National Kit Car Show Stoneleigh Park     4th-5th May 2008
Report from Tony Tucker, Events Co-ordinator

As usual, this event threatened to offer only very average weather - and, after a dull Sunday, the overnight rain suggested that Monday might simply be washed away. But, in answer to everyone's prayers, the sun came out and, amazingly, t-shirts and ice-cream were the order of the afternoon.

In the main arena, there was only one Speedster on display this year, a body-shell on the Pilgrim stand. On the Club site, however, we had well over 20 cars on Sunday, a little down on last year, but 20 again (not all the same ones!) on Monday, which was well ahead of the turn-out in previous years.

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What is more, there was an exceptionally wide range of cars on view. In addition to Spyders of both varieties, there were Speedsters which traced their origins to Chesil, Legend, Dax, Covin, Beck, Apal, Martin and Walker and Pilgrim, as well as variations on the Beetle and the Karmann Ghia, plus the famous Coupe of Udo Guddat! (And very nearly cars from Intermeccanica and Vintage as well, both likely to appear at Castle Combe).

Winner of the Favourite in Show award was a fine gunmetal-coloured Speedster with a large range of features recently commissioned by Paul Davis and already up for sale! Honourable mention was also given to David Room's Blue Convertible D, rumoured to be the last car to escape from the Chesil factory, and Len Raynsford's well-known "Speedy", now sporting even more original items from the Porsche history books.

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Yvonne, as usual, provided endless refreshments while Vernon avoided adding unnecessary miles to his Speedster's clock by leaving it at home! (Anyone know what it costs to insure a car for under 200 miles per annum? Mind you, if you run 8 cars, it's probably quite difficult to do much mileage in any one of them!)

The Sunday night stay in the Old Mill at Baginton continues to grow in popularity and there were no less than 18 Club members meeting for dinner there this year (including Mark Victor, who makes excellent Vintage Speedsters in Germany), plus Peter and Diane Stock, over from the Isle of Wight in order to catch up with Gary of the Speedster Clinic on Sunday. Gary, naturally, did not turn up until Monday, shortly after Peter and Diane had left to visit Oxford! However, it must be said that Gary came with a most impressive green Legend Speedster, very clean and simple inside and sporting a set of Fuchs alloys.

Oh, and talking of wheels, what about Simon Hambly's stunning chrome Sprintstars, a recent addition to his much-admired motor! As in past years, most members departed with vast quantities of much-needed parts and accessories (as well as many totally unnecessary ones) and, after the drive home from the APM (rain of biblical proportions), I was quite happy to suffer from sunburn on this occasion, having driven with the hood down for the entire 130 miles!

Not long now before Stonor Park (1st June - meet at 8.30am in front of the Crown in Pishill, just up the road from the event), quickly followed by Castle Combe (minimum of 16 Club cars already known to be going!). After that it's Classic Le Mans, with nearly 30 cars joining up!

Yes, as far as "Speedsters and Spyders - the Club" is concerned, it's a case of "today England, tomorrow Europe, thereafter - the world!"

Tony

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