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 Wyddoch Chi? Did You Know? |
1999 Nordkapp Rally Amazing adventures in scenic Scandinavia. |
| 1997
UK National Microcar Rally. Mark Perkins write-up and photos N.B. ( Link to Mark Perkin's site.) |
 1998 UK National Microcar Rally it was in Wales for the first time!! |
| 1999 25th UK National Microcar Rally.
It was organised by the the Messerschmitt Enthusiasts Club. Write-up and photos |
1999 Trollhätte-träffen organised by MC-BIL
Klubben  in beautiful Sweden |
| 1999 Bristol Microcar Club Rally
at Bath |
 Be' Sy'n Ymlaen RHwngwladol? What's on Worldwide ? Going abroad? Maybe there is a 'Micro-Event' that you can visit! |
1998 U.K. National Microcar Rally
was held in Wales for the 1st time !!!
(A personal view, with photos by Barrie)
This year our club hosted the 24th U.K. National Microcar Rally. It was the first time in Wales and so we hoped to make it a memorable one. It was held at Cyfarthfa Park & Castle, Merthyr Tydfil which is on the edge of The Brecon Beacons National Park (about 30 miles North of Cardiff.)
After the 1997 National a meeting was held to complete the financial side of things and to decide which club would run the 1998 rally, but no club came forward, so Mike Shepherd, agreed to act as co-ordinator, with all the clubs sharing the jobs, once again there was little response. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of people in most of the participating clubs have done a lot of work in past years, when, frequently myself, and others, have just arrived and enjoyed the rallies and done precious little else (if you don't count baby-sitting !) So it was high time I pulled my finger out !!
There has been an air of lethargy creeping into the microcar scene over here lately, owners are getting older, youngsters can't afford a microcar any more, and as values rise, people are becoming loathe to use their little beauties. If someone has the temerity to turn up in a 'non-bubble' to some of the 'one-make' club rallies they are made to feel as welcome as a pork pie at a Jewish wedding. So how are we ever going to get new blood into the microcar fraternity?
At the same time we were looking at locations for our first big rally and I thought, "Why not combine the two ?" Mel & Ann Evans and Dave And Les Morgan agreed, so it also gave our little club a chance to give things a shot in the arm (or somewhere closer to the seat of learning !)
Most of the 'donkeywork' was done by Mel Evans and Dave Morgan with me having spent endless days in front of the computer designing and printing the bumph, posters, programmes etc. and on 'The Net', to let the World know all the info about the rally, getting any magazine, paper, TV station to publicise our efforts, raising some of the necessary dosh (money) to pay for the bands. We hope that whoever runs future rallies will be able to 'pick the bones' of our successes and failures and adopt any of the new bits that go down well.
It was a nerve-racking time! As such a small club, (with an even smaller band of active members!) Everything fell on just three of us and Barrie (our friendly neighbourhood photographer and printer). Roy & Sylvie Young, and Carl our Trike-riding Security guard, were also a great help at the rally. After an entire rally season of rain, mud, wind, rain, mud, was it too much to expect that, for the National, things could be different? The weather forecast was, to put it mildly, grim! My poor old 600 was on it's last legs and, just for mischief, decided to avenge all of the harsh treatment it's had to endure! On the Friday morning, before I even left for the site, it broke a drive shaft rubber. I had ordered two from the IOC and they were coming the next day, but today I had no spare! Bodged it up, but this meant that I couldn't tow my caravan, loaded up all mine and Laurie's stuff and off we went. After about twenty miles it siezed up, got it going again, six more miles and then we had a blow-out in the middle of a thunderstorm!! And it cut a big slit in my nearly new tyre! I said to Laurie, "The worst thing is that Dave and Mel will say where the hell have you been?" We eventually arrived at about lunchtime (guess what Dave said?). We were all depressed, fed-up and longing for Sunday night to come so that it would all be over! The Castle management had threatened to cancel it because people had been camping since Thursday and because the ground was so boggy! Stress!!!
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(Left) 1998 U.K. National Microcar Rally, It's Saturday morning and the 'run-out' sets off, across the Brecon Beacons, to Brecon town. A lovely Fiat Giardiniera is followed by Alan Town's '58 BMW 600 Isetta. |
(below) Bond-bug, Berkeley T60 and a Trojan
climb towards the Castle.  |
 (above) Two nice Kr 200 dometops (Andy Carter's Renault-engined 'Tiger' just coming into shot) |
A new feature at the Welsh National was the 'Hospitality Tent' in which, Dave and Les, Mel and Anne and Roy and Sylvie welcomed the arrivals with a nice cuppa and a cake, this also encouraged people to stop and chat. There were already quite a few nice machines on the field, Dr. Klaus Kaufmann, Chairman of Isetta Club eV of Germany, was there with a new-look Henner Rensch, and my old friend Adolf, they had brought along two immaculate BMW 600s with matching trailers, a Goggomobil 250 and a rare Pitty scooter. Nigel Leckie, an Englishman who has lived in Germany for a good while, looked very comfortable with his beautiful Bond folding trailer-tent behind his Bond-Bug, he even had a boat! (he was prepared for anything!) More people began to arrive with their cars and the weather brightened a bit (sometimes!) We had a bit of a job arranging camper vans and caravans, as the ground was too soft for them and the Castle didn't want them to go onto the rally field, but, with a bit of jiggery pokery, they were all insinuated into a comparatively small tarmac area by the Castle entrance! Sunshine & 'liquid sunshine' jostled for supremacy, this meant that we were sploshing around on a muddy field in brilliant sunshine! This also meant that the amount of usable area on the field was limited as bits got very boggy. The Castle management had insisted that all gates were locked after 8 pm, so those returning from the pub had to climb over a wall! Poor old Carl had to ride back and forth to the top gate to let latecomers in, (no fun, when you're on an open VW Trike and it's tipping down with rain!)
Matt brought his marquee, which has saved a few Microcar rallies this summer! Mel arranged for hot showers to be available at a local leisure centre (there were toilet facilities with hot water, but no showers on site). With a few of the further travelled micronauts having been around for a few days, this made socialising in the marquee a much more pleasant prospect!
Andy 'Thermals' Vincent came and entertained us on Friday night. Most enjoyed the live music, but inevitably, there were moans from those who prefer a more sedate rally (or maybe it meant the couldn't hear the TV in their campers!). We had tried hard to accomodate the two factions, by asking the Castle management for seperate quiet and 'lively' camping areas, but they said that this was not possible. Steve and Jackie pepper gave us a lift home in their 2CV to pick up out Travelette caravan and when we got back , a small fleet of micro-caravans had arrived.
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(Left) CYM member Phil Whitmore has converted his Lomax to BMW 'Boxer' power, he's followed by a Citröen Special (Lomax?) |
(below) 4-wheeled 300 Isetta followed by two
'Schmitts  |
 (above) Bob Purton has done a superb job restoring this French 175cc Ydral-engined Inter |
Overnight the Atlantic Ocean playfully dropped about a tenth of it's contents on the assembled micro-loonies and our ramshackle mixture of temporary dwellings, and once again I was glad that the lovely Laurie & I were dry and comfortable in our micro-caravan! Saturday morning dawned, to greet lot of bleary-eyed and well-weathered enthusiasts. One drove towards me in his little Daf, it was Dirk de Boer from Holland. I said in my dodgy Dutch "Goe' morge', heeft jij goed geslaapt?" He replied " You have a lovely country, but you should put a roof over it!" And he then told me that everything he owned was wet, and that they were going home early. The same thing had happened to another Dutch entrant, a few days earlier, his Autobianchi cabrio and it's contents were all wet after a few days camping in the South of England, as they travelled up to Wales. The moral is, Don't buy a tent in Holland!! No, seriously, I was very sad to lose these entrants as I have a soft spot for the very friendly and laid-back Dutch. I have always enjoyed the fantastic annual Dutch DWAC Microcar Rally, if you never been, you've missed out on a brilliant rally with a huge variety of weird and wonderful micros.
 |
(Left) Reliant in two different guises. A lot of people snub these very usable little 3-wheelers! You can still by modern versions today. |
(below) R-L Peter & Val Miller's Lomax
next to their son Alan's and then there is the aluminium nosed special.  |
 (above) All from Germany, 2 BMW 600s with trailers and a 250 Goggomobil saloon. |
Things became a little chaotic on Saturday morning, people and their Microcars arriving, juggling the autojumble and clubstand spaces to suit the various 'political' preferances, trying to place people in the best possible place without burying them in mud or using the parts of the Park which the Castle Management had forbidden us from using. Dave had booked a classic open-top double-decker bus to take the enthusiasts who had not been able to bring their little beauties (or their cars!). He had also brought one of his son's buses, kindly loaned by their family business,Acorn Travel, but it was no ordinary bus, it was fitted with a tail-lift and converted to carry wheelchairs and electric buggies for the disabled and infirm members amongst us. As my car was 'very ill', I decided that it made more sense for me to help hold the fort while the others went on the run-out. So I arranged for Hugh Williams to take Laurie in his homemade HTW. Moments after I had waved them off someone came up pushing somebody in a wheelchair and said "Where are all the microcars?" What a shame that they had just missed the chance to go on the run-out.
A steady trickle of cars arrived and I lit the gas on the 'Hog-Roast' machine,( it was going to take about 5 hours to cook). Mid-afternoon the cars started to return from the run-out with tales of some very wet Micro-loonies (the upstairs passengers on the bus!) The field was soon buzzing again, Chris from 'The Howling Sleepers' turned up to sing while a large queue formed in front of the 'Hog-Roast' machine in the marquee, everyone got a roll filled with pork and stuffing for £1, it proved to be very popular and it just about paid for itself. A fine night ensued, Steve Pepper got his instrument out and accompanied Chris for while and then did a solo spot. Much alcohol was quaffed, many stories were bandied, I bopped around and Laurie got 'chatted-up' (a few people warned me, "Hey! You better watch them!"), it didn't bother me, I knew she'd come back!
Overnight it chucked it down again, thunder and lightning, the works!!! But our little 'passion-palace' kept us as snug as bugs in a rug!
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(Left) Nick Poll's Czechoslovakian Velorex with a nice side view of the Inter |
(below) Mike Goddard's amazing battery
powered TriTech Zetta. Do you want to buy it? It's up for sale, give Mike a ring
on (0)1297-21161 or 0374-757550 (mobile)  |
 (above) Mike Webster's lovely Frisky Family 3 cabrio |
Sunday dawned bright and sunny. People were still arriving, the usual autojumble and club stands did a roaring trade. By now we had some really rare and desirable machinery such as Inter, Velorex, Decsa, Peel, Autobianchi, BSA as well as the usual marques and some nice kit type cars, a few scooters and motorcycles, an Electric Zetta, Sinclair C5s (which were made in Merthyr Tydfil) and Alan Whitlock's Human Powered Recumberant, a nice mix indeed! A fine afternoon followed, helped along by the local Brass Band.
We hired an inflatable bouncy castle, which helped to tire the kids out and gave the mums and dads a break. Big Al' Hitchcock organised the driving event (a bit late). Local Dignatories were fascinated by our hobby and Merthyr's Lord Mayor presented the superb solid brass Miner's Lamps, Welsh Dragons and Coal Wagons to the show winners. We had made an effort to provide quality prizes that would be as memorable as our Rally!
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(Left) Ken & Kate Baxter's yummy '30s BSA Scout cabrio, Ian Brake's Decsa Lisa 125 is behind. 4 Micro-caravans can just be seen in the background, L-R Dai & Tanya's Rapido, Brian & Trish's Portafold, Paul 'the roof's Mo-tent and Gordon & Eunice's Portafold. |
(below) Bonds were out in force! In the line
up and on the run-out  |
 (above)Kr 200s and Tg 500s bask in the Autumn Sunshine! |
There were a few thefts and, embarrassingly, Adolf's BMW 600 had one of it's badges prised off. But given the scale of the event and the fact that outsiders were free to walk around it wasn't too bad, (a few times me and Dave 'shadowed' dodgy looking characters, me with my trusty copper-hide mallet behind my back!!). And once, after about 3 warnings, I clouted one around the earhole for messing with the cars! As he flew through the air he shouted "Argh! He attacked me!", I thought "Oh, Oh!!" But his friends said "Tough! You should have listened the first time!"
So, the time came to say a sad farewell. (and for us to breathe a huge sigh of relief!!!) A few people stayed to help us to fold Matt's marquee and helped tidy the field. Tri-Tech (who had sponsored us) didn't make it because their diesel broke it's timing belt and left them stuck on the motorway for 5 hours. They apologise if this caused anyone any problems.
The Rally had been a definite success, but inevitably, some people found things to complain about!! We knew that we would never be able to please everyone. Not everything went as it was intended to, but I think we did quite well. If nothing else, we've given the Microcar movement a few new ideas and we've paved the way for other small regional clubs to have a go at it.
Financially, we were fortunate to have gained enough sponsorship to cover most of the facilities, we had decided to accept the site free of charge and to let the Castle management have the camping fees, on reflection, it would have been better to pay for the site and then we could have kept the camping and autojumble fees. We borrowed £500 from the National Rally Fund Trustees (they hold £1300 to help finance future Nationals). Ray Simpson of The Bristol Microcar Club agreed to finalise the accounts and we will wind it all up at the Post 1998 Rally / Pre 1999 Rally meeting which I've organised at The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway's preserved railway station at Toddington near Cheltenham. The Messerschmitt Enthusiasts Club's It was Tony Yates who suggested that the MEC host the 1999 National, at this interesting site.
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(Left) One of the two large displays of Isettas |
(below) 'Moneybags' Trojan 200 lifts its
skirt in front of it's fellow trojans!  |
 (above) Best rat-micro went to this unrestored Peel |
I hope your restorations are easy ones, and if you can , please try to use your cars as they bring a smile to everyone who sees them, and that can be a great healer in these stressful times !!
Pob Hwyl !!!! Paul 'Chop' Rossiter
'The mad Welshman in the urban jungle somewhere between LLanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch and Vladivostok' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
