Vintage Minor Register

Inaugural Monthly Evening Pre-War Car Pub Meet

The Fountain Inn, Tenbury Wells, Tuesday 3rd September

You, your family and friends are very warmly invited to the inaugural monthly evening pub meet at historic The Fountain Inn, Tenbury Wells. We will welcome all pre-war cars, as does the Register to all its meets and rallies, and of course you would be equally welcome to bring your classic or modern if you prefer.

As the Register approaches its Silver Anniversary, this will be the very first Register monthly pub meet and we have carefully chosen The Fountain Inn because of its location, character, accessibility, car park, pleasant outdoor seating, excellent and reasonably-priced pub grub menu and fine local ales – not to mention the warmth of the welcome that all visitors to this historic 17th century black and white pub receive from landlady Lisa and her attentive staff. The pub is also a keen fundraiser for the Midlands Air Ambulance, which is our newly-designated Register charity.

If this first meet is a success, and we are confident that it will be, then we will schedule ongoing monthly meets on the first Tuesdays at The Fountain.
The Fountain serves food from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and is found at Oldwood on the A4112 about a mile south of Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire. The post code is WR15 8TB. The Ordnance Survey grid reference is OS137/590667. The what3words geocode is amused.robot.spinners. Should you wish to
contact the pub to book a dinner table or for any other requests, you can contact the staff on 01584/810701.

See you there!

We had a great turnout last night at The Fountain for our inaugural monthly meet and were lucky with the weather as well. At least five members were in attendance in addition to nine interesting cars and others who pitched up in moderns. We had everything from a vast 1924 Dodge tourer, recently imported from Australia to a 1969 2CV van! There was a gorgeous XK120, one of the last chrome bumper M.G. Midgets, a brace of vintage Rileys, a lovely Lagonda Rapier in addition to my fabric saloon VG 2007 and Jonathan Barwick in his '32 2-seater. It was good to see John and Bridget Hicks who brought a couple of neighbours (and fellow Prescott marshals) from Gotherington, George Rodford who came in his modern from work and brought me the new bonnet for my McEvoy and The Old Bull landlord Joe Reed who came across from Inkberrow. Dave Nursey from MSUK also came along.

(Actually, the Midget was K reg. so a 1971 model so I suspect it was rebuilt using one of the spare body shells sold off at the end of chrome bumper production in 1974. I also had a similar car which was a 1971 Sprite rebuilt with one of these spare round wheel arch body shells.)

The fabric saloon ran well and it is the first time I've driven it after dark. George Rodford followed us home to deliver the bonnet and taker a look at the Semi-sports. I also handed him a stock of Register car badge, cloth badges and lapel badges which he will have available on his stand at Beaulieu.

I also spoke to Joe Reed about the possibility of starting a monthly meet at The Old Bull.

All in all a super evening and the next meting will take place Thursday 17th October and the meet will be on the third Thursday from then - moving from the first Tuesday which clashes with the VSCC pub meet at The Boot, Orleton.

Was good to catch up with everyone, looking forward to the next meeting which is definitely better for me being on a Thursday evening. It was quite a torturous drive back in the dark last night, not helped by Google Maps/Sat-Nav deciding the best route was the one that wasn't good for a 92=year-old car running on 6 volt lighting I'll go home via the main roads next time. I'm up for another monthly meeting at The Old Bull, so count me in.

BTW, does anyone find that using Google Maps as a sat-nav in a pre-war Morris Minor confuses the software? It keeps thinking I'm riding a motorcycle. I've just had to alter yesterday's little jaunt in the Morris from a motorcycle ride to a drive... and that's normal practice for me

Glad you enjoyed the meet, Jonathan, and glad we all got home safely!

I'll be talking to Joe Reed about a monthly at The Old Bull. Watch this space!



Ian

After last week's horrific drive home in the dark with 6v 35w headlamp bulbs, I've just converted them to LEDs this evening and just returned from a test drive out. Wow! I could see where I was going and as an added bonus the ammeter wasn't deep into the Discharge side of the gauge as it would have been on the old bulbs.

Congrats, Jonathan!

How about a Tech Topics article for the mag?

There's really nothing technical about it. The car is fitted with modern H4 fittings/electrical connections and had halogen bulbs in place. It was just a case of finding 6v H4 LED headlamp bulbs, which I found on Amazon, and they were a direct replacement.

So the next Fountain meet will take place Tuesday 15th October and we plan to keep the date to the third Tuesday in the month going forward. This will compliment the nearby first Tuesday evenings at the Boot, Orleton. I plan to attend both in the fabric saloon.