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A weekend early in November is usually pencilled into the European
Classic Car Enthusiast's diary from very early within the year. For
me this is because I intend to be sitting in bar on some sunny island
getting away from rain and cold that late Autumn brings to the British….
Not this year though! This year the holiday doesn't coincide with
the International Classic Motor Show held at the NEC, Birmingham (England).
Further more, this year I was invited by the TR
Drivers Club to help (or maybe hinder) with their stand-manning
and drive to recruit more club members.
I pootled along on the second day (Sunday 9 November) and arrived
in time to watch the second half of the England vs Wales Rugby World
Cup quarter final game (England won by the way). This was the first
time I've been anything other than a paying punter at a show and I
quickly made myself useful by supplying a set of batteries when those
powering Guy's pocket TV gave up the ghost with 5 minutes of the game
still to run!
On the stand itself were 3 DHC TR7's, one a very original 'barn find'
car that had been re-imported from South Africa and then left underwraps
for 9 years. There is little wrong with the car that a little tidying
up won't cure… one thing for sure  though
and that's that the South African's can't paint-match!! The harsh
show lights certainly highlighted the poor likeness of the driver's
door to the rest of the car. We also had two very fine examples of
the marque - a 2.0l in Posiedon green, and a maroon(ish) v8 powered
vehicle. All three cars attracted a fair bit of attention - the Sth
African one for it's originality and it's history; the others for
their appearance and assisted by a 'for sale' sign and modifications
respectively.
After loitering around the stand chatting, mainly to those also on
stand-manning duties - and finding out a bit about their cars - I
wandered around the show itself. Aside from the stand-manning aspect
the show was another first… I wasn't actually looking for any
bits from the auto-jumble!!! After failing to spot a TR7 Corgi toy
amongst the sellers I made a significant purchase of a keyring! It
wasn't only Corgi TR7s in short supply however as I could find only
one other example of the last of the TR line. This was on the TR Register
stand and was another DHC - not one FHC to be found.
The club itself did get a few leads with regards to possible new
members - though I believe Saturday was better for increasing the
membership numbers. I wasn't much cop at signing anyone up really
- chatting to a few people (who all seemed to be within about 20miles
of TRisha's residence) but forgetting to write their details in the
big book of leads! Hopefully Kevin or Phil did the writing…..
I did realise a couple of things whilst there:
- I need to adjust the colour settings on my camera for the next
show!
- It's quite tiring standing around gabbing all day.
Driving home in the rain I caught site of my 5th TR7 of the day….
Another bloomin DHC, at least this one had the hood up though! Which
is a good job really otherwise he'd have been mighty wet!
It was good of the club to invite me along - hopefully I wasn't too
useless and we can help promote the club through www.TriumphTR7.com.
If you want to see some better photo's (taken by people who have learnt
how to use their cameras) take a look at the Club's
site
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