White Rose member at the NEC
All that Glitters at the NEC
Having written the article “All that Glitters….” documenting the rectification work I carried out on my 1974 TR6, published in TR Action over 5 months, I was surprised to be informed by Wayne Scott the Press and PR Officer that the article had been extremely popular with a very positive response.
A couple of weeks ago, I was amazed to be contacted again by Wayne asking if I would like to put the car on out Register stand at the upcoming Classic Car Show at the NEC.
What an honour – of course I accepted!
With the show due in 3 weeks, I gave the car a run and check over – as it had recently passed its MOT, I was reasonably confident that all would be OK. Surprisingly, I had driven almost 1000 miles between MOT’s - much more than I realised – so the car had settled in since I had completed the work.
The one thing I was concerned about was the drive down and back, just over 100 miles down to the NEC, virtually all motorway. To the mechanically minded, we know that tootling about clocking up 100 miles on A and B roads is entirely different to thumping down the motorway for 100 miles – the stress on the running gear is far greater and will expose any weak spots – a cause for worry!
On Wednesday, the day before we set off, I gave the car a final check over and fuelled up.
I pulled back on the drive and left it ticking over. A couple of minutes later, I got in the car, pressed the clutch – couldn’t engage 1st gear! I gently tried to select reverse but the gears were spinning – the clutch hadn’t disengaged at all – would you believe it! Stopped the engine, restarted in 1st and it worked fine – it seems that the clutch is dragging but there’s not much I can do now except to work with it.
Thursday 10th November, we had to be on the NEC stand by 11.00am. Not wanting to risk being late, Carol and I were on the way before 8.00am giving plenty of time to travel down the M1 and M/A42.
We ambled south @ 55-60 mph on the inside lane keeping pace with the commercial vehicles and apart from it being too noisy to hold a conversation + a steady breeze in my right ear it was a comparatively comfortable, dry journey. Nearing the NEC we were overtaken by a green TR8, giving us a wave, this turned out to be Richard Connew who was sharing the TR Register stand.
On arrival, there was a fair bit of confusion as 100’s of classics converged on the site but after a tour round the back of the halls, we arrived on our stand in hall 5 with Richard.
Its an interesting experience seeing all the work involved in setting up the stands in the halls – 6 in total – a huge event to organise!
As we were early Carol and I, wearing our compulsory hi-vis vests had a wander around to see how it all happens, took plenty of photo’s including some of the more unusual exhibits.
On our return to the stand, some of the Register staff had arrived so we set about polishing the cars and organise them on the display.
On the stand was TS2 taking pride of place, elevated on ramps surrounded by a frieze of photos of its round Britain tour, also a lovely well-presented TR2 in rally trim, a freshly refurbished TR4, Richards very rare TR8 and our TR6. The stand was to be manned by Register members looking very smart in their white Register shirts – the whole stand was very professional.
After polishing and moving the cars into their appropriate places, we were free to leave.
We had booked into a Travelodge in Birmingham city for the night then returned late Friday morning to meet 000’s of people milling around the stands. Each of our cars had lectern in front giving information on them which added interest.
It’s a huge and very impressive event, if you haven’t visited, you really should. Whatever you have an interest in, if you need spares, accessories, tools or memorabilia you are likely to find it here – so many clubs, cars, motorbikes and so much stuff you ideally need all 3 days to see everything.
As we had a family event on Saturday, we took the train home on Friday night and returned Sunday lunchtime.
The halls quietened during the afternoon and at 5pm the show officially closed - the announcement being followed by virtually everyone blowing their car horns!
Soon after, the stands were being taken down and the mass exodus began – cars of every shape, size, noise and colour heading for the exits. Even though the queue hadn’t got off site, there were casualties broken down on the verges.
Being a cautious soul, I had decided not to make the full journey in the dark as I have hardly used the lights and didn’t want to overstress the system so we drove up to the M1/M42 junction to stay overnight in another Travelodge and completed the journey on Monday morning.
In the dark, I found that the dash lights flickered and eventually went out + although thankfully it didn’t rain, it was a misty Monday morning and I needed the wipers a couple of times only to find they hardly moved – a short stop at a services revealed that they were extremely stiff – probably through lack of use But it had just been MOT tested…..
Oh, the clutch, it was mainly a case of anticipating the traffic so as not to have the engine ticking over out of gear. So, these small issues will be attended to over the winter.
I have been to a few Classic Car Shows at the NEC in previous years and highly recommend a visit if you have any interest in classics at all. Carol loved it and is determined to go next year!