Austin Rally April 2012 keeping our car history alive.
Having been to and involved in one or two classic car rally’s mostly Rover P6, SD1, and Jaguar I thought it is about time I visited one on my doorstep, that’s not to say I have spent the last four years not going to our local Austin rally it is because I have been working or completely unaware that is was on! Sad when you think about it I must drive past or walk through Cofton park at least five times a week, perhaps next year they may discover posters and put them up around the Cotton park and the surrounding area who knows we will live in hope.
Anyway thanks to my nephew who was taking part in a Metro convoy in his Metro Manhattan heading from Hopwood to Cotton park for the Austin rally I found out about it, otherwise another Austin rally would have taken place again and I would never have known. So Rocky my dog and I set off we both had cameras and went to see what little gems we could snap! Rocky, of course, did all the photography I just hung around looking at the ground and hoping to be offered food, thinking about it he does a much better job than me and snapping pictures of the ground.
We arrived at 10-15 am there were hundreds of rovers all shapes styles and sizes some quiet some loud and some very loud all the drivers huddled up clinching the steering wheels as if it was going to fall off or somehow taken away from them all looking very proud knowing the car in front and the car behind was a Rover. Rocky and I entered Cofton park as we have done so many times before, he looked and looked and found it hard to come to terms with that his big green playground had been taken over by a lot of car’s and once a great place to run and meet other dogs now became a place where he was kept on his lead, oh well he made the best of it and was soon photographing everyone and everything and he suddenly realised there were plenty of dog lovers as well as car lovers there to give him all the attention he could ever dream of.
A few hundred yards into Cofton park and we could see that the planed layout had failed and people had started to form there own layout this naturally meant that the groups of cars were split up and for some reason towards the back there were cars on show intermingled with normally parked cars very confusing but they seemed happy enough so we started to wondering in and out up and down looking at the various cars.
Naturally, it was not too long before we came across one of these notorious burger vans, no problem with that but I can not help wondering why so many people at any one time and so early in the morning feel the need not only to queue for at least a quarter of an hour for an overpriced burger in a bun as if it was some incredible new trend I am not sure if it is the burger’s they get after queuing or if it just the queuing that they go for.
On reflection, I think it is simply just the queuing unless there is something Rocky and I do not know about in those plastic port-a-loo’s because the queues for them were just as long as the ones for the burgers. Then I shared an idea with Rocky if you place a port-a-loo inline 100 yards before the burger van and give the port-a-loo’s back door then they could queue for the port-a-loo’s leave by the back door to join the burger van queue, this would save them queuing twice and for those who really get the most out of these events by queuing another port-a-loo could be placed 100 yards after the burger van. Rocky said we should bring it up at the next Austin rally meeting, but we both agreed we could get around the show without the need to visit either a porta-loo or a burger van thus leaving it for those who could not leave the show without visiting either! the real question here is do they make one or more visits and if it is more do they get to see the vintage cars at all?
Then as we wandering around and around the lovely cars soaking up the history imagining were the journeys may have taken these cars perhaps all over the UK, perhaps Europe or the channel islands or even perhaps they have featured in a well know movie this information may with persistence be obtained from the cars owners who had firmly taken up residence and had no intention of moving for the remainder of the day as if some uncontrollable force was holding them firmly in there deck chairs I thought it best left to my imagination.
But i wonder is it the same force that encapsulated some of the car owners and there partners i refer to the ones that arrive at the show to show off their automobile and why not, but once they have position their car why then do they lock them selves inside it and remain seated for the duration of the show windows and doors closed, they sit looking straight ahead in to space totally unaware that there are many hundreds of people walking around their car this to me it is amazing i even knocked on the window with a smile and a good morning and neither person spoke, moved, nodded, i think they are in a deep trance communicating with a force far to superior to be human and i think because they do not even speak or interact with each other i guess there must be some form of psychic way of communicating with each other, and to through us all of the sent they always have a lunch box a flask which they hold on to for dear life then there is the out of date news paper casually left on top of the dash board which i suspect has never been read and never will. It is a great mystery why they turn up at a people-orientated event and impression themselves inside the car, but for me, there is still one big question do they communicate with each other on the way there and on the way back and how do they know when it is time to go, and can they really resist the pull of the burger bar and the porta-loo’s. I thought about staying until the close and maybe I would see them leave like DR WHO in his Tardis but Rocky said his diner will be ready when we get home so I will to solve this mystery another day.
we took video’s of the cars leaving the show great fun I was the only one so I don’t know if they were happy for us or just felt sorry, but the end of the day was topped off by an old couple he 82 and she 84 lovely couple said they were sad I asked why and they said they had come to see the Metro as it was the last car made and they didn’t see any, I kept quiet about the few hundred Rocky and I had seen. They reminded me of the advert for speck savers (what sort of cheese was that) and in there time both had worked at Austin, well what she said really said was every now and again they worked on the assembly line in between strikes most of there memories seem to focus on how often they stood in Cofton park voting to strike, I made her laugh when I said yes when I was at school we went past the park often and there were always hundred’s of workers in Cofton park shouting and raising there hands, she said yes it was us probably were getting on a bit now.
Now the best bit, pictures and videos. There are more videos just click see my other videos I hope you enjoy the cars especially if you were not able to be there. Rocky and I had a great time. To view the album for these pictures please follow this link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/TiPxNu7M5XWy4fmd9
