I just spent two great days looking at around 800 British cars at the annual
all British car show in Portland (Oregon) Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was
the car show and Sunday was a swap meet and slalom races. This year the
featured cars were Minis and Morgans. I've never seen that many minis in
one place and there was a good showing of Morgans, 2 + 2's and 8 +'s.
That's the first time I've seen an V8 Morgan, what a beautiful car. There
was even a 1998 version with air bags, no less. A couple of finely restored
Rileys and a huge contingent of A's, B's, TF's, TD's, TC's with a smattering
of Midgets and Sprites. I was disappointed in the number of Lotus's that
showed up, but there was a beautiful race prepared Super 7. There were
lot's of really nice Jaguars, including a couple of magnificent C types. I
don't suppose a double overhead cam 6 would fit in a B, but I saw the most
beautiful V8 conversion on a 74 B that you could imagine. It had the
exhaust headers routed through the fender well's and the fenders were flared
both front and rear for extra wide tires with a scoop in the hood for the
air intake. All was done professionally and the whole car looked beautiful.
There were 3 TVR's (or is that TRV's), which I hadn't seen before with one
converted to a Rover V8. There were quite a few Triumphs, but not many
TR2's or TR3's.
The slaloms were fun to watch, with a TD driven from Sacramento doing a very
credible job on the course that was mostly dominated by minis that ran from
stock to one with a 2 liter Vauxhall engine putting out 240 hp. There was
also a husband and wife team that drove a 65 Tiger in two events that was
race prepared, current D production champs I believe, and fun to watch.
Nice to hear that V8 putting out the power. Also a vintage XKE racer that
was fun to watch. What was missing was Barney and his A with an attitude.
I didn't see any A's in the slalom, but there were plenty in the car show.
I didn't get to meet Lawry, but sat behind a continent of folks from
Sacramento. One of the TVR's entered the slalom as well as a Spitfire with
a rotary engine that was very fast. One Midget ran that was quite fast.
The smaller cars had the advantage as the slalom which included two u-turns
on a fairly narrow track and a hard left just in front of 4 cones. Too bad
it decided to rain after better than a month of no rain. Oh well that's
Oregon on Labor Day.
Dave 72 B
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