Uxbridge Autoshow 2003

Firstly a big thank you to members Cyril and Becky Haggar for helping to organise this year's event, and you can see their GT Beetle below. Pity more members couldn't attend (it was the weekend of Bug Jam), but you missed a great event and it was a change see other marques apart from our beloved Volkswagen for a change.

We had a good spread of vehicles, the only one I missed was Jeremy LockwoodÍs waterboxer crew cab (I could have sweared I took a photo!). I'll have to do a piece on Jeremy soon since I hear he has clogged up his local street with all his VWs, as well as filled his neighbours grange with parts!

As you can see we had a good selection of different VWs, but we had space for, so if you fancy it next year, we will be in touch.

Del Griffin and I spent a lot of time walking around and looking at all those vintage cars and even models you had almost forgotten (remember the Ford Anglia?). We even found a Super Beetle nestled amongst a spread of Austin Allegros, the owners partner also owned an Allegro. She had picked up the 1303 just recently, a blue 1303S with just 26,000 miles on the clock and on its 2nd pair of tyres from new. Just goes to show, there are still some gems out there that haven't been picked up yet, if you can find them.

Having recently published a couple of articles on the Czech aircooled Tetras I sought after their stand and seeing one pass me earlier in the show. Very interesting to see lots of these Iron Curtain cars from the 50s to 90s, with their aircooled V8 engines. One owner knew Keith Sueme and was trying to persuade him to stick a Tatras V8 in the back of a Baja.

Also there was a 1926 Tatra. Why was this such a find? It was the first cat with a backbone chassis and rear swing arm suspension and formed the basis of Tatras later claim that Ferdinand Porsche had stolen their ideas, a claim that resulted in a successful legal battle with VW in the 1950s.

I will be going again next year, but I hope it doesn't clash with Bug Jam, oh well- too many venues, too little time. More pics below, click on thumbnails for the full-size picture