Fun Concours Night @ The Seahorse, June 2014
On June 16th we gathered once again at The Seahorse in Shalford for our second annual ‘Fun Concours’ night. We were rewarded with a fantastic turnout of 20 cars, lots of variety in the line-up and decent weather!
There were lots of great Alfas on show, notably six GTV6s, the biggest collection of the type at a Surrey meeting for years. Alongside familiar modified examples from committee member Kevin Rascher and guest judge (and GTV6 expert) Alex Jupe, was the superb original example owned by Tony Daher, which took home the title of Best pre-1990 car. The corresponding award for more modern Alfas went to the immaculately kept 916 GTV of James Picknell.
Now we came to the more light-hearted categories – this was supposed supposed to be a ‘fun’ concours, after all! The first of this year’s less serious awards was for ‘Best engine bay’ and it went to the fantastic Sud Sprint of Gary Orchard. This car would grace any concours competition and also took home an award at this event in 2013. Meanwhile at the other end of the cars, possibly the world’s first award for ‘Cleanest tailpipe’ went to the Giulia Super of section stalwart, Des Clare.
The remaining two awards dished out by the judging panel, which comprised Alex J plus the Surrey Section committee, went to Oli Kirkpatrick’s 156 Sportwagon (deemed to have the ‘Cleanest carpets’!) and Barry Daborn, whose SZ sported more Alfa-related stickers than any other in attendance! The final certificate of the evening was a public vote for the Best car. The landslide winner was the oldest car in the Seahorse car park, a lovely Giulietta Sprint 750B belonging to Roger Peirson.
The icing on the cake was provided by an impromptu appearance from former Brabham-Alfa designer, Gordon Murray. He happened to be eating in the Seahorse that evening after finishing work for the day at his Gordon Murray Design consultancy, which is based just around the corner. Gordon was a great sport, chatting to club members and posing for a picture with the winners! It was a super end to another great Fun Concours evening and our thanks go to Gordon, to Alex, to the Seahorse and to everyone who came along to make it so!
