It was whilst at Gaydon in June that we were asked if we would like to exhibit Lizzie on the Ford Sidevale Owners Club stand. Really there was only one answer, YES! This conversation happened before she broke down on the way home, otherwise it may have been a more tentetive answer.
So, logistics… we live around 100 miles from the NEC so how will we get her there? Two options, we drive her or we put her on a trailer. In the end we decided to do a bit of both. Making sure she was on the stand was number one priority so we decided that she would go on a trailer but thowing caution to the wind, she would be driven home. The only snag, we had no vehicle with a towbar.
We had discussed having a twobar fitted on many occasions but never got around to doing so. So, in August and knowing a guy, we had a towbar fitted but as a bonus he also hires trailers. We were now set to get Lizzie to the NEC!
Roll forward to November 7th… I woke up with some aprehension as I was due to collect the trailer, load Lizzie and drive to the NEC. For a seasoned tow-er this should be a walk in the park, except I was a novice. Thanks to Covid and Borris I am now able to tow up to a total train weight of 3.5t (I passed my test after 01/01/1997 so have different rules to follow, before Covid/Borris I was limited). I spent a lot of time researching kerb weights of the towing vehicle as well as Lizzie to ensure I had enough leeway in the weights. Thankfully Lizzie is compariably light and there was some wiggle room in the calculations.
The journey to the NEC was simple and we soon had her unloaded. I could have trailered her to the hall but I deciced that I wanted to drive her in, so thats what we did and in no time, she was in her places, next to a 1953 Anglia. Myself and my sone gave here a quick once over to make sure she looked her best before we made our way back to the tow vehicle and headed back to drop of the trailer.
The event at the NEC was a three day event but we had decided that we would only visit on the Saturday and Sunday. As it turned out, I dont think my legs could have done any more walking, I covered about 14 miles over the two days.
This is one show that you should attend at least once. With its autojumble for parts through part restored vehicles right up to the immaculate, concours condition, vehicles across many different makes and marques. There is also numerous talks to keep you entertained.
It was one of these talks that had me thinking… the subject of the talk was about Restoration for Beginners. If you are looking to get into classic car ownership, I think it is easy to get overwhelmed. My hope is when people see Lizzie at a show like this that they go away thinking that it is ok to have a drivable classic that is not a showroom piece or a sports car.
