Sunday, August 30, 2009

More than 1500 cars at the 2009 British Car Meeting in Mollis

Today the annual British Car Meeting took place in Mollis/Switzerland. With splendid weather it was no surprise that a great amount of cars gathered in Mollis to celebrate the guest of honor brand, Austin Healey.
The British Car Meeting is something special. The only common denominator is the fact that each car has to be manufactured in Great Britain. So it doesn't make a difference whether a car is old (like an MG TC) or brand new (like a Aston Martin V8 Vantage).
Also interesting is the fact, that you can see completely restored cars sitting besides, well, a car in basically drivable condition.
For somebody thinking of restoring let's say a Triumph Spitfire, the BCM is a great event, given 30-50 cars of this type can be found at one location.
And the fact that the place where everybody meets includes also a small airport creates extra entertainment with airplanes starting and landing.
The BCM is a meeting with something for everybody. A Rolls Royce parks side by side with a Mini or a Ford Anglia. True rarities such as an AC ME 3000 can be spotted on the one side, a bunch of Lotus Elise and Exige on the other side. More Morgans than most club meetings can attract are distributed over the place and probably every model that Triumph built since second world war has been brought to Mollis at least once, if not 10 to 20 times.
For TVR fans almost the whole model range showed up also, i.e. Tuscan V6, Taimar, 3000S (at least 4 cars), Griffith, Chimaera, Tamora, 350C.
It's a good event for visitors as well as for the drivers. They walk around between the cars, eat a "Bratwurst" (sausage) or a "Schnitzelbrot" (I can't translate this), drink a beer or mineral water, talk to friends, learn about other people's cars or just relax and enjoy the huge collection of British cars. What a great way to spend a sunny Sunday.
There's no element of competition involved, no concours d'elegance, no 1/4 mile race, no nothing. Good so. That's probably what people want and enjoy. Go on organizing these, the success proves that the concept is right.

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