pastevs88

PAST EVENTS PAGE 88

INTERNATIONAL CLASSIC MOTOR SHOW – NEC BIRMINGHAM SATURDAY and SUNDAY 10th and 11th NOVEMBER 2002

After our first ever indoor high profile exhibition in May of this year, it was on the cards that we would be allowed to have a free club pitch for the November show.

The respective documents duly arrived and we had been allocated an 8m by 9.5m space in Hall 5. We immediately wrote to the organisers requesting a larger space but unfortunately there was considerably more pressure for available areas than in May and the only chance we had was if one of the other car clubs pulled out. This did not materialise and so we were left with space to exhibit two cars plus the usual regalia tables.

It was decided to exhibit two ‘specials’ to create added interest for the paying visitors. We had displayed four standard cars out of the five in May and we wanted something different for this show.

Two ideas stuck out – one was the very new British made body kit - the Karmeleon and the second was a Special Edition supercharger made for the last 276 Mark 1 cars produced by Toyota before the advent of the MK2. There are only three of these cars in the UK that we know and it would give a chance for Joe public to see something rare.

We overstretched our expense budget for the show in May and so were under strict instructions from our Secretary to try and keep expenses to a minimum. Fortunately our two most devoted members – Fred and Doris Sanderson volunteered the use of their Camper as a carrier for all our equipment. This kind gesture saved the club a lot of money in van rental charges. We had a large quantity of posters that had been produced for the May show and these could be added to at a very economic cost as your chairman produces them on an A3 colour printer and joins the 4 or 9 piece jigsaw together on to very light but rigid foam board.

With some gentle persuasion a company producing hollow square steel tubing and plastic 3,4,5 and 6 way corner junctions agreed to give us list prices less 60%. By joining this tubing together we were able to produce a 7m x 3m high frame for the back of our stand and with ceiling wire stretched vertically between the top and base horizontal tubes we were able to display all our large posters as a collage. This proved very successful as we can re-use the tubing and posters for future exhibitions. The editor’s wife also obtained two special cloths for the paste tables in the colours of our new logo.

We were not allowed into Hall 5 until 1pm on Friday to set up our stand and everyone helping arrived just before the appointed hour and after unloading the Camper got to work to assemble the backdrop. As usual the club sticky tape came into its own again by marking out our space properly and assisting with the poster fixing method.

After about four hours all was ready except that we had not arranged the cars properly on the stand at angles of 45 degrees. This could wait until Saturday morning before the start of the show.

Saturday morning dawned – grey and wet and we made our by now familiar way down the M42. After the usual paper chasing rigmarole by the security at the NEC we managed to park just outside Hall 5 and busied ourselves with little finishing touches but couldn’t move Mark Nias’ car as it was locked and the sensitive alarm set. The show then opened to the public and before long this alarm went off as someone tried to open the door. Fortunately the noise only lasted for about 20 seconds and we then had to ensure that no-one could touch the car until Mark had arrived and switched the alarm off.

We then received the dreadful news that Lauren had smashed her car into a motorway lamppost avoiding a motorway maintenance lorry which was stupidly trying to complete a manoeuvre on the one free lane of a motorway slip road. By the grace of God no-one was seriously hurt and apart from whiplash and a couple of bruises they were both OK. The car incidentally was obviously going to be a write off as the lamppost embedded itself almost up to the base of the windscreen – a true testament to the car’s excellent front end crumpling zone. Despite this appalling accident they were arranging to come down by train once the car had been low loaded back to Nottingham.

Visitors arrived on the stand and a great deal of interest was shown in both cars with our number one sales executive – Doris Sanderson doing her usual best. As usual there were people who owned MR2 MK1’s that had never heard of our club and a large number of membership application forms were taken away.

In the early afternoon Mark and Lauren arrived and everyone commiserated with Lauren’s bad luck but were very relieved that they had escaped serious injury. We were then able to reposition the cars and especially the Karmeleon as we wanted to present the best view possible to people walking by and with the rather blunt front end of the car facing the gangway this view could have put people off inspecting this body kit further. So we turned the Karmeleon round and put both cars at the correct angle.

The show didn’t close to the public until 6.30pm and so after a long and eventful day we then proceeded to make our way back to Loughborough. Your chairman had been presented with a radar speed trap detector as a combined thankyou, birthday present and Christmas present and as we drove out of the NEC internal roads noticed that it needed to be put back in its holder. By chance we stopped the car on top of one of the flyovers going over the M42. Richard noticed that all three lanes were at a standstill and suggested we carried on by Coventry airport and went back on the M69 instead. This proved to be a wonderful testing ground for the detector as there must have been at least half a dozen cameras on the dual carriageway during the next five miles or so. With unerring accuracy the detector warned of every location resulting in another possible purchase by your editor!

Sunday started early as Richard kindly agreed to pick up Mark and Lauren from Nottingham and so we all went down together in the large Rover workhorse. It also gave us a chance to see the actual damage to Lauren’s MR2 and sure enough there was a deep gorge from the front bumper up to the windscreen in the shape of the cross section of the large steel lamp post.

Again on the stand itself we had many visitors and people were taking pictures of both the cars and the poster back drop. Three new members signed up and paid for the subscription to our club in the stand and many more again took away the forms. Mark’s special supercharged version was an eye opener to 99% of the stand visitors and a fair amount of drooling was seen. The Karmeleon created far more interest now that it had been re-positioned and a number of genuine enquiries were received.

At about 5.15pm we started to remove the posters and pack away the regalia. Fortunately we again managed to park adjacent to the hall and were ready to complete the taking down of the stand and loading into Fred and Doris’ camper. Two things prevented this – one was the security man responsible for unlocking the large access doors had only one key and therefore it would be quite some time before he arrived at our nearest exit. Second there were obviously a large number of show cars in the hall that were waiting to depart and an even larger number of vans and lorries outside waiting to come in – result - chaos. Fred managed to park his camper on the slip road leading up to the exit door with Richard's Rover close behind and we then decided it would be better to cart the materials by hand out of this exit door and load the vehicles outside. This proved to be very efficient and an hour later we were leaving the site only to be held up by cars coming in to attend an evening concert in one of the other halls.

An hour later we were back in Loughborough and shortly afterwards Fred and Doris arrived to offload the posters, framework and other bits and pieces back into my garage.

Another successful show and a good advertisement for the club.