Gaydon Mini Festival

After a tiring two days at Goodwood I went to the Gaydon Mini Festival. This year I had entered the Heritage run from the MINI factory in Oxford to the show so it was up bright and early to clean all the dust and flies that the Austin had collected and the off to Oxford for 9am. I set off from Newbury at about 7.30 in bright sunshine and arrived at Oxford at around 8.15 to find one silver MINI and Mini No.1 waiting. I parked up close by and started taking pictures. A steady stream of run participants started arriving with some very nice cars appearing.









At 9 the drivers briefing was given and the run packs were handed out. Afterwards the cars were arranged for some publicity shots in the car park and then the run started.





By a bit of good fortune I had been given Run No. 1 so I had to line up behind 621 AOK and follow it all the way to Gaydon. So we set of at about 10 for Gaydon. I kept a safe distance behind as we trundled along, I didn't want to have any accidents! There was no smoke from AOK but the driver was having a bit of trouble with first gear as I could hear the sond of crunching gears at every stop.



After about an hour we arrived at Gaydon, were we queued up for our photos, then passed through the arena for a quick interview and the parked up. The show ground was already pretty full with a great selection of Minis, and MINIs. After parking up I did the usual thing of taking pics, browsing the traders and having a look round the museum. There was no Russ Swift this year and I think the show suffered as a result because by 2.30 quite a few people strated to go and by 3.30 weel over half had left. I guess the darkening clouds and the threat of rain didn't help. I left at about 4 and made my way home. I didn't see any rain at all and by the time I got back I was knackered. The Austin had performed well all weekend and covered about 1000 miles using about £100 of petrol and a litre of oil.

Here's a few pics from the day

1959 Austin Seven



Twini Cooper





"Your Nicked!"



Cooper Sport



Beach Car, check out those wicker seats.





Nice looking Van



GTM



Hyabusa Pick Up





As usual the rest can be found by clicking below

Gaydon Mini Festival Pics

Goodwood Festival of Speed

Another year and another Goodwood FoS. I spent two days at Goodwood this year to try and get to see everything and I still didn't manage it. On the Friday I spent the whole day at the bottom of the hill touring the paddocks and watching the circuit type stuff and on the Saturday I was up in the Rally Stage getting very dusty. At least it was in teh shade as the sun was burning hot even at 9 in the morning.
I am still going through all the pictures that I took and have been putting together a video of the Rally Stage. Here is a taster of what will be loaded into my photo albums.











I've put a couple of Rally Stage vids on YouTube

The first is a short one showing the Minis...

Goodwood FoS Rally Minis

...and the second is longer and has everything from a Volvo PV544 to Chris Meek in his 206 and Ken Block in his Ford Focus.

Goodwood FoS Rally Stage

Updates and more pictures coming later.

New Mini Range Revealed

Due for release in September are a new range of facelifted MINIS with updated bumpers and lighting. There are five new colours, five new wheel designs and new interior options. There will also be a Diesel Cabrio in the range.

New MINI Details






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Top Gear New Series Sunday 8.00pm

Stuff England vrs. Germany, proper telly resumes at 8 on Sunday night with the return of Top Gear.

Watch out for a new reasonable priced car and a star studded BBQ were celebs thrash the new reasonable priced car round the track

Normanby Hall 2010

Whilst most of you guys were at Mick’s buying and selling I took a trip to the Trent Valley Mini Owners Club (TVMOC) annual show at Normanby Hall, near Scunthorpe. I got up real early and set off at about 6.15 and met up with Alec and Geordie for the trundle down to the show. As we were going down the clouds were slowly going and by the time we got to Normanby at 9.00 it was just getting sunny. The venue was a hive of activity with traders setting up stall and various clubs setting up their stands. We got pointed to the edge of the field and parked up, after a quick noisy around I managed to blag a spot in the Show 'n' Shine area, so I spent the next hour giving the Austin a good polish.
By the time I had finished the place has was already filled with all sorts of Minis and MINIs. TVMOC also invite others along and there were a few Morris Minors, some other classics and a bunch of Tuning types with their drum 'n' bass stereos playing.
Alec and Geordie checked out all the traders and filled the back of the Clubman with allsorts of bargains and I wondered around taking pics' as usual. Every time I went back to my car the bloke parked next to me was dusting his GP down, I'm sure he must have been on medication, if not he should have been.
At about 2.00 the cars were called round to the main arena for the class judging, the class I was in ('59-'69) only had the two cars in, the next had 3 and as the classes got newer so more were entered. In the MINI class there was about 15, so it looks like the New MINIs are taking over.
At about 4.00 the prize giving started and I got a wooden plaque with a picture of the Austin on as a reward for polishing my car. Highlight of the prize giving though was this woman who got most upset and stormed off when her 4 week old MINI didn't win, some people have no imagination.
After all the excitement we left and headed for home. We decided to pull into some services soon after leaving 'cos I wanted some fuel and Geordie and Alec wanted a burger. When we came back out to the cars we noticed that the Clubman had left a little trail, turned out that Alecs fuel pump had sprung a leak. I guess it was lucky we stopped, as who knows what might have happened on the motorway. Alec phoned home and arranged a pick so I left the boys at the services and trundled back home.
I hope you guys got back OK and didn't have to long a wait.

Here's some pics from the day

A very tidy Mini Piccadilly



Winner of the 1991-2000 class



Winner of Best Classic Engine



There were a lot of trailers



My favourite discovery of the day, the ex works Mini Clubman SOH 956H



Winner of 1970-1980 class



Winner of the Mini Variants Class a very nice Morris Mini Moke



Check out those rear wheels on this V8 engined Van



Check out the badging on this Pick Up



I thought this was the best MINI, but the judges didn't



The Eyes Have It



Alecs ailing Clubman



If you'd like to see the rest of my pictures from Normanby pease click below

Normanby Hall 2010 Pictures


Next up it's Gaydon on the 4th of July.