Another Car Show In The Wall

 I'm no Pink Floyd fan (bit before my time) but the drummer, Nick Mason, is famous for his great car collection and, every year, he opens his house and displays his collection. I've wanted to go for years so today was the day...

I had to get up at stupid o'clock (5.30am) for the 100 mile run to meet up with a few members of the PPCC and BoxaNet forum who were going. Admittedly, it was a lovely bright day and at that time on a Sunday, the roads were empty - satnav said 2.5 hours and I did it in 2.

We met at a surprisingly posh truckers cafe just outside Chippenham for breakfast and then the 15 minute hop to Middlewick House for the event. We were pleasantly surprised to find we were directed to the supercar car park and not the main public car park, with a glorious Ferrari 512 to follow in:

I guess I'm getting old and cranky but I couldn't be bothered with standing round talking to people - I wanted to see the cars, so after 30 minutes of waffle, I slinked off and didn't see anyone else again for the rest of the day 😀

Some wonderful cars just in the car park - an AC Frua (yeah, never heard of or seen one before), with a 7L V8:

A very cute Mini:

When is a GT40 not cool?

Possibly one of the ugliest cars ever but very rare - Alfa Romeo Zagato:

Once in the main event, very busy and nicely laid out, with stupidly expensive cars dotted among the trees; one of 19 Aston DB4s:

The famous 250GTO, worth around £30million:

The 1970s Ferrari 512 raced at LeMans, won at Sebring and used in the Le Mans film with Steve McQueen - what a history:

...and the man himself signing £100 books:

The day was a little tarnished by an accident on a local road which meant it took 45 minutes to get out but I had a pretty good run back as well, although I should have used suncream as I'm a bit lobster-like.

A fun day although I probably won't go again - it's a fairly small show and not worth a 5 hour round trip to get to.

A Day at the Garage

 Did a meet at Mercedes Benz world in Brooklands 2 weeks ago which my son wanted to go to - pretty good, with lots of Ferraris, Lambos, Beemers, Mercs etc, etc. I got parked next to a pink Fiat 124:

This weekend was some garage time at Cearths - coil packs, plugs, rear pads and handbrake adjustment. 

Everything went pretty smoothly - the old coil packs looked fine, apart from one small crack:

I couldn't find any evidence that they had been changed before (nothing in the old receipts the previous owner gave me) so is it possible they still looked this good after 99k miles?

The old spark plugs did look a little worse for wear and they had only been in for 20k miles or so, I think (need to check the invoices). The new ones are a slightly different design so maybe the old ones haven't changed much:

Naturally, they made absolutely no difference to the drive but then there wasn't an obvious problem before, so I wasn't expecting miracles. But one less thing to worry about on my Alps trip. Cearth also used his endoscope to check for any of the infamous bore score and it was all clear and smooth. The 987.1 is not prone to this anyway but nice to have it checked.

The rear pads were worse than I thought and I'd bought a set of EBC yellow pads just in case, so they went on the rear. The fronts were only half-worn, so they can wait a while.

Finally, I adjusted the handbrake properly and it now works as it should,  which is nice.

Wales 2025

 So to another Wales trip...I'd decided to make it easier for me this year and just let someone else do the organising but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. I went with the PPCC club and they are a nice bunch of people and it was well organised BUT not really what I wanted...

Day 1 - home to Swansea

An early 7.30am meet at a services on the M4 to meet a couple of others and then on to the main meet near Bristol - a boring trundle down the M4.

At Bristol, a first view of the cars on the trip and they were very nice - in fact,  poor Barry was the oldest, slowest and cheapest. There were 2 beautiful F-types (one with 668bhp), a C63 estate which sounded thunderous, an Alpine, 2 other Boxsters (a rare 25 and a 981), a 911 turbo, M8 comp and a couple of lesser cars; 23 people in total in about 12 cars.

From Bristol, an hour or so further (on the M4 still) to Caerphilly Castle, for an hour wandering around:

After that, a short hop to a pub for lunch, which was pretty good, although I wasn't hugely happy at having to split the bill when I had a sandwich but it was only £3 more, so I shouldn't be such a grump. 

The itinerary was for a 45min hop to the hotel, which would have got us there by 2.30, which felt like half a day wasted to me.  Worse,  the route was back on the M4! I'd had enough motorway for one day so used my pre-planned route to the hotel via some local roads.

Sadly, this didn't work well - the roads in this part of Wales are crap; lots of 20mph zones enforced by speed bumps. Of the 40 mile route, I had about 15 miles of fun and I just couldn't find anything nicer to go on - I arrived at the hotel about an hour after the others. 

Also sadly, the hotel was a Holiday Inn on the side of the M4 - not the most scenic and we're here for all 3 nights!! A nice touch, however, was getting some vinyl stickers - I chose 42 as the Meaning of Life (for me) - cars and road trip:

The evening meal was a short drive from the hotel and was ok.

The first part of the drive tomorrow is, you guessed it, back along the M4!! I've got another route planned - hope it's better than the last one...

Day 2

So my route in the morning was awesome, although it was only 35 miles or so but at least they were mostly good ones, with a couple of stretches being amazing; I found an almost alpine road with a series of hairpins and thankfully free of traffic.

The final few miles to the meet point was also excellent, ending at Blywch Mountain, which was really just a layby with a great view and lots of sheep:

The route after that wasn't too bad but because the group only use Google maps to plan the route, we end up on big A roads with everyone else.  I did have a planned route to avoid the A40 but I forget about it and we spent many miles in a long, slowish (55mph) traffic line to the lunch stop.

After lunch, a short hop to Pendine to park up on the famous beach. Because I took a slightly different route to the others,  I arrived first and couldn't find the slipway on to the beach - no great loss, I hate sand and don't want it all over my car:

After an ice-cream, the others decided to go straight back to the hotel (on the M4!!), which seemed a crazy waste of driving time to me - it was only 3pm. So I set my sat-nav for a random point at the end of a B-road and it was brilliant; twisty, empty - 10 miles of heaven. I set the destination for the hotel, avoiding the damn motorway and had to go back down the B-road (what a shame). The rest of the route was also really good; more decent B-roads until the last few miles back to the industrial estate where our hotel is.

I got back at 6pm and only had 30 mins before we got taxis into Central Swansea for a very average curry at the modernised docks. But we had a fun few beers and shots in downtown Swansea - I felt very old in the pub with the youths.

Day 3

I had to get petrol so I took a slightly different route from the others for our run up the Black Mountain and, joy of joys, someone had cut down all the average speed cameras!! I had a glorious run up, somehow arriving a few minutes before the others.

After some drone footage, the rest of the run to Llangdog was just as great, especially as I was following a crackling F-type that sounded great. But after that, the route was studded with long periods stuck behind a slow car/horsebox/van because once again, we were on major A-roads. Lunch was at a fancy golf club - the roast turkey was great but the weird, tasteless cheesecake less so.

Up to now, we'd had stunning sunny weather but it finally broke and the afternoon was wet for our route around the Gower peninsula. Again, not a drivers area and we crawled back to the hotel for a decent meal at the Harvester next to the hotel.

Day 4 - Swansea to home

The final day was to be a run to the model village at Bourton-on-the-water. At first, I feared that the group route would be back on the M4 but I was told it was cross-country. I got all excited and then we set off on a large A-road - and never left it. After 45 minutes of trundling along at 60 (trying to keep the group together), I'd had enough and peeled off to find a B-road - and, in the words of the Bible, it was good. In fact, it was brilliant - the weather was stunning, I was in a convertible sports car on quiet, twisty B-roads (and sometimes single lane) and I was in heaven.

After a lovely couple of hours, I parked up in Bourton-on-the-Water (beautiful tourist trap) and went in search of the others. About 3 minutes later, I heard the rumble of a C63 and they all drove past me to the car park. It seems they had stopped for a coffee break while I was blatting and we made it to this point almost exactly at the same time - pretty amazing.

We decided to not actually go to the model village in the end and just went for lunch in a lovely pub (the Old New Inn - couldn't make up its mind). After a short wander and an ice-cream, we said our farewells and set off for home.

I found a decent route back and had some nice runs along quiet country roads, topping up the tan before getting home at around 5pm.

Epilogue

I apologise to anyone from the PPCC reading this (unlikely) for my negativity. The people were great and it was well organised but there were a few fundamental problems IMO:

1. Using Google Maps to do the routing. That just tries for the fastest, most efficient route which is not what a road trip is about. Someone needs to plan a route using as many B-roads as possible. 

2. South Wales is not an ideal road trip destination - too much traffic, too many 20mph zones and speed bumps. The North is better but still busy - central Wales is the place to go.

3. Trying to keep everyone together. Difficult and means everyone has to drive at the speed of the slowest. Everyone should have a satnav with the route and then we can all meet up at various points if we do get separated. 

4. Have a smaller group - 13 cars and 23 people meant finding hotels and food places for everyone was difficult. Also, don't bother with full, sit-down lunches; a sandwich from a cafe is fine.

Basically, I want my road trip to be more hardcore; more driving (on decent roads), less sitting around.

Just a final point - Barry was awesome; I do really love this car. It is so smooth and refined but still has enough power and small dimensions to make any road fun and B-roads orgasmic. I still keep comparing him to Zedster and while Zedster was almost as good in the fun stakes on B-roads, he suffered in the refinement stakes elsewhere.

I had absolutely no feelings of envy for the people in their 400+ bhp tanks and, in fact, having a nice car on these trips must be a worry - any damage or mishap can cost you a fortune. The 668bhp F-type sprung a small oil leak on day 1 and the owner spent the whole trip calling JagAssist, watching his oil levels and worrying. The CLA45 went into limp mode because a wheel sensor failed and it couldn't work out what was happening - the owner has only had it a couple of months and this is the 4th time it has happened. He says it is the last straw and he is selling it...oh, and the M8 comp had squeaky brakes. Both it and the Jag were only bought weeks ago and were supposed to have been fully inspected by the dealers they came from.

So, the trip with this club was an experiment that didn't quite work out for me - I'll just have to do my own thing in future and try find 1 or 2 people to join me. 

Breakfast of Kings

 Another Goodwood breakfast club meet, which was as awesome as ever...

...but I almost missed it because I thought I had booked tickets when I hadn't. Luckily, someone else in the PPCC club couldn't make it, so they gave me their ticket.

Great drive down to meet up with the group at a Costa near Goodwood:

Short drive to Goodwood with some great looking cars just in the car park. The cars on circuit were as amazing as ever - possible highlight were 2 F40s which we saw being driven in; lovely noise:

Never seen a blue Z8 and there were 2 other Z8s there as well:

Gorgeous interior:

My brother had a 205 almost exactly like this in the early 90s:

Now that's different:

Such a great meet...fun drive back as well.

So the Wales trip next weekend but I'm a bit concerned; spoke to the main organiser and she said that these are not your usual road trips, "it's not only driving". Like that's a good thing - oh dear. And the trip has been organised by someone who has never done one before. The routes have been shared and there is a lot of use of the M4 motorway! And the hotel for 3 nights is a Travel lodge on the side of the M4! This is not looking promising...hopefully,  I'm just being a pessimist and it will be fine.

I've planned a couple of alternate routes to avoid the motorway which I'll offer to anyone who wants to join me.

Convoy of Noise

 My son has joined a C63 club and they had a run today to a meet in Stevenage. Not really my thing as they met at a motorway services and then drove round the M25 but the meet sounded promising (Porsche and Mclarens as well), so I thought I'd give it a go.

Initially, about 15 C63s met at Cobham services on the M25 and then convoy'd round to South Mimms services to meet another 15 or so - considering that you don't see many C63s on the roads at all, 30 was damn impressive:

My son's C63 is loud; almost straight piped, tuned - it's loud but there are 2 or 3 others in the group even louder and stock C63s aren't quiet, so the exit from the services was...not subtle. And the short tunnel on the A1 up to the meet was insane - I couldn't hear myself think.

The meet was an industrial estate, hosted by a car repair place, so we got a free bacon and egg roll, which was an unexpected bonus. It was quite a good event; 30 or more C63s, a similar number of Porsches and 10 or so Mclarens:

The weather was lovely and good car chatter was had; I know as much about C63s as I do about Porsches. 

The drive back was half motorway and I came off early onto some local fun roads I know, with a lunch stop at Newlands Corner - all very pleasant.

Wales trip in 2 weeks with the PPCC, which I hope will be good. I've got new coil packs and spark plugs to fit - not sure if I'll get time before Wales.

Goodwood Good

 The amazing summer-like weather we are having continued, just in time for Barry's first track day at Goodwood.

I'd only booked half a day because Goodwood is expensive and the afternoon sold out very quickly, so we had the morning booked. There were a few of us going from the Surrey Porkers group and we met up at 7am in Petworth centre:

Arriving at the circuit, an iconic shot of us all in the famous (are they?) Goodwood paddocks:

 Registration and noise tests done ok, out for the first 15 minute session:

I had a passenger, one of the group who was not there to go on track and was taking pictures and videos. The first session was fairly slow as I got used to the track. I had done a few hours on the simulator where I crashed a lot - fortunately, it is much easier in real life. Each session only had 10 cars at a time on track and with such a short session, we rarely caught or were caught by anyone else, so you just had time to sort out your lines - my best time was 1:56.

In between sessions, had a look at the competition - a beautiful sounding Aston was quick as hell:

There were a couple of Atoms and Beemers that were quick but nothing else too excessive:

My 2nd session was much of the same and much quicker - a best of 1:49, so a good 7 seconds improvement.

Session 3 was my best - a reasonable 1:46 being my best time of the day and I was actually a second slower in session 4, the final session before lunch (which was very nice, as you might expect from Goodwood).

I was glad I hadn't paid for a full day - my brakes were starting to feel a bit soft and I felt I had 'done' the track. I didn't want to risk pushing harder just to gain another second on my lap time.

Below is some video of the last session:

Overall, it was huge fun - 120mph down the back straight and the lovely flat 6 wail past the pits which sounded awesome to me - I hope others noticed and appreciated it.

Barry did incredibly well - brakes were starting to go off in the last session and were not really up to a track (I was braking much earlier than a couple of the more track-oriented cars, as you'd expect) but it was perfect for just having fun. Suspension was really good for a road car - a little bit of roll but not bad at all. Nothing broke or fell off - great result, great day.

Having said that, on the drive home, there was a new noise from the rear brakes which sounds like maybe a warped brake pad/disc or maybe just a build-up of brake dust - I'll see if it is still there next time.

I had a great day BUT I'm not in a desperate rush to do more track days - they're fun but ultimately, you're driving round and round in a circle on the same 2 mile stretch of road. I much prefer a road trip with 100+ miles of unknown road ahead of me.