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Celebrating
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FBHVC 'Drive it Day'FBHVC states: "The primary aim of 'Drive it Day' is to showcase the historic vehicle movement. The historic vehicle movement, the FBHVC survey of 2006 showed, is a significant contributor to society: hundreds of thousands of people derive pleasure from it, tens of thousands earn some or all of their income from it, and it contributes over £3 billion to the national economy. All of that depends on freedom of use: lose that, and the movement will, inevitably, decline. To uphold the freedom we need, above all, to keep legislators on our side. Two things that always weigh heavily with legislators when they are considering new measures are, first, the number of voters who will be adversely affected and, second, whether the benefit resulting from the proposed measure is sufficient to justify upsetting that number of people. 'Drive it Day' helps both: it shows the large numbers, and by making an obvious contrast with the other days in the year when it is rare to see anything over 20 years old, it shows how little historic vehicles are used. It thus demonstrates that restrictive measures will have negligible benefit on emissions, but would upset large numbers of people. 'Drive it Day' also celebrates the '1000 Mile Trial' which left London on 23 April 1900." To achieve that FBHVC encourages member Clubs to organise an event on the Sunday nearest to 23 April each year. NB: 'Drive your Austin Day' to commemorate the '1000 Mile Trial' was originally the idea of the Austin Ten Driver's Club. It was picked up by FBHVC a year later and promoted nationally as 'Drive it Day'.
For these runs we keep to the main A and B roads and aim to meet at a well known venue, frequented by visitors, where we can park for about three hours so that they have plenty of time to come and chat to us. In 2006 - On 'Drive your Austin Day', promoted by the Austin Ten Driver's Club, we had a short run to Lands End where 15 'Sevens' were able to park in The Square.
The format of several starting points
worked well, it brought more members out for the run and exposed our 'Sevens' to
a lot more people.
We met at two venues with members in East Cornwall and North Devon visiting Dingles Steam Museum, providing a turn out of 18 'Sevens' and 5 other models . . . . . . . whilst West Cornwall members met near Truro. The 10 'Seven's and a 1936 ex-London Taxi ventured through the towns of Redruth, Camborne and St Ives to meet at Geevor Mine. The return route via Penzance and Marazion brought us into contact with many more people anxious to chat with us.
In 2009 - The turn-out of 29 pre-war Austins, mostly 'Sevens' of course, arrived at Pencarrow House, Washway, near Bodmin from five starting points. Our North Devon Group of five 'Sevens' enjoyed a drive along the north coast road to Widemouth Castle.
In 2011 - Our run saw 33 pre-war Austins in East Looe with one coming from Penzance, eight from Helston & Falmouth; others came from Camborne & Redruth, Wadebridge, St Austell and Callington with five from Bideford & Barnstaple and one from Yelverton. Altogether there were 23 ‘Sevens’ with seven ‘Twelves’, two ‘Tens’ and a 1937 ex-London Taxi complete with period luggage, which attracted a lot of attention with many children enthralled by the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat and toot the bulb horn. A few members, and our friends in VAR and ATDC, came along with a range of Light and Heavy Twelves with two now very rare Austin Tens, a Gordon bodied ‘Moth’ and a resplendent model with a ‘dickie’ seat and both attracted a lot of attention due to their immaculate condition and distinctive appearance.
With pre-event local publicity, and having a few cars driving through the narrow streets before entering the car park, we attracted the attention of the many people in East Looe as there was a non-stop stream of people throughout the four hours we were there, with, as usual, many reminiscing of the time when our cars were common on the roads to the youngest who were delighted to be offered the chance to sit in several of them.
A successful day with many people across Cornwall seeing us enjoy the right to drive our cars on the public highway.
This article is added to each year after we have enjoyed another 'Drive it Day'.
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Copyright © 2009 Cornwall Austin Seven Club, M J Watts &
D A Castle
to whom any questions or comments about this website should be addressed. |
For 2008
- We introduced a different format when we
agreed to make this event the one occasion in the year when we would include all
pre-war Austin models so that some of our members could drive their
'other' Austins. We also extended an invitation to the Vintage Austin
Register (VAR) and Austin Ten Driver's Club (ATDC) to join us.
