Had a good day out taking part in the local Drive It Day offerings. Felt I was cheating a little in a 27 year old car, but it claimed some minor interest.
I was lucky enough to be invited along to Ffienes open day. This is a Rolls Royce, and top end, restoration specialist. They have expanded to fill their new, much larger, single building, from the days when they had several units dotted about a private industrial park at another chum's. Beautiful cars, superb machine shop, and I would think a great place to get things done.
Of interest was a RR that had had the misfortune to crash with a modern in France. The chassis rail had twisted slightly, and one become shorter than the other by several inches. It was hard to see where, so it had been measured either side and scribed with datum lines. The impact was enough to spring the opening screen and crack the glass. The opposition was apparently scraped off the front and side of the RR to be binned. These cars are seriously strong. So it will live again, but at what cost to the insurer?
I picked up a chum there and we headed off for the main event in the area, at Bicester (10 miles north of Oxford). There were classics pottering off all over the place. It was fun just spotting them. The central event was a Brunch meeting so we arrived as that was ending, and cars were going off to lunch time rendezvous elsewhere. Just to get there we passed clearly very busy Long Hanborough Bus Museum and Blenhiem Palace. Not being booked in we had to go to the visitors car park. Sadly that was rather a walk away from the main seat of action. My leg, aggravated by a week of crawling under BXs that refuse to be made roadworthy, was not up for this, and became ever more swollen. So we split up and I sat on the exposed footings of a huge WW11 hanger at a T junction. Most of the cars on site, therefore drove passed me, rather than I walking past them.
Bud returned and we started to walk back the half mile to the car. In the event I covered half the distance and was driven homewards, an enjoyable change. We deviated to go and visit a mutual friend, and in the end I found I had been out doing Classic Cars for 11 hours of Sunday. Most enjoyable.
The Bicester meeting has great potential for booking a stand, joining a stand, as the Brunch and entrance was only £5. Cheap for round here. However, no microcar, or attached light car/microcar, was seen, despite known running examples in the area - two in Bicester itself. Maybe they were at some other Drive It Day location.
What did you do last Sunday, on Drive It Day?