SILVERSTONE MG LIVE MEETING 2012

This years MG Live event at Silverstone was a resounding success for The Magnette Register with an increase in cars in attendance over the last two years & with a good turn out of regular attendees together with some who we do not normally see at this event. Over the two days we also welcomed a very large number of owners to the register stand who for a variety of reasons could not bring their Magnette with them including the ones that have the dilemma of having more than one MG, so a choice of steed for the event had to be made!

A good number of visitors to our stand commented on the fact that a significant improvement could be seen to the regalia we now have for sale which is due to our regalia co-ordinator Mark Bunce working with the main club supplier "Topsigns" which now means that the register itself does not have to commit to large batches of stock and buyers of regalia items have a truly huge selection of items to choose from which is a definite win win situation all round. I would encourage members who were not able to attend MG Live to take time out at future register events to check out what is available. I promise you, will not be disappointed.

We had Grant Howlett's timewarp ZA in the main marquee as part of the garage showroom display which caused a lot of interest. Grant's late grandfather owned the car for new & it remains one of the most original cars around & probably the most original car that is still in use & not in a museum. If you are restoring a ZA or ZB & want to get it as close to original as possible, then you definitely need to take a look at this one & have a chat with Grant. Thanks for bringing it along Grant - it looked fantastic.

It was good to see that the stalwarts of the Magnette world John & Lou Shorten were present on the Sunday with Lou bringing along some samples of some more parts that she has had recommissioned to the benefit of all owners. These were the ZA "Hockey Sticks" (the trim that goes around the front wheel arch on ZA cars) together with bumper overiders & fog lamp brackets. Please contact Lou to register your interest in any of these parts & to ascertain the prices of each as they were so hot off the press, the prices were not known at the time of the event!

The format of the two day event this year rather than the three day event in previous years seemed to work exceptionally well as the Friday always seemed to be a bit of a non event - everything seemed more focussed this year but still with plenty of time to see & do everything that made up the weekend. Personally, I even managed to do one of the guided bus tours this year which was very enjoyable as it was in a vehicle very similar that I was taken to school in which bought back a lot of memories & I was able to see the big new pit complex which has been specially constructed for this years Grand Prix event which showed that the work continues to improve the circuit generally.

For the statisticians amongst you, I recorded 21 cars over the two days which was a very good number considering that it actually clashed with our overseas event which inevitably meant a choice as to which you attended, but it was a great pity that we could only get 10 cars in to the allotted register space with the rest a long way away & very spread out in the overspill area. Whilst I fully understand the reasons for this with the weather encountered before the event, I do think that it is something that the organisers will need to look into for next year to avoid a repeat of this situation which understandably, a lot of people were not happy with as they did not feel a proper part of the event.

text: Peter Martin
pictures: Cynthia Harris % Stephen Tickell