Gaydon 2010: All sorts of 2-stroke

ere are a few photos from the 2-stroke event and the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon the other weekend, and just a couple of weeks after the chilly and changable conditions at Popham the weather couldn't have been better. Edward and I met up with Alan Hitchcock and Stuart Cyphus in Farringdon and then headed off up the Fosse Way in convoy with Alan towing his red and black KR200 on an A-Frame (so, no, he didn't manage to get sorted in time to get there under its own power -Ed).

'Schmitts at Popham: Under a heavy sky!

opham was fun, but perishing cold! Edward and I rolled up somewhat late at around 11am to find a huge number of cars (visitors as opposed to exhibitors) parked up.

Peter Darby had let us have a couple of exhibitors passes having agreed that we'd help out at his and Joyce's stall, so at least we were able to use the tradesman's entrance and park up not too far from the gate. The marshals were all very freindly, but locating Peter and Joyce took quite a while, and obviously there were plenty of interesting vehicles to be distracted by. It's a big site and we trekked around for some time before finally spotting them just in time to avoid the first rain shower of the afternoon.

Dateline 17th March at the monthly meeting at The Fleece, Bretforton.

Spring is on the way as I left in the gloaming rather than in total darkness on my hours drive to the Fleece. As if proof were needed the meeting yielded a Messerschmitt KR200, Mike Baggott, NSU Prinz 3, Nick Haddon and a Melos. So despite the relative newness of this venue it is punching above its weight with microcars attending the evening. This bodes well for the summer and hopefully will encourage a larger turnout of any Classic Cars once The Fleece's run of Classic evenings start. Hopefully Postcombe might start to attract microcars too. Tormarton has struggled to bring in driven cars for sometime but maybe this will change and the place will not just be full of Singers who share the night with us. Get that car going!

any many years ago, before Americans were Microcar enthusiasts and Britain still managed to look like it had an Empire a 'schmitter called Bob had an idea. This was because he went to a local show where he met Tom. Tom had restored an Austin Big Seven and made rubber mats for the running boards rather than use fibreglass ones. Bob thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could remake the rubber mats that all Messerschmitt KR200s, KR201s and TG500s were equipped with when they were new.""Wouldn't it be nice if I could remake the rubber mats that all Messerschmitt KR200s, KR201s and TG500s were equipped with when they were new." He knew that after 20 years most mats had long since fallen apart. Some cars had carpets, which got wet and made the car rusty, or even no floor cover at all which looked very ugly and all the 'schmitters were unhappy about it. Since Bob was a member of the MEC he went about this in a somewhat gentlemanly fashion rather than treating it as a business venture. You have to remember in these days men stuck to their word and tried to maintain certain standards rather than attempting to grab anything they could hopefully get away with.