I haven't downloaded my photos to my PC yet, but it was a great day, although not without incident on my part.
I left home 5.20am Saturday morning, at 6am just entering Aylesbury the front offside tyre went flat so I had to pull in and change it.
This left me with 3 x 165/14's and 1 x 145/14, last year before going on the Fulvia Knights Rallye I changed my 145/14s for a set of 4 x 165/14s. although the spare, a brand new Toyo 145/14 remained, as I didn't really want to spend money replacing it.
Another reason is that a 165/14 won't fit in the spare wheel well, surprisingly having one odd tyre didn't seem to make any difference.
Having sorted that out I then headed off for Oxford looking for petrol, first place I found open was a Sainsburys best part of the way to the A34 Junction around the Oxford Ring Road.
After Filling up I locked "Fay" up and went to pay, on returning I unlocked the door but as I completed the operation the key broke off in the lock
as the ignition key on Fulvias is seperate to the door key I carried on, reaching Bristol at 8.25 am, and being on my own I followed the directions as best as I could from the end of the M32, unfortunately due to being thrown by Roadworks I turned left instead of right and found myself heading out of Bristol on the Bath road that didn't seem to have anywhere to turn round.
After finding somewhere to turn I eventually found myself at the end of the M32 again, so I had another try, eventually arriving at 8.50am.
All in all it was a very good day with lots going on with many Motorbikes ( a new Ducati at £28k sir?) and scooters as well as the cars.
There was a lovely Aurelia B50 that belonged to a Mr Sherwood from Hereford, it was the 1951 Geneva Show car, and didn't it look it! I can't see Mr Sherwood in the Members Listing so I'm assuming he's not an LMC Member, or just not listed.
There was also a beautiful Maserati Sebring which I believe was it's first time out since restoration, there were more Ferraris, Lamborghinis & Maseratis than you could shake a stick at, one a Quatroporte that is shown in amongst Andy's photos being a particular 'In your face' Yellow, which didn't seem to be most peoples favourite colour going by the comments around, a couple of Maserati GT's in a darker yellow were much easier on the eye.
We were near to the market and what a fascinating place that was, including one place that sold excellent home made pies with peas, mash and gravy, thanks Steve for introducing me to that delightful experience.
What really made the day for me was "Fay" being chosen as the best 4 door Saloon, and being awarded about the biggest Rosette I've ever seen, as well as a very nice wedge of engraved glass; it was a good day for Lancia all round as the B50 also received an award.
On the Sunday I'd booked a hotel for the night at Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley where we used to live, arriving at the Hotel I soon established that there was no secure parking, and not wanting to leave "Fay" open all night in a public car park I headed for home instead, in torrential rain.
When I got home I found that my interior lights, the red lights in the doors, my dipped headlights and the headlamp flashers weren't working, so I suspect that the rain has got into the electrics during my 120 mile drive home, not surprising being how heavy it was, so I'm just hoping everything dries up on it's own, although I'm not holding my breath, today when I took the punctured tyre in to be repaired I found the wheel well an inch deep in water, something that's never happened before.
What a contrast to the Fulvia Knights Rally last year when a broken bonnet cable was the sum of my problems in 13 days and 2350 miles!
All efforts with Pins, blades and even superglue on the end of a stick in the hope it would set and enable the broken key to be extracted, failed, so it looks like I'll be partly stripping the door and removing the handle to get at the barrel.
Brian
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