Drive Your Classic Car Day

Editor: For a number of years, the Armstrong Siddeley Club has organised a Drive Your Classic Car Day for the first day of spring, being Thursday 1st September. The JDCSA was invited to join in, as was the Stag Owners Club. With COVID-19 intervening, 2020 and 2021 events never happened. This year it was JDCSA time to organise the event via the Multivalve Register. The following wrap up of the day was kindly provided by Arcadia.

Drive Your Classic Car Day

This run was made up of many parts. First, we would like to thank Peter and Heather Buck for organising the run as well as finding us wonderful food stops. At this point Peter and Heather realised that they would be overseas when the run was on. Peter and Ros Holland then took over the run and Jim and I came on as the “just in case back up”. Chance can be a mysterious occurrence, on the same day and time Peter, Ros, myself and Jim meet at the Marion Hotel to do a trial run and check that everything was OK. This meeting was unplanned and all of us marvelled at the coincidence. Peter and Ros started off and we followed about 10 minutes later. We had read Peter’s run sheet and noted where he had indicated that there were a couple of dodgy spots, for example signage completely covered by foliage. Jim came prepared, after the T junction he parked the car and pulled out his trusty shears from the boot and off he ran and did a beautiful job of topiary on the offending foliage and the signs were clearly visible. Honestly, I wish he’d move as quickly as that at home, the garden would be done in 10 minutes. On the day of the run, the first day of spring, it was a beautiful sunny day although it was slightly cool in the morning. Everyone was given a run sheet at the start point, Marion Hotel, and off we went. There seems to be a common theme between car clubs, there are always a few adventures spirits who will always take a different route, just to see what it would be like down another road. I personally admire this because sometimes Jim and I will also take an alternate route to get where we are going. The most astonishing thing is that we almost all arrive at the same time and definitely at the right place. We had morning tea at the Oak and Iron Tavern, Auchendarroch House. The desserts were delicious and after a pit stop, we were off to find lunch. It appears that, like Napoleon’s army, car clubs also run on their stomachs. The second half of the run had us driving through the most beautiful vistas, everything was lush and green, hills and valleys and even a touch of the sea. There was one point where we had to turn left but the street sign was on the right of the road. Even some keen eyes missed this, but one turn later all was good and we were back on track. We arrived for lunch at Mick O’Shea’s, the food was good and it was nice to see the different car clubs sitting together and chatting about their cars, similar issues or trying to pick someone’s brain over a problem. This run was organised by the JDCSA Multivalve register. We had a very enjoyable day and we hope that it becomes a regular event with runs being alternatively organised by the clubs. I personally would like to say how much I enjoyed the day and I hope that you enjoyed my view of the run.

Arcadia Komaromi