford on the 30th March.

The weather is now on the improving front (I wrote the notes for this on Wednesday and it has spent the Easter Weekend snowing! so not the best thing to write). However the next meeting should be dry and lighter so we can see what happens then.

Duxford Tiger Display by Giles Cooper

First off here are some of the pictures of the cars taken during the display.

Now go back and count up the number of Tigers present. You will find a grand total of 7 yes 7 tigers out of a club membership of 84 cars made it. Now there were two Tiger owners who didn't make it in their cars; Ian Brown who sold his the day before the show and arrived in his Focus instead, and Chris Davison whose Tiger is not on the road at present so came in his Lotus Esprit.

I know that some people couldn't make it due to other commitments or broken cars but last year we had over 30 Tigers - was it really that bad an event in 2007.

Also due to the non show of the person who said he would organise it I ended up having to collect the money from the people there so that we would have something to pay duxford with when they bill us for the event.

Fortunately I had the foresight to ask the East Anglian BMW club to attend the meeting and they bought along 13 cars, also the Fakenham Auto Club managed to bring along 7 so there were a few more. If I hadn't asked these two organisations then we would have had a pathetic display.

Sorry if this reads like a rant but I am not overly happy with the outcome.

However on the good side we had spectacular weather with it being warm, dry and sunny all day and the revised location by the American Air Museum was a lot better than being out by the entrance as anyone heading towards the land warfare hall had to pass between the cars to get there so we managed to get more foot traffic.

Detling Kit Car Show by Giles Cooper

Detling is always a good season opener to the show calendar. I had arranged to meet up with Eric Johnston, Russell Morgan and Niall Turner. Once we had all met up then a quick blast (obviously staying within speed limits) down the M11 to Basildon where I would pick up my brother for the rest of the journey into darkest Kent.

All went to plan until we arrived at the showground. After nipping off for a "comfort break" I came out and discovered it had started to rain, oh well I put the roof up on the car and the heavens opened. So it was back into the show halls. Unfortunately this was to continue for the rest of the day.

As a result of this I didn't get to wander around the car displays much and spent most of the time in the show halls, Tiger had a small display with just the ZR6 although the car did look very impressive.

However I did get one important part for the Tiger - a windscreen washer bottle due to the fact it hasn't had any washers for the last 7 months after doing some other repair work and not refitting it!

Myself and Piers decided to leave earlier than normal as the rain was putting a bit of a dampener on the show. On the way back I kept hearing strange noises culminating in an almighty rattle coming from the gearbox whilst going through the Dartford tunnel. These noises continued in every gear except 5th after dropping Piers off and a quick consultation by phone with some other owners it was sounding like imminent gearbox failure - and I was 90 miles from home.

I continued back to Peterborough fairly gently not wishing to put the box under too much strain and finally made it despite the best efforts of a hailstorm to hinder me. After the show I went and bought some gearbox oil (and molyslip) the 'box needed 1.2l as a Type 9 from dry uses 1.25l I think I was a bit low. The car now sounds a lot better and appears to be doing more MPG, certainly it went from Peterborough to Silverstone and back on a single tank of fuel - around 130 miles.

Stoneleigh Kit Car Show by Giles Cooper

Today was always going to be a chance with the weather forecast as it was (heavy showers) but it was bright and clear when setting off. The plan was to meet up with Malc and Mervyn just outside West Deeping and continue on the back roads through to Stoneleigh. All well and good but we hadn't factored in Network Rail!

Just outside Tallington is a railway crossing where I think they had decided to sweep the track - well whatever it was they were doing it very slowly, after 15 minutes of waiting the level crossing finally opened, only for us to find Mervyn's car wouldn't start as sitting in traffic the engine gets rather warm and the starter motor gives up.

That minor problem solved it was a quick and uneventful run to the show. At this point I disappeared off to a very interesting technical lecture of making bits out of fibreglass. Once that was over it was back to the car to put a rain cover on it and take some photos of the assembled Tigers - I haven't got everyone in but I think there were over 40 cars at one point – certainly we overfilled the parking area and ended up using the road as well. Although I am sure that we had a bigger area last year...

There seemed to be a lot more people there than last year and certainly there was a good bit of interest around all the cars and displays. So hopefully the sales figures for the manufacturers are going to increase. Maybe people are now deciding to invest in cars rather than houses?

Tiger had a very nice simple stand of five silver cars, the ZR6 (supercharged), ERA 30, RS6 (fresh from racing), R6 and a Super or XL cat as I can't remember which it was!

Other stands of note were - Complete Kit Car which featured a car in special camouflage paint (all you could see was a sign on the floor - it had broken down on the way) and the Brabini featured in the magazine recently - it was interesting but not really to my taste.

The big Cobra manufacturers were out in force as usual along with some interesting replicas of various cars.

In terms of owners cars there, five Phantom GTRs were parked up all of which were stunning examples of this rare kit.

There was also a good range of accessory stalls for once as for someone like myself who has a complete car these are one of the main reasons for going to the shows, although the one tool I wanted (a two handed wire brush) seemed to be unknown and since getting home and just before writing this I have found that Screwfix stock them!

Finally having got what I wanted I got round to leaving and left all the happy campers to what looked like a rather damp evening!

Tiger Open Day by Giles Cooper

Well after a week of “indifferent” weather the Sunday for the open day turned out surprisingly well.

The day however was a bit quieter than previous open days - I don't know if moving it to a week later than normal was a factor or not.

However I had a good time and met some prospective new club members and a few of the existing members who I haven't seen before...

On the other hand it was a good day for Tiger, they sold an ERA30 after taking in a Super 6 in part exchange, an R6, and best of all someone popped into the garage to buy a bar of chocolate and left with a very nice Cat that had been for sale (worlds most expensive bar of chocolate?)

There were around 30 cars in the car park, although this number fluctuated throughout the day so I am not entirely sure of the number. Certainly the turnout far exceeded the show at the same time last year where I think we had 4 due to the rather inclement weather.

May Pub Meeting by Giles Cooper

A fine dry and relatively warm meeting greeted us for the pub meeting. We had a reasonable turnout with 10 Tigers making the journey down. Even better was the fact it was still light and dry for the initial journey so the fun factor was much improved once off the A1.

Alan Whale managed to make it after having the fuel pump fail on the way home from the open day just two days ago.

Many things were discussed and a few more tickets for the Sporting Bears were given out.

However not all the cars made it home under there own power. David Benson's Six despite already running without one of the front mudguards (due to a dodgy weld) suffered with the alternator bracket failing – the same problem occurred last year with Mervyn Garner's R6 and he was at great lengths keen to emphasise and put in the mag that his isn't the only car which suffers breakdowns at club meetings! (Sorry David)

Finally at the end of the night everyone left for home – with David's car on the back of a transporter. Although the car would run without the alternator for a while, it certainly couldn't without the water pump and as they are both fed off the same belt nothing more could be done.