Here we are in 2020. The season for shows and events won’t really start until spring so, on Saturday 4th January, as it was a nice, bright and dry day I decided to attend the monthly breakfast meet at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon. Organised by Peter Simpson of […]
Visits and Tours
If you take Interstate 15, heading south from Las Vegas, then go onto the scenic route via Kelso in the Mojave National Reserve desert, you will pass through Amboy (of which more later) and Cleghorn Lakes / Sheephole Valley Wilderness, then onto the Yucca Valley on Route 62, passing through […]
We are in the middle of winter and it seems strange, thinking back, that our own ‘drive it day’ on 25 August was one of the hottest days of the year. Early in the year, the committee had been looking at various options for the official Drive It Day, in […]
Lunch over and, before we revel in the delights of the luxury, sporting and downright ostentatious exhibits, let’s take a look at some of the collection’s more off-the-wall offerings. First in the queue is the 1932 Blue Streak Coupe and Curtiss Aerocar Land Yacht. American banker, Hugh McDonald, used this […]
Richard has already written about our trip to the Netherlands this spring (see: ‘Going Dutch‘). The trip was not only fun, but educational. For example, why do I often refer to Holland as The Netherlands? Well, it turns out that The Netherlands comprise twelve provinces and North and South Holland are […]
On Sunday 28 April, our region took part in Drive-It-Day. The day started with twenty five cars meeting up at North Weald Airfield. We had a good cooked breakfast at the The Wings Cafe, which set us up for the day. After a leisurely drive along the A414 we arrived at The Forties Experience Museum in Bushey. During […]
A dry but chilly Sunday evening at the beginning of April found fourteen members from Essex Thameside and two friends from Suffolk – nine cars – queuing in Harwich to board the overnight ferry to the Hook of Holland. For those of us who might remember the Stena line’s ‘cattle […]
Following my earlier spread in the July Newsletter on classics spotted during my travels in Seattle, I was inundated with a request for more. So, for this piece I decided to take a look to see what could be found on Vashon – an island nestling in Puget Sound just […]
April this year marked the centenary of the Royal Air Force and, commemorating the 100th anniversary, the RAF Museum in Hendon has been transformed with the addition of three new galleries and redeveloped grounds. 27 members of our club celebrated by visiting on a beautifully sunny October day; perfect flying […]
If you couldn’t make it to our museum trip on 5th August, you missed one of the most interesting events so far this year. I’m talking of the De Havilland Aircraft Museum, a gem hidden near London Colney, just off the St Albans junction of the M25 where six cars […]
Sunday 22nd April saw the first event of the year for the JEC Essex Thameside Region. 33 members and partners met up at the services on the A12 junction 28 for the beginning of the visits planned around Suffolk. Our first visit was to Suffolk Sports Cars at Pettistree, Nr […]
Late last year, the Club night Raffle, I won a prize. My winning ticket wasn’t the first out of the hat, nor even the second, in fact there wasn’t much left when I reached the table to collect my winnings, but there was an unassuming white envelope, looking a little […]
This year’s club European trip was to Laon in Northern France for the annual Circuit Historique de Laon, organised by Scenic Car Tours. The trip started for me and Neil & Elaine Wylie on Thursday 1st June as we had decided to travel the day before the official start on […]
The annual ‘Jaguar World’ London to Brighton Run was changed this year to a new destination: Eastbourne. Due to various reasons including, so I hear, the increase in fees of 300% by Brighton Council for the privilege of using Madeira Drive in Brighton. The organisers arranged with Eastbourne Council to use […]
The British Motor Museum, nee Heritage Motor Centre, sits on the Banbury Road, Gaydon in the heart of Warwickshire’s rolling farmlands. And whilst Gaydon, both the parish and the village, can be described as, well, small, it does boast a pretty impressive neighbour, the former RAF V bomber base RAF […]
A couple of months back Dave Flyn, who runs a well-known fit-out company, called me saying “Clear your diary for September 25th”. “Why?” said I. “Factory visit” came the response. We do a fair bit of that in our line of work, so no surprises there then. Something to look […]
A day trip to the Heritage Collection sounded irresistible if, like me, you can’t get enough of car museums. So it was with great anticipation that I set off with our club convoy of Jaguars from Grange Motors in Brentwood in the direction of Warwickshire. Arriving a couple of hours […]
Every year the Goodwood Revival weekend is the highlight of my September. I’ve attended regularly for eleven years, becoming a club member from 2006. It usually benefits from Indian summer weather – I can only remember two occasions on which it was a washout – and is always a wonderful spectacle, often eventful. This year was no […]
What a day it turned out to be! [youtube=http://youtu.be/BAF1p72Ls2s] The car parking area allocated was so full they had to put late comers in the public car park and beyond. The weather was brilliant and everyone enjoyed the day. Various members of JEC Essex Thameside attended and took advantage of […]
Back in May, some of us – namely Russell and Mandy, Chris and Marise, Roger and Miriam together with Sue and your scribe – ventured down to Yeovil to experience the famous Haynes International Motor Museum. Take a look at Russell’s report in the June 2014 Newsletter for further details. For this […]
12 members of Essex Thameside Region attended the Kent Regional Day at Chiddingstone Castle in the Wealds of Kent on Sunday 17th August. In the early 19th century Henry Streatfeild (1757-1829), son of Henry Streatfeild (1706-1762) and Lady Anne Sidney, commissioned William Atkinson to rebuild the house in the Gothic […]
Thursday 3rd July seemed to arrive with the speed of light. No sooner had we completed the Bristol trip than we were meeting Chris and Marise White in the Nag’s Head Car Park for another jaunt, this time to the ‘Le Mans Classic’. Travelling to Le Mans The trip across […]
Grace and pace, but not much space for luggage. Nevertheless a Suffolk SS100 is meant to be driven and, this June, I travelled to Spain a second time for a touring holiday with seven other Suffolk SS100’s. Organised and escorted by Classics on the Road, last year’s tour of Rioja and […]