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Rods
at the Bodyshop Live event London
We are often approached about
supplying Rods etc for promotional or TV work and more often
than not it ends up being a piss take of the cars the owners
or both, so when I was approached about taking 8 cars to an
Industry event in the middle of London I was a bit sceptical
to say the least.
Basically
their event is held over three days, where they give awards
and discuss the ins and outs of the car repair business, then
on the Saturday they had what they called Bodyshop Live, which
entailed all the various bodyshop suppliers showing their wares
to people in the industry and as part of that wanted to show
people something different to the norm, that being Hot Rods.
We were asked to supply 8 Rods, for people to take a look at
and then run them around the block in them, and in return they
would put the drivers and other halves up in the Novotel Hotel
(n dead posh it was n all) invite us to Breakfast with Murrey
Walker on Saturday morning, feed us at lunch time and invite
us to the Caribbean themed party in the evening, Yeah right!
I thought I’ve heard all this before, we’ll get
there, they’ll use the cars for what they want then drop
us like a hot potato, but just incase it wasn’t a wind
up I’ll ring round and see if anyone fancies going.
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In the meantime the mag had rang wanting to know names etc for
the Hotel bookings and could I send images and details of the
cars as they wanted to make Bus Stop type signs up for the cars,
perhaps this wasn’t a waste of time after all, so when
a few people dropped out I made a few hasty phone calls and
made up the numbers. ( thanks Toad for ya help there)
In the end we had a great line up of cars owned by equally great
people, with Roy Walker and his Pro Street MK1 Cortina, Mick
Paynes Fordson, Gus (trust me I know where I’m goin’)
Pattel and his Truck, Julian Gardners Pro Street Camero, Mick
Donahews Fordson, Mike Hughes ’34, Tony ( I Really do
know where I’m going!) Shailer and his ’32 ( ya
might of seen it before Holmsey) and Paul Davis who came in
at the very last minute with his Corvette.
The only thing you could put money on was that all of us living
North of Hammersmith would get lost if we didn’t follow
someone, so we met up with Gus at the Ace Café early
Saturday morning and followed him to the Hotel, met up with
the others, and as promised the Bodyshop people had laid on
a lovely breakfast for us and the event people and listened
to Murrey Walker being interviewed by the Bodyshop magazines
editor, after which we booked in to the Hotel (eventually!)
and got ready to show the cars of.
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The people at the event had probably never seen a Hot Rod before,
let alone had a ride in them, and the looks on their faces was
absolutely priceless, and it wasn’t all young men that
wanted to go out in them either. The cars were parked in the
loading bay right outside the main doors which led onto a straight
road of about 70 meters and needless to say most floored it
at this point as not only did it look good for the spectators
but it sounded fantastic as it was all covered in! Mick D filled
the reception with smoke after an impromptu burnout before he
left which was met with applause and whistling only ever meant
for a Gerry Springer show, upon one of Roys returns a guy falls
out of the car, stumbles over to his wife and tells her that
he drives like a F***** idiot and shouldn’t be let loose
in a car like that!! To which his wife barks a rude reply and
runs over to the Cortina shouting Me Next! Me Next! (This is
a guy incidentally that didn’t want to go out in them
cos “they wont impress me I drive a Subaru Impretsa carlosfandango”)
or sumink like that.
Everyone had similar tales, from people of all ages who were
genuinely impressed with these amazing cars, I wont carry on
with these tales but let me just tell you this last one.
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I had taken out one of the originators of Lola racing in Julians
Camero and as I pulled up and let him out this lady (who must
have been well into her 70’s) asked if she could have
a ride “ yeah no problem, I wont go too fast for you”
to which she just laughed, after an absolute age she managed
to climb into the car at the expense of her hair do, she sat
there catching her breath and asked me to back the car up as
far as I could go, then said “Right then err err ohh blast!”
she opened the door and nearly fell out only the roll cage stopping
her and shouted back to her friend “Dorothy what was that
word that young Roy used earlier?..........ohh yes” to
which she shut the door again, stared at the road ahead, and
said “Right then lets nail this baby!” to which
I was only to happy to oblige.
At midday we were all given a packed lunch and it all finished
at 4pm, the girls came back from shopping and everyone got ready
for the evening. Chelsea cruise was on that night so we headed
over for what was only supposed to be an hour or so, two hours,
an overheated Camero, a very expensive kerbing and the running
out of everyone’s credit on their mobiles later, cos with
the exception of Mike and Tony we all got lost, we decided to
head back to the Hotel, and boy what a party! Fantastic live
music, buffet and free Casino and Carlsberg at only £1
a pint (well, nearly a Pint!) Don’t actually remember
going to bed, but I do remember having an absolute ball with
some fantastic rodders!
We all woke at a reasonable time (well..Before lunch anyway!)
Tony and Debbie had left before we had got up to go and pick
the kids up and Julian had done the same, but the rest of us
met bleary eyed down at breakfast, compared tales of the day
before then slowly made our way home.
A big thank you to Bodyshop mag for looking
after us so well, and what a fantastic window to show others
the best of UK Hot Rodding
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