Well, for once the weather men got it right. They said it would be awful, and they were spot on!

The unusually warm and sunny spring had abandoned us the week before the show, with cold and rain be the order of the day. A large bank of rain was moving north along the country, hitting the show in earnest at about 12am. It was all very different from the 8:30am meet at our usual venue outside the West Bromwich Albion football ground.

The West Brom show coincides with the last game of the season, and Albion being Albion, some sort of disaster is usually unfolding at the time of the show. This year they are playing for the last promotion place to the English Premiership against their bitter rivals, Wolverhampton Wonderers. Mercifully the game was at Wolves as ultra violence in the norm in this Black Country derby (since writing this Albion beat Wolves in the 2 play off games and are now due to play Derby County at the new Wembley stadium).

We had looked at the weather forecast and Chris had packed his gazebo to try to give us some shelter from the rain. Here is a bunch of expert engineers, and Andy Brookes of Appleyard's, trying to put it together...

Chris had also brought his camping stove, and prepared a wonderful Mediterranean stew for lunch.

I had been put in charge of cheese, and Steve in charge of cakes. Chris had also brought a bottle of red wine, and I had brought a bottle of an excellent Scottish beer matured in whisky casks.

The weather was so dreadful we didn't move from under the shelter, and soon it was time for a rather nice lunch.

Chris takes a break from toasting a Chewbacca bread

CV8 owner Barrie Warrener joined us for lunch, and added a touch of class with a bottle of Champagne,

The monsoon stopped just long enough for a quick walk around the show. It was a really poor turn out compared to other years, but the weather had been forecast for several days, and so it was to be expected. There were still 30 Jensen, with 1 CV8, 2 521's, and a Healey, the rest being Interceptor variants.

 

My mate Roger is always there, and in previous years he had brought his Bond Bug.

He sold it on E-bay last year and got bids from as far away as Malaysia! He used the cash to add to his collection of classic bikes buy buying this beautiful 1958 BSA Super Rocket. The judges also like it and awarded it Best 1950's to 80's, best BSA, and best West Bromwich entrant awards.

He is an excellent mechanical engineer, but hopeless with electric string, so I had rewired it for him, the same as I did with his 70's Honda 750-4. He has done a superb job on this BSA, and it looks brand new, even down to the rocker mascot of the front mudguard.

Here's a selection of some of the things that caught our eye:

Sunbeam Alpine (which Jensen used to convert in to V8 Tigers)

Rover V8 copper car.

A very lonely Ferrari 308 owner...

A HUMUNGOUS Daimler

A rally Ford escort RS200

A Buick Le Sabre

A fabulous E Type

Cute little Fiats and Messcherscmitt's

A real Mini Cooper S

And a wicked looking Renault Alpine

Just time for a quick snap of the Monday Club cars before we started to pack the kit away as everyone was leaving the show hours early due to the poor weather.

Steve Payne's twin fan assisted fuel coolers (don't ask!)

A shame that it ended so quickly, but that's British weather for you. Hope it's better next year.

Oh, and it would be a trip home for me unless I see something that sums up the Black Country for me. This was it on this trip, a sign in the home town of Jensen that's spelled incorrectly.

Priceless!