Mazda Day at HMC Gaydon.Sun 25th Sept.

[KiwiDave]

27th September

You've got a heritage mazda fleet ... bring the SunTop

Don't think I will make it as i will be up in The Cairngorms on the 26th getting wed to my lovely fiance.

Well ... you win that Top Trumps round mate.

[Hobbawobba]

Well I had a good day at this aye! Nice weather. A good amount of FB's showed up. Probably second to RX-8's? There was another meet going on over the other side of the carpark which provided us with some extra viewing pleasures . Plus entry to the museum that had some pretty cool cars in as you'd expect.

Marc - It was good to see you again. Nice surprise seeing you pull up as I didn't realise you were coming! The new paint is looking sweeeet

Dave - Sorry I didn't get a chance to have a chat to you! Your car was looking clean as always though . But where were the red, anodised, rotor shaped oil filler/master cylinder caps?! Was a beaut of a day to show them off

Malcolm/Casey - Were you there at all? I didn't recognise any of the RX-8's as being yours. Was looking forward to meeting you

I didn't take as many pictures as I would of liked as my phone doesn't have much space left . Here is what I got

Clive came and introduced himself to GT_James and I as we arrived and had a chat with him while others were pulling up. After that we went and took a look at his stunning RX-4



With an interior to match..


Then this familiar car pulled up which I instantly recognised from pictures posted on here in the past. I think his name is Tony if I remember correctly? Had a good chat with him for a while and he seems like a nice guy. Had a the car for a long time.


Shiney alternator club


Also spoke to the owner of this very clean series 3. I don't remember his name but he was another good guy . Stock minus the exhaust I believe?


C J R's(?) subtly modified FD . Cool car. Definitely not jealous


This pretty cool RX-3 rocked up just before lunch. I didn't meet this guy so I don't have any info on it. The colour was pretty nice aye




Group shots! Sorry Dave but you were parked with the young guns (RX-8s) .






Here are a few pictures from the other meet that was going on at the venue. These 3 were in immaculate condition. The blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville was a nice as colour aye


This truck was pretty well done. Spoke to the young fulla who I assume owned it. He was saying it was built in America and only recently got transported over here.




Yep....




That leaves us with inside the actual museum! I can't remember what half of the cars were as I'm pretty tired right now .. But they're cool so that's that







This one made me laugh as my brother in law works for Royal Mail




This one was probably my favourite of the museum. It was driven from Buenos Aires to New York in the 50's



Anyway that's all from me aye. I guess its lucky I didn't take all that many pictures aye . I should try and borrow a friends camera next time so I can take better pictures. Rather than off my Samsung Galaxy S5 phone ! I'm not going to proof read this as it is nearly 1am and I'm tired .

[Marc S]

Got to say, overlorded or not, this was a really good day out.

We had a nice early start and a traffic free run up there, then enjoyed the fabulous sunshine
Was great to catch up with you all, nice to see some FBs together, especially as we missed out on retro rides. Thanks to everyone that made the trip, I gather there was some negativity about the event being posted in a few places, and Clive was fearful that nobody would show up. In the end, the turnout was pretty good, and I'm glad the day worked...and may well go ahead next year too

I'll post some pics once I've got them onto photobucket...check back in a few weeks

[KiwiDave]

It was actually a pretty cool day. The venue was the main reason that I decided to attend, a very interesting place and well worth an annual visit. They are in the process of expanding as they have a lot of exhibits hidden away in storage due to lack of space. All of the gas turbine cars were on display this time (the Graham Hill Le Mans car was absent last time I was there).

Apparently there were some industrial strength espionage attempts to sabotage the show. It seems some people take the sport of Clive bashing incredibly seriously and should perhaps get some sort of a life or, at the very least, get out a bit more. It was lucky then, that the eventual turnout actually constituted a car show and a Mazda Day. My mate seemed to enjoy it too and got to see his first Rx4 and second Rx3. He also got to meet more people that can bang on about FB's all day and got to ride in TWiR for the 180 mile round trip and seemed well impressed.

There were lots of comments about the number of FB's all in one place so it was cool to see people taking an interest

Just a shame that I didn't get to catch up with more of you and we arrived a little late so couldn't squeeze in between Marc's FB so had to park with the RX8's instead.

[ian65]

Sound like a nice venue for a static display...


and on the subject of this...

Apparently there were some industrial strength espionage attempts to sabotage the show. It seems some people take the sport of Clive bashing incredibly seriously and should perhaps get some sort of a life or, at the very least, get out a bit more.

you reap what you sow.

.

[Lucky]

It'd be interesting to hear what constitutes such "industrial-strength" sabotage? I saw almost nothing on any of the forums I'm on either about the day itself or the Clive in question... and the few comments that were voiced were along the lines of "well, he's a dick, I'm not interested". Hardly an especially vicious, protracted or co-ordinated attempt at wrecking anything.

Still, if you heard of this from the Orange Overlord himself then I can't say I'm surprised. Other than marking up RRPs his strongest talent is for manufacturing himself as the victim in every situation. Anyone would have thought he wasn't so utterly insignificant nowadays, given how the entire world actually is out to get him

[Marc S]

I'm not defending the guy, 'cos he's been a dick over the years, sure enough, but I didn't hear anything about it from Clive (although he did comment favourably on our car, something he's never done before ), I was told by one of the 323f members there that they had seen some bad mouthing on a couple of other forums/facebook groups, but thought (like I did) well, it's free, it's decent weather, and it may well be the last show we do this year...add to that the museum is worth a visit, and we're good to go

[Casey]

Well I had a good day at this aye! Nice weather. A good amount of FB's showed up. Probably second to RX-8's?....

Malcolm/Casey - Were you there at all? I didn't recognise any of the RX-8's as being yours. Was looking forward to meeting you

Glad you had a good day Jesse, and thanks for posting up the pictures, so I have an idea of what I missed. I'd heard that a lot of Gen 1's turned up so I'm even more miffed I didn't make it. Why....

My 11 year old RX-8, which I have owned from new, and has never let me down before, decided to break down on the way to Gaydon on Sunday morning. My wife and I were enjoying the cruise up on the M3 near Winchester in the lovely sunshine, 70mph (ish) in the 3rd lane when the engine cut - with no warning! I had to coast across 2 busy lanes AND an entry sliproad, where I had to cross cars accelerating onto the motorway. How I made it in one piece I don't know.

I tried to re-start the car by the starter wouldn't even turn, it was clearly an electrical problem. Had a quick check under the bonnet and caught a whiff of some residual electrical burning. Cutting a long story short, a 15A "Engine" fuse kept blowing, so I got the car recovered back to Essex Rotary. In the meantime I checked the wiring diagrams and spotted that fuse supplied power to the ignition coils (and other systems too). I then suspected the after market BHR coil setup I installed 3 years ago might have a problem. Sure enough, Aston at Essex rotary found a chaffed wire in the loom to the coils, repaired it, and the car is now running again.

So, gutted to have missed you, and all the other Gen 1 guys, as well as all my friends on the RX8OC and Mazda Rotary Club.

Turns out the Gen 1's are more reliable - but entirely down to my poor RX-8 coil installation, as I do recall the kit was a very tight fit, unlike the Gen 1 ignition setup

[Casey]

BTW, the stunning RX-3 (I've seen it a few times now) is owned by Steve Garbutt of MX-5 motors in Doncaster. If you had met Steve, you'll know that he's a true rotorhead - he's in the process of what looks like a full body tattoo, based on a rotary and dragon theme. I'm not into tattoos, but it's stunning artistry, with some great "3D" cutaways, that appear to show he's powered by rotary!

KIMI 2 should be fit to go for an MOT once the new windscreen is fitted so, although she still needs a little TLC, I am hopeful I can take her to some shows next year. KIMI 1 is still making very slow (but steady) progress with a more thorough (but amateur) restoration, so will take a bit longer before she's back on the road. However, she is tucked away in one half of my dry garage, so well cared for. My RX-8 sits in the other half. My new (15 plate) daily Honda Jazz (sorry - I am receiving therapy for my choice ) sits out on the drive in all weathers - I know my priorities

[Marc S]

We had our photo taken on the day...me and Vyv are on page 13 of Classic Car Weekly this week, their details are a bit iffy, but it's nice to see it in print