Austin-Morris Day at Brooklands – March 2008

Not content with 2 days of researching the new car market at the Auto Salon in Geneva, I managed to fit in an old car event over the weekend, as well. Arriving back in the UK on Sunday morning, it was just a short diversion to go home via Brooklands, where the annual “Austin Morris” day was scheduled to take place. The Brooklands site covers a mixture of motoring and aviation history. There are various planes, or bits of planes, scattered around the site, some in better condition than others. The most famous of these is one of BA’s Concordes:

There are some other artefacts which link the 2 themes together, with several rather nicely restored vehicles that saw service for the airline industry, and these were a few of the once-familiar vehicles I found:

Of course, Brooklands is steeped in motor-racing history, and it was a first for me to go and stand on the banking. I was amazed just how steep it is!

However, it was the collection of historic Austins and Morris that had attracted me there. I was expecting there to be a large percentage of the display given over to the Morris Minor, not least because it is the 60th anniversary of the launch of this still popular car, and indeed that proved to be the case.

There were also a load of, frankly, rather tatty Marina, most of which I declined from photographing. However, there were some rather nice other restored vehicles to see, too

Here are some of the highlights:

Austin A40 Somerset:

Austin A30:

Austin A35 Van:

Austin A40 Dorset:

Austin A55 Cambridge:

Austin A40 Mark 2:

Morris Oxford Series VI:

Princess:

Austin Ambassador:

Morris Ital:

There were a whole range of Austin Sevens, of course:

The later Austin Eight:

Other Austins:

There were a few interlopers, too.This is a Jaguar Mark V:

A Singer Vogue:

A number of the old buildings on site have been restored, and now form a collection of museum areas. There’s lots of history here, and a longer visit is probably called for to assimilate it all. There was a collection of cars and automobilia assembled in the 1930s, some of which was destroyed in the Second World War, and which has, of course, been added to since then.

Bluebird:

A 1900 Peugeot:

AC Sociable:

There are some more themed days at Brooklands during the year………… could be worth a visit! Mercedes-Benz World is also a short walk away (I did pop in there to see if there was anything new, too!).

2009-12-31 21:07:52

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