The Fairford Classic Car Club

What a year to date! Glorious sun in May, followed by drought and either tee-shirts or pullover weather – it must be England! Not that it seems to have bothered you FCCC hardy lot, as we have had some cracking meets and visits over the past three months. The AGM was, as usual, well attended, the St George’s Day run a great success and the charabanc trip to the Naval museums in Portsmouth, both educational and great fun. The FCCC ‘Away Team’s’ week on the Isle of Wight was blessed with good weather and the superb hotel, interesting visits and ambiance of the island, made it a memorable trip. Since then we’ve had the Cotswold Air Show, a fantastic day playing with Sir William McAlpine’s grown up train set at Fawley Park and Arthur Mallards 90th birthday celebrations. The only real disappointment was the annual Walnut Tree event, not due to FCCC attendance – around 18 cars - but the weather and the non existent, other activities!

A number of FCCC members also visited the Isle of Man for the TT, for educational and spiritual reasons you understand, and to the preceding day of Goodwood’s Festival of Speed. The reason I mention these is not only to enthuse about both trips but as a follow on to something I wrote in the last FCCC Clatter i.e. ‘many things change over time’. Most of us go to such events to see spectacular racing cars and motorbikes, sniff the air for Castrol R and listen to the sound of highly tuned engines – but things are ‘a changing’. At the TT there is now an event for Electric Motorbikes and at Goodwood, the Technology Centre had exhibits of electric and hybrid vehicles and examples of energy storage devices including that designed by the Williams F1 group. Whilst the electric vehicles we are now seeing on the roads, such as the Nissan Leaf, have limited mileage capacity, the next generation vehicles now on test are delivering quite acceptable distance when on electric e.g. 120 miles, with quite incredible performance. Mind you, talking to the experts on the stands and trying to read some of the technical explanations, did make us feel that it was in another language – or is it just us getting older! Certainly, it was refreshing to look at the mock up of Noble’s latest world speed record car, complete with 600+bhp, good old USA V8, just to get the main jet running up to speed – some starter motor!

But, whether on safety grounds, or to get the pulse racing, we come to the big worry, where is the soundtrack? The electric motorcycles at the TT are fast (140mph) but it is like watching ghosts racing and the only sound we may hear from the high streets of Britain in the future, if they do not include some sound track, are the screams of pedestrians being knocked over. The Audi engineers building their Le Mans diesel sports car say that ‘noise is wasted energy’, which is probably correct, but I think they are missing the point when it comes to motor sport. However, our good friends at Lotus seem to be made with more emotional, as well as practical, DNA. They have designed their hybrid sports car with a system whereby you can dial in the sound and level you want, from a quiet purr, to a V12 Ferrari wail…… Maybe in the future each manufacture will have their own distinct sound track, so at least you will know what type of car is just about to run you over!

On that ‘note’ I will sign off, so happy holidays.

Malcolm Cutler – July 2011