Lovely day so an excuse to have a stomp round our local bash. I had Adrian Fluxed three classic cars Messerschmitt, BX 16 TRS Auto and Trooper MK1, with all trimmings including use abroad for a very reasonable £250, but none was quite ready to take along.
In the midst of the classics, the boring and the modern- 'what special about that'?, you get at such events these days, I was impressed to find a very tidy Mini Comtesse. It turned out that it had been in a pretty rough state and subject to a rebuilt. The owner was clearly a capable and enthusiastic micronaut. Sadly he was amongst the ranks of the disconnected due to negative experiences with club contacts. In this case the owner was no longer interested in RUMcar activity. I am continually finding this in both new and in old time-served owners. By not being part of the larger Microcar activity they tend to restrict themselves to their local show circuit and the odd special trip. They are not going to receive information on the Microcar Rallies as these are not placed on the independent calendars and rosters of events published annually, for whatever reason. So there is clearly a few problems here to be resolved by clubs and its all about quality and availability of communications.
Such is the desolation in the South of the country now. Little joined up activity, and I continually meet unaligned Micronauts, I do wonder if the one marque clubs have had their day and should look to being the businesses they really have become, in running their spares services. To replace the void, in much the way the Micro Maniacs does in the North, and the other regional clubs in their areas, perhaps it is time for a Wessex Microcar Club. Yes we had the Bristol Microcar Club. But Bristol is easy to define as a place. It is an area as devoid of Microcars these days as it was bulging in its hay day. Wessex is very much larger and blurred at the edges. The nearer I get to having a car on the road the more I realize there are very few places too take it that offer group Microcar support. So a lonely existence.