I’ve not long come back from the TTT 2 Tour of the Lancashire Lanes and Yorkshire Dales. A good weekend enjoyed by all and most returned home in the dry. We weren’t so lucky and had to put the hood up for the last 85 miles. This was only the second time in 17 years of owning the car that the hood has been raised so we haven’t done badly!
Thanks must go to the organisers, Grant and Barbara Humphreys, the route checkers, Graham and Sonja Walker, the rally plate manufacturers, Brian and Rosie Rainbow and last but not least our sponsors, NTG Motor Services and Hagerty International Insurance. A special thank you goes to Paul and Christine Ireland for the video of the Tour, and to ‘guest stars’ David (Paul’s son) and Kerri, who opened and closed the video.
For those who have not seen the video it is at: https://youtu.be/SZSMi-C4QBU
Next year’s tour is filling up nicely and two thirds of the rooms allocated to us are now booked. The details from the previous issue of TTT 2 are as follows:
“If you weren’t able to make this year’s Tour why not come along to next year’s Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tour, which is being held from 26th to 29th August? The rate negotiated with Bells Hotel in Coleford for the dinner, bed and breakfast package is £57 per person per night and the reservation number for bookings is BK07359 (£25 per person deposit).”
Perhaps this is an opportune moment to ask if Ms (or Mrs.) Sessions, who has booked a double room in the hotel, will contact me because I’m afraid that we don’t know who you are and the hotel does not have any contact details for you! Please phone me on 0117 986 4224.
For 2017 (there’s confidence in the future!) Peter Cole has provisionally booked 50 bedrooms for the nights of 18th, 19th, and 20th August 2017 in the Chichester Park Hotel Chichester, West Sussex. The rates confirmed are as follows:
Thursday: (for those who want to arrive a day early) £100.00 per room based on 2 guests sharing to include dinner, bed & breakfast
Friday: £135.00 per room based on 2 guests sharing to include dinner, bed & breakfast
Saturday: £135.00 per room based on 2 guests sharing to include dinner, bed & breakfast
Sunday: £100.00 per room based on 2 guests sharing to include dinner, bed & breakfast
Single Occupancy rooms will incur a supplement of £25.00 per night (so £92.50 for Friday or Saturday, £75.00 for Thursday or Sunday) but the first 3 single occupancy rooms will not incur this supplement.
It was remiss of me not to mention in the last issue that the superb TF1500 owned by Neil Wallace which graced the front cover, won 2 “best in show”, 2 “best in class”, and one “3rd in class” accolades at major shows during 2014 in the North West and North Wales.
Neil is the 6th owner, having owned it since October 2013. It is an all matching numbers car with original tub and interior although the seats were refurbished in 1971. The car was repainted and re-chromed in 2010.
Turning to this issue’s front cover, Jonathan Goddard’s painting of his first, fondly remembered, TC, GGA 949, Jonathan has penned a brief history of the car in the hope that it might just jog someone’s memory:
“MG TC, GGA 949 was purchased on the 26th April 1967 for £55. Originally black, it was repainted in letterbox red and served as a not always reliable transport, around Chislehurst during its owner’s apprenticeship at “Aquila”. This Ministry of Technology site also housed a “modern” Apprenticeship school and workshops.
The availability of a full engineering workshop on ‘hobbies evening’ was a real blessing enabling us apprentices to keep our old cars on the road and mostly legal. At the end of the apprenticeship, in 1971, it was time to move on from a very tired, but barely road legal, MG TC and to replace it with an ‘updated’ and more modern MG Midget. Mr. B.C.Walker of Bromley in Kent paid £210 for the TC and its previous owner romantically invested this sum into a diamond engagement ring, which his wife still wears!
The TC was sorely missed but its owner had learnt much about automobile engineering, and the MG Midget was a reliable replacement, just like the wife!”
The cutaway illustration of the MG TC (GAD 518) on the back cover is reproduced by kind permission of Phil Bell, editor of Classic Cars magazine. It appeared, probably as an insert, in Classic Cars magazine in 1993 to mark their 20th Anniversary (1973-1993). The magazine first published an article on the TC in June 1974, which seemingly drew much of its inspiration from the road test originally published in The Motor. GAD 518 is chassis number TC1601.
Just enough room left to let you know that I met up recently with Georg and Angela Rahm from Stuttgart. They were holidaying over here and we arranged to rendezvous at the Tollgate Tea Shop, just a few miles from where they were staying in Lacock, Wiltshire. Georg owns a TF (proper TF, that is) and having lived in New Zealand (where he purchased the TF) their English is perfect.