Kim's car collection....
As many will know, Kim was hoping to beat his record with the amount of his own vehicles he could get to our Rally. His previous best was six vehicles way back in 1999 at Weymouth. We can confirm that Kim well and truly smashed his previous record. Twenty vehicles plus a vintage bicycle were on display in Kim's Corner. On behalf of Kim I would like to thank all the volunteer drivers who had helped to get the cars there and back. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and congratulations Kim.
Kim continues....
Could Kim ever beat his record of six of his own vehicles attending one event?
How Many cars? Kim has the answer. Fellow members on the Jurassic organising Committee challenged me (in a nice way) to bring along more than the 6 vehicles that I took to our Dorset Group's Weymouth event in 1999. Could I reach double figures this time? Unlikely. I felt that I remember that on that occasion, 20 years ago I drove 983 miles to-ing and fro-ing all six vehicles over a 4 day spell. Ridiculous.... Yet I couldn't stop thinking about this new challenge and in the end I could not let this once in a lifetime opportunity pass. Madness...... I decided to get as many of our family's cars as physically possible in the same
place at the same time. I started by making a list of the 'possible' vehicles.We have 29 in total (Elaine collects them you know)......... of which six had not moved anywhere in recent years. In April I put together a more detailed list of operations required on each vehicle (six closely typed A4 pages) and started work in earnest on the five cars that were not on the road but were not impossible cases. These included my 1995 Jaguar XJ 3.2 Sport 'Giles' (notably needed power steering work and the sorting of an E.C.U. problem). Our 1983 old faithful Morris Ital Estate (owned by us for 24 years but in need of welding, fuel hose replacement and carburetor attentions, plus a seized clutch and brakes to be freed and a fresh MoT required). My 1938 Austin Big Seven (unused for a very long time and with a dead battery plus even more dead fuel which smelt awful and would not allow the engine to run and a fuel pump that had gone to sleep). Anthony's A30 'Archie' (the poor old car had been languishing in the garden for five years awaiting new big end shells and a new head gasket etc) And sad to relate my grand dad's favourite old Austin 'KP' ( we had used it last year but the starter motor and battery has since died.)
I 'kept calm and carried on', working through the list for each car and two weeks before the Rally it looked like I might get 10 there. But I had 15 in mind. I kept at it, every available hour and much midnight oil was being burnt! in the end 17 vehicles were mended/readied and with much help from family and friends (including Dorseteers John Farrow, Colin Hughes and Rob, thank you!) we got all of these to Wareham by the eve of the event, on Thursday. However, at the very last minute of the '11th hour' we decided to really 'go for it' and drove another three there. Available time then ran out! Alas Giles didn't make it (electronic complications and non running after welding at a local garage) and we didn't have time to get Rachel's modern classic there (or any of my other classics that would only move on a trailer!) Nevertheless I was delighted that we had 20 vehicles there over the weekend, with 19 together on the Sunday. I stood in the middle of 'Kim's corner' on that morning and looked around and I had to pinch myself to realize I had actually 'done it' with much help. I was also delighted that Jeff Carter's non-running A35 'Frank' had made it to the event from Beaminster. (Using our 'Magic Bus@ plus a trailer. Jeff had resigned himself to the A35 not being there....
Good news.... I did get the Ital estate, the Big Seven, Anthony's A30 'Archie' (with Anthony helping, we tackled all the engine work in a weekend of long hours) plus the A60 all sorted and running to be driven to and from the Rally. Of the 20 vehicles, 19 were driven there and back. My old A35 estate car 'Grasshopper', off the road since 1993, has no floor nor brakes so had to be trailered to and fro (but I got the engine running and drove onto and off the trailer!). For the record, this time we covered 1,423 miles getting the cars to and from the Rally site - two days to get them there and two more to get them back. I was very pleased that I had attempted this and the interest in the cars from Rally goers and passers by was astonishing.
.jpg)
Part of Kim's Corner
.jpg)
Rainbow Rachel after Ozzie had been judged second in his class
Kim's collection
Our vehicles in Kim' corner over the Rally weekend:
1938 Austin Big Seven, 1954 Austin A40 Somerset drophead, 1955 A30, Pru, towing our 1971 Sprite Cadet caravan, 1956 Austin A50 Cambridge, Tiddley-J, Anthony's 1956 A30 two door saloon, Archie, 1957 A35 four door saloon, restored by Elaine's dad, Peter, and still owned by her mum, Barbara and driven there by my brother in law, Andrew. Elaine's 1958 A35 two door saloon, Snowflake, my grandad's 1964 A60 Cambridge, KP, Rachel's 1965 estate Ozzie, and he won second prize in the van conversion section, my sad 1965 A35 estate , Grasshopper, (he didn't win any prizes but gained much attention for his potential.....) , my 1972 Reliant Regal, Raquel, our 1983 Morris Ital 1.7 SL estate, bruey, my late mum Heather's 1990 Maestro 1.3 LX that she bought new, our 1995 three 3 special edition Ford Escort Mexico, Pedro, Anthony's 1996 Rover 214 Si, The Wild Red Rover, our 1999 Mazda Domino, my 28,000 mile 2002 Rover 25, Rufus. Anthony's Vauxhall Movano motor caravan, Moo, and our 2003 Zafira, The Magic Bus.
A taste of things to come. This was our first site visit in February 2018
We all very much enjoyed the Jurassic Rally; Wonderful cars, great company amidst fellow Dorseteers, lovely scenery and good weather; brilliant!