I decided to chance it and drive to the Prescott Hillclimb meeting, even though I was oncall at work, and thus obliged to be able to be there within two hours. Prescott is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours drive away, so its borderline - but the weather was too good to miss the AGM in the UK Matra club.
Due to calendar clashes, I have only been able to attend very few meetings in my almost 2.5 years here, - which is a shame, because the MECUK is such a friendly bunch. >>pop<< I have just opened a bottle of red wine to cheer you all! Cheers!
As a matter of fact, it is my impression that the Matra clubs in all countries are a happy and unpretentious bunch of nice people.
Prescott is the homebase of the Bugatti owners club (a select bunch indeed) - and the event is called "La Vie en Bleu", celebrating anything French. Even the sandwich could be ordered in French :-)
There were many fantastic vehicles, Citroën, Renault, Simca, Peugeot, Alpine, Venturi and of course Matra :-)
The large collection of Bugattis were of course impressive (and expected) - including B110 and a couple of Veyrons.
There was also a large population of red Ferraris, - not sure how they fit in, but a hillclimb is a hillclimb :-)
However in the large-caliper section, I think I was most impressed with the ex Senna JPS Lotus-renault from somewhere in the mid 1980'ies. mainly because the driver had read somewhere in a book that spinning your wheels makes them warmer and more sticky ... so he did. - Twice - . He ran up the hill, and returned directly to the startline for another go. You could actually see how much more grip the tyres had the second time around. But what a sound, - whining turbos and screaming tyres.
Our Titus from this forum had the nerve to turn up with the most fabulous half-leather seats I have ever seen in a Murena ... and he only got them delivered that same morning... Actually on my drive there (in "severe" sunshine) I was thinking exactly the same - leather seats might be nice, but we NEED some ventilation on our backs, so it would be superb with cloth for the middle part, and leather for the sides.
That's exactly what Titus has done - and it looks and feels fantastic. Well done young lad !
The meeting also gave me a good chance to look around Graham Pryme's race-prepared Murena - this time with brand new 4-pot front brakes. He was to take the car up the hill on Sunday, but unfortunately I could only be there Saturday. I hope some of the MECUK people have pictures from that - if I get them, I will add them to this gallery.
We also had a nice intermezzo of the British Memorial Flight doing a little display for us with a Spitfire, a Hurricane and the one of only two airworthy Avro Lancaster bombers. All in all 6 V12 Merlin's in unison - excellent sound :-)
PS: Speaking of sound, a Veyron on full bore may sound impressive, but IMO too american/thundery - frankly there were many other cars there I would prefer driving home in. (well, the Matra's of course, - but also others)
Pictures pictures pictures:
http://www.sorth.dk/p/20090523/index.html/Lennart
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