Powderham Castle Rally

Best One Make Car Stand at the Powderham Castle Rally

The delighted Group with their well-deserved award!

A superb turnout of Standard enthusiasts results in a this major accolade for the Devon and Cornwall Group. 

Brian Murrish writes:

On 11/12 July, the Devon and Cornwall Group of the Standard Motor Club put on together their Group stand for the event as they have done for the last several years.

The event for the members started very early for Steve Lovegrove and Chris Bowden, with them enjoying a full English breakfast in Exeter before starting out to Powderham to locate our site and start the preparations. By the time I got there, Steve was hard at work mowing our grassy plot and Chris was raking up all the cuttings. John Pine arrived shortly after me and then all four of us set to and precisely, or very nearly, made a roped area in a neat rectangle which, when empty, looked massive.

By the time the gazebos had been erected plus our union flag, the New Forest participants, Geoff and Sharon Cattermole with David Lovering accompanying them, we were ready to take a look at our brand new banner which Sharon arranged to have made for us. What a lovely specimen. It was not put up until the Saturday but it certainly put our plot on the map from far away.

With the site all set we retired to our overnight lodgings, to prepare for a run in the evening to Dawlish and Teignmouth for fish and chips. As usual all enjoyed the food and banter and much discussion about the weekend event to come. The weather was the popular topic seeing that last year’s event was abandoned on the second day due to heavy rain and high winds.

The Saturday dawned reasonably well and we were all on site early, trying to organise the cars that were arriving into some semblance of an oval formation with 1920’s cars at bottom left, around to pre-war cars to the left of the gazebo and post-war cars around to the bottom right. We still had space for two late-comers who we managed to squeeze into the middle. The weather was okay until mid-afternoon when it started to drizzle and progressively got worse until tea-time when we had to leave to prepare for our usual evening meal with our Group members at the Swans Nest, Exminster. A lovely meal was consumed by all and this time we left at the correct time instead of nearly being locked in as last year.

After a soggy Saturday when we still saw a large number of interested members of the public visiting our stand we wondered what the Sunday would bring.

Although it dawned really bright it was not long before the clouds rolled up and an isolated shower crept over us. It certainly didn’t mar the weekend. Similarly, there were large crowds visiting us over the Sunday too. The highlight for some was to see the steam-hauled Torbay Express pass by hauled by "Tornado", the new-build A1 Pacific that featured on Top Gear in June. Highlight for one V4 owner was when his car’s engine was sounding sick and the diagnosis was "ignition", Steve Lovegrove rolled his sleeves up, dismantled the relevant bits, sorted the problem and reassembled it. Job done and the car sounded much sweeter.

You could say that the highlight of our day was when it announced that the Devon and Cornwall Group had won the best one-make club stand at the event. Having won it two years ago, we were up against stiffer competition this time in the form of a very professional display put on by the Renault Owners Club. Maybe Chris Bowdens wind-up gramophone and old 78 records created the right atmosphere or maybe seeing two of our cars as ‘restoration in progress’ helped.

The highlight of some people’s weekend was to taste what real Cornish pasties tasted like, not the "modern mush" that people over the Tamar bought purporting to be the "real thing". I hope we convinced them!!

Vehicles attended were as follows:-

• 1924 Kenilworth, Brian and Dorothy Murrish
• 1927 V4, Steve Smeltzer
• 1932 Little 9, John Garrad
• 1933 Little 9, John and Julia Pine
• 1934 10, Colin Fry
• 1934 10, Steve and Karen Lovegrove
• 1938 Flying 10, David Swallow
• 1947 8, Chris and Linda Bowden
• 1948 8, David Lovering
• 1953 Ferguson TE20 Tractor, Steve and Karen Lovegrove
• 1955 8, Alan Skinner
• 1955 8, Colin Fry
• 1955 10, Peter Starbuck
• 1956 10, Tim Retter
• 1958 8, Tony Smith
• 1959, Vanguard Vignale, Geoff and Sharon Cattermole
• 1960 10 Van, Michael West
• 1960 Ensign, Richard Owen

The new Group Banner

All enjoyed this weekend immensely, if you are interested in attending next year on one or both days or even come down to spend the weekend as our friends from the New Forest, Dorset and Bristol did, let us know and we can recommend the B and B accommodation in the area or there is a camping area adjacent to the site.

COME AND SEE US, YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED

Brian Murrish

May I add my congratulations to the Devon and Cornwall Group for this achievement. Dear readers, you might like to note that 5 years ago there was no such thing as a Devon and Cornwall group - but look at their success now! There are many other areas of the country that could benefit just from pulling together local members into a cohesive group with the objective of forming a social gathering with a common interest in Standard cars. If there is no group in your area, why not start one? It's no use leaving it to someone else! Call our Registrar on 01676 522161 and insist that he sends you a list of all the members local to you. Then tell this website and the Standard Car Review about it so we can publicise your event(s), be they pub meets or visits to local shows. It's not compulsary to win prizes, but this article shows what can be done.

Thanks,

Phil