Although the Icelandic volcano had us on pins and needles for a while,
my wife and I were able to spend the last two weeks in England
sandwiched between eruptions and have now returned. Our trip was not
focused on Sunbeams, but there are a couple of things I did want to
mention to the group. First, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting
with Graham and Ruth Vickery and viewing their two Tigers. They were
exceedingly gracious and invited Merrilee and me to stay overnight at
their house in Surrey. The next day Graham drove us up to Heathrow in
the morning traffic. What nice people! Graham is the vice-president of
STOC and is very knowledgeable about Tigers. He owns two special ones
now and has owned others in the past. One example that he now owns is
one of the pre-production Tigers that Rootes and Jensen put together
before regular production began. According to Graham, they pulled 10
Alpines off the line and converted them to Tigers to study the
engineering and modifications necessary. Graham's car is No. 10 of the
group and still bears the marks of the Alpine production line (won't
pass TAC) but is now fitted with a 289 and LHD. Graham's other car is a
Tiger II, painted the original Orchid green. It is the last Tiger made
and was initially delivered to a dealer in Scotland. Quite a thrill to
see the beginning and the end together. Graham and Ruth intend to come
to the United in October in Maine (without the cars, unfortunately),
which is how I happened to make contact with him, so I would urge anyone
who would like to talk to him to make plans for the United as well. If
you need information, please contact me. The dates are Oct 8 - 10.
More info at www.RootesAmerica.org.
It seems the English are just as interested in cars as Americans,
judging from the many interesting cars I saw while there, many of which
are not available in the US. I saw a couple of groups of people touring
around in their new MGs so the classic two-seaters seem to be surviving
quite well. I also met a gentleman who had been a factory driver for
Land Rover in Solihull who had a lot of interesting stories. Among the
things he did before his recent retirement was to bring the Queen's Land
Rovers up to Buckingham Palace from the factory when she and the other
Royals needed them and then drive them around. Seems like that would be
much more interesting than driving our politicians around in their Denalis.
Finally, for those of you who are hard-core sticklers for authenticity
(like the obsessive Jim Armstrong), I have managed to bring back several
canisters of English air, complete with trace amounts of methane from
Norfolk sheep and Icelandic ash. Fill your Dunlops with English air and
be the envy of other Tiger owners at the next concours. Act fast before
I put them up on eBay. Buy it Now price of 20 GBP including VAT and
certificate of authenticity. Enough for one tire. Contact me for more
details.
Cheers,
Tod
B382002384LRXFE
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