Theo,
You're absolutely right when you say there's a lot of work in running a
club, especially a national club of any marque. I ran my university's Greek
(Inter-Fraternal) Council and that was a ton of work. However, most marques
have
national clubs. Is that a reason to do it? Not really.
With Corvettes, a marque I'm familiar with, there's the NCRS (National
Corvette Restorer Society). They have local "chapters" virtually everywhere
around
the country. Yes, I know they been produced for 50+ years. However, they
have an outstanding national bi-monthly publication called Driveline that
contains an extensive listing of cars and parts for sale/wanted, national and
regional event listings, advertisements for the many Corvette related
businesses
(the best ones), books, manuals, technical articles, etc. as well as a glossy
quarterly magazine named Corvette Restorer that contains stories and
restoration articles. The one thing I've found in the brief time I've owned my
Tiger
is that there's just a precious few parts suppliers in the world and that many
of the parts for the car are not reproduced anywhere. There's Dale, Rick,
Doug, and a few others, but in my humble opinion, coordination would do
wonders
for everyone involved with the Tiger & Alpine (Hillman?) Marque.
While I appreciate very much the help that Norman gave me when I purchased
my Tiger, have you compared the Shelby World Registry circa 1997 (they are
currently undergoing a Major revision) to the back of Norman's book? The word
"Withheld" is listed ten times. The websites of Norman and Mark as well as the
List are excellent resources, but everything can be improved. Nothing is
perfect.
Gee, can you imagine your Tiger between the Hemi Cuda on your left and the
Plymouth Roadrunner with the 440 6-pack on the right? I actually think that one
of the reasons that Tigers suffer from a lack of exposure is due to the
fact that Chrysler purchased Sunbeam and then shut it down.
As of right now, I have three dues bills to pay each year (for Tigers) and
I'm thinking of joining the UK club too. Hey, there's one in New Zealand I hear
is pretty good.
Rodney
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