Western Group member Kim Henson is just about getting over the fact that he and his wife Elaine missed the Guild Classic tour in France.
It was the first time that the two of them had ever missed the event.
The reason he couldn’t go was the Western Group Driving Day at Castle Combe, and he felt he should honour his obligations to the group rather than go gallivanting round in Normandy.
However his colleague Leigh Robinson was not a man of that honour; didn’t go to the driving day and preferred French gallivanting. Only for his sin to be found out.
Leigh borrowed a 10-year-old Honda S2000 from the company, pulled a muscle in his back and couldn’t get in or out of the S2000. In the end he took his seven year-old Honda CR-V and the S2000 was returned in a virgin state. Unusual for Leigh.
But he was not the only imposter. Peter and Anne Morgan from Marlborough didn’t finish work in time on their old Porsche and arrived in a 2018 Audi A3 sportback.
There were 20 other proper classics totalling more than 600 years of driving between them and the oldest was a 60 year-old 3.4 Jaguar belonging to Guy and Douglas Loveridge. Next up was a vintage two-stroke Saab 96 from 1961 belonging to John and Deborah Simister. Six countries were represented by their manufacturers.
But the favourite for most was the Citroen DS 20 Break from 1975 (above) which belongs to Paul and Josy Buckett, making a welcome visit to the country of its birth.
The Classic was extremely well organised by Peter Burgess and Julian Parish with the HQ at Forges-les-Eaux in Normandy.
Sadly for Kim, all the cars worked perfectly and so he wouldn’t have really enjoyed the trip!
