We had five “Women and the Marque” with their Minis displayed at Ellerslie along with other invited car clubs at the Intermarque Concours D’Elegance on 11th February.
We thought we had planned for everything, except we didn’t pack waders. “Great weather for ducks” as the saying goes. The heavens opened and it rained all day. At one part of the morning we were clustered under our club tent on an island of dry land with a water moat surrounding us. Due to some clever drainage work by Lesley Robinson and Co the water was redirected, and we reclaimed space for ourselves and the many spectators who sheltered from the elements during the heavy downpours.
You never ask a woman her age but when it comes to her Mini, it is a different story. Great conversations were struck up about our cars. Lesley Robinson had her 1978 Mini Rover Cooper Sports Pack Rebuild and her 2015 John Cooper Works BMW Mini Cooper. Margaret Patrick had her 1991 John Cooper Works S, along with Jo Wooding with her 1993 Rover Mini Cooper, and Shirley Grant with her 1995 Mini Estate. We had our car specs printed out on our new club spec sheets and displayed them in our newly revamped display stands.
Thanks KP for the great painting of the stands. I want to thank Kevin Taylor for bringing the club tent, and Murray, KP, Graham Wing and Warrick Robinson for helping erect the tent in somewhat blustery conditions.
Mark Lewis entered his 1966 Austin Cooper S in the Survivors Class and his display was really impressive, providing a photographic history of the car’s racing heritage when it lived in the South Island.
The rain didn’t put us off, so these MCCoA die-hards stuck it out to the end. We did go home like drowned rats but with a spring in our tails.
PS:Due to our team’s ingenuity we didn’t need the tractor to remove our cars from the grounds.
PPS: It was great to see an all girls camo dressed team clean up the club display with their Land Rovers this year.