OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Restoration projects and Austin related chat in here please
jannie.52
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by jannie.52 »

Wow...some nice Austin photos - especially nice is the one courtesy of Matt Wood.
OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

July Update.
So July wasn’t a bad month at all. With a new car to play with and a couple of holidays to enjoy, time to recap.
At the end of July me and a few friends went for a week’s holiday in the south of France but this was in my friend’s car so nothing to report other than it was a long drive from Bordeaux to Scarborough. Setting off at midnight I took the first drive into the early hours of the morning as I was more familiar with the area as it was somewhere I’ve gone on holiday many times with family. This journey was approximately 900 miles so quite tiring but we arrived home on Saturday afternoon.


Le Mans Classic 2016
Wednesday
Fast forward a few days to Wednesday night as I set off from work onto the next adventure but this time back in the Austin. Drove down to Doncaster station and picked up my brother too and on we went on Ovy’s biggest trip under my ownership yet. We travelled that evening to a friend’s house in Cambridgeshire to stay overnight, this reduced how many miles we’d have to do the following day as we’d get 185 done that night.


Thursday
Thursday morning saw us set off at just before 8am, we drove across to Cambridge and then down the M11 and got caught in the morning rush hour. A stop for breakfast at Birchanger services near Stanstead airport and we were off again towards the channel tunnel. We arrived at the tunnel at 11:30. 133 miles completed so far that day.
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Arriving in France, me and my brother had agreed to avoid motorways over there and see a bit more of the countryside. This was going great and we were making the usual A35 style of slow and steady progress until on the A28 motorway nearby there had been an accident and all the traffic from that had flowed onto our road the D928 and blocked it solid.
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After sitting in the car for quite a while in almost 30 degree temperatures with traffic stretching as far as the eye could see we decided to get out the car and have another look at the map and try to pick an alternative route. As we were doing this the occupants of the Range Rover classic also going to Le Mans behind were thinking the same thing and we agreed to follow them on an alternative route to a nearby town. Their 4.2 V8 power certainly had the upper edge on the hills! At this point it was 7pm and it had taken 1.5 hours to travel the past 5 miles and we still had 130 miles to go before we were to arrive at our campsite. We decided to stop in this town for some food before carrying on into the night.

This was again slow but steady and quite uneventful until the Euro Semi-Final finished with France winning 2-0. We didn’t know anything of this until we came into one little town and there were a few cars coming the other way blowing their horns. As I started to wonder what it was all about we arrived into the town centre and there was traffic everywhere with people flooding the street celebrating, fireworks going off bouncing off cars and buildings. We decided to get out of there and took an alternative route through the town finding more traffic elsewhere but no out of control fireworks. This happened again at the next couple of towns but we managed to drive through them with just crowds of cheering people. Finally, we arrived in Le Mans at 2am with just a campsite to find and a tent to put up in the dark.


Friday

Friday saw us visit a Chateau 27 miles away for the morning for a combined PistonHeads and RetroRides meeting. It was a lovely spot with some very nice cars indeed. Before leaving I decided to park up Ovy infront of the building for a couple of photos, my favourite of which is this one with a dream car of mine at the other side of the entrance.
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On the way back to the track we decided to stop at a supermarket to pick up some things to eat and drink where we found these in the shop entrance.
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Back at the campsite we decided to have a wander around to see what other cars were there. There were many interesting cars there indeed but this one captured my interest. What is probably a very clean car usually was covered in dust due to the dry conditions and the dirt access track right next to the car but it gave it such a fantastic look in my opinion.
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That evening we spent wandering around the track site and taking it all in before returning to the tent in the early hours of the morning.
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Saturday
Saturday we spent some more time watching all the various classes on the track at various places and visiting various stands. In the afternoon we managed to meet up with a racing driver at the event, one of our clubs very own Young Members, Richard Woolmer.
We stayed at the track throughout the day but there was just so much to see that even then we hadn’t seen it all. But one highlight was seeing these cars in action, a first for Le Mans Classic this year.
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And finally we stayed until the early hours of the morning where we saw Richard in action in the Austin Healey. (Not a picture of him but the driver he shared with, sadly I didn’t manage to capture a clear shot of him.)
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Sunday
Sunday we witnessed more track action and had a proper walk around the club stands at the track. Maybe we should have a stand here one year… As we were walking out we had a look into the Porsche garages. I’d love to have a garage like that organised to work in one day, but I don’t think I’d manage to keep it like that.


Monday (and into Tuesday)
Monday, the start of an even bigger trip home, what a test for the car which didn’t miss a beat.
We started the day with as much of the Le Mans Circuit as we could. There can’t be too many A35’s that can claim to have driven down the Mulsanne straight flat out ;) Luckily our cars as standard are slow enough to get away with that.

Setting off at around 7am we toured our way up in the wrong direction for home but the right direction for Reims 280 miles away. It could have been a much shorter route but as those who know me I never go the simplest way put prefer to go the more scenic route, as such we were rewarded by driving through countryside like this.
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The reason for going in the direction of Reims was for the Reims-Gueux Motor circuit. Used until the early 70’s it provided a great spot for a few pictures. This is one of my favourites with the car outside the Dunlop garage as there was no Austin garage.
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Whilst having a walk around the site I spotted through one of the back windows of the pit garages this treasure. A McLaren F1 road car.
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From here we carried on upwards to the Thiepval Memorial at the Somme. We arrived there just as the sun was setting which meant there was no one else there except for me and my brother. There was a state of tranquillity that made it so hard to believe what had been going on exactly 100 years ago. The sun setting lit up the skies and clouds as a powerful back light to the memorial whilst the surroundings being so quiet which made it all the more striking. To give a sense of scale, the red brick stipe around the bottom is about the height of a person.
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At 45m (approx. 150 feet) high it is the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world to remember over 72,000 people who lost their lives at the Somme but were never recovered or unable to be identified. It is a truly moving site and if anyone finds themselves in the area I urge you to visit.
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From here it was another drive in the night towards the channel tunnel. Again, we were avoiding the motorways and using country roads to take us there arriving at around 1am. By this point we decided we were going to head up to home rather than stay overnight so we got ourselves an earlier crossing. Whilst we were waiting for the train we had a quick nap in the car for around an hour before boarding the train to England.


We disembarked in the early hours of the morning topped up a very empty fuel tank and as I had driven all of France my brother drove for a few hours whilst I slept in the passenger’s seat. Progress was continuous up through England, stopping at our grandparents for some breakfast and a catch up before the final stage of the journey home.

In total the Austin totalled approximately 850 miles since setting off in Le Mans home only stopping for short periods of time for the mentioned visits, fuel and food.
Other than those it was a continuous drive and the car was driving for around a day and a half and averaging up to 44mpg!!

Not too bad for a car that’s 58 years old and had 113,000 miles on the clock.

The rest of the month not much occurred other than the continuous little trips to places enjoying it as much as I could in the good weather. The August update will come soon as I've almost finished going through all the photos. If you thought July was a big adventure, wait until you see the story for August.


Update Summary:
July Mileage – 1528 miles
2016 Total So Far - 6599
Neal Welch
Image
Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by TILDAS PILOT »

Neal,

Many thanks once again for sharing your continuing adventure with us all. I am really enjoying this.
Keep up the good work Buddy.

Cheers, David. :thumbs:

p.s Great photos too. :D
A30/A35 Club Member 2002-
Lincolnshire Group member March 2002-Dec 2010.
Member of the organizing committee for the 2008 International Rally.
Belvoir Vale Group member(Lincolnshire) 2009-
Member of the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society 2002-
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beko
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by beko »

yes, an interesting update :thumbs:
OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

Glad to see people are enjoying the updates, apologies they are so long but a lot seems to happen in a month (or even a week it seems!).
Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
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beko
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by beko »

No need to apologise, you are doing a great job using your car for what it was designed! I have managed Nearly 200 A35 miles this month so that's good for me!
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A40FARINAGURU
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by A40FARINAGURU »

well done Neal :thumbs:
Nick Bayliss

Club's A35 (Saloon) Registrar, South Midlands Area Contact

Email, a35@austina30a35ownersclub.co.uk

Connected with A30/A35's for 63 years

A30/A35 Member A1372 (since 1981)
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by TILDAS PILOT »

How are things going Neal? Have you anymore updates to share with us?
A30/A35 Club Member 2002-
Lincolnshire Group member March 2002-Dec 2010.
Member of the organizing committee for the 2008 International Rally.
Belvoir Vale Group member(Lincolnshire) 2009-
Member of the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society 2002-
OVY871
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Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:15 pm
Location: Near Scarborough
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

I have a few more updates including my biggest trip of the year in the next update! I just need to get down and write it.

After September though the journeys tailed off a little bit(many miles are still being completed but just not as many as the summer months) but I am also starting to buy parts again which I hope to start posting about soon :)
Neal Welch
Image
Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
TILDAS PILOT
Posts: 1981
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:33 am
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by TILDAS PILOT »

OVY871 wrote:I have a few more updates including my biggest trip of the year in the next update! I just need to get down and write it.

After September though the journeys tailed off a little bit(many miles are still being completed but just not as many as the summer months) but I am also starting to buy parts again which I hope to start posting about soon :)
Smashing, I am looking forward to that.
A30/A35 Club Member 2002-
Lincolnshire Group member March 2002-Dec 2010.
Member of the organizing committee for the 2008 International Rally.
Belvoir Vale Group member(Lincolnshire) 2009-
Member of the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society 2002-
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beko
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by beko »

:iagree:
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Neil Evans
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Neil Evans »

:thumbs:
Club Technical Information Officer
A30/A35 Club Member A191 (since 1972)

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