MG & Triumph 100
Joan and I headed south to the MG & Triumph Centenary event at Silverstone on Thursday 8th June. The sun was splitting the trees again as it had been doing for a few weeks. Our first stop was in Newark where we were going to stay with one of the previous owners of our Austin 7 Opal.
John was a great host and took us out for an evening meal. We picked up an oil painting of the Opal that John had promised us.
On Friday morning we headed for Castle Donnington, this time to drop off a couple of Austin 7 gearboxes which had been bought from me on e-bay.
John had suggested the Bletchley Park might be a good place to visit so we headed there for the afternoon. Again the weather was hot and sunny which made the afternoon very enjoyable.
That evening we headed to our accommodation at the White Hart Inn in Buckingham and settled in looking forward to the weekend.
Silverstone circuit is only 20minutes from our hotel so we set off early to be there for the official opening and displays of cars.
An event is held by the MG car Club every year and is known as ‘MG Live’ but as this was the centenary of the MG it was called MG100. Triumph was also celebrating 100 years and were invited as guests to the MG event.
Cars were arriving most of the morning and were located in different areas of the circuit infield and the MGs were split into their own groups. These ranged from the early the earliest Morris sports cars right through to the SAIC cars currently sold under the MG badge. A special display was also put on in one of the pit garages where the proposed Cyberster was on display. The car on show looked like it could be driven out of the garage but I was told by the MG ‘guard’ that it was a clay mock up. The things they can do with clay these days !!
The Triumphs were displayed as a group themselves on a separate field and included triumph saloons, Stags, Spitfires and the full range of TRs.
As well as the static car displays from both MG and Triumph there were parades of both makes through a central arena and these were presented by Wayne Scott an experienced motoring journalist and broadcaster and former presenter of the Top Gear Live Podcast. His knowledge of both marques was impressive.
As part of the weekend event racing was taking part on the track on both days. Racing like the static displays also included cars of all ages and included Austin Healeys, Porsches and other competition makes.
The racing was competitive and although there was a fairly serious crash on the Saturday it was otherwise uneventful though quite exciting and loud.
After the event Joan and I headed to Nottingham to break the journey overnight before our trip back home.
David Lodge
