A 'Fee' or Shakedown?

South Alabama British Car Club's British Car Festival has been a fixture at Fairhope Beach Park since 1999. Every October (or November some years) we made arrangements with the City of Fairhope to use the park for the public event. Note, I said "public", not "private". 

This event has been carried on the city's events calendar on their visitors web site almost since the city had such a presence. Our out of town visitors spend money with the merchants of the city and the event is almost always covered by the local news media. Should be a win for Fairhope - right?

Last year, our club representative for affairs with the city received  a letter stating that ALL requests for use of the park by any entity - non profit or otherwise - will be subject to a use fee for the facility. The only exemption was for schools located in the city. While I personally do not oppose reasonable charges for the use of a lovely facility like this, I believe that the city has gone overboard with this ordinance.

As it stands, the fees that the city wants to extract from the day's proceeds approach $500.00. On a shoestring budgeted event like ours, that is a real impact. Bear in mind that over the years the Festival has been conducted there, SABCC raised nearly $10,000.00 for a diverse group of charities. Early on, the club invited the local fire department and, later, Fairhope High's band to serve lunch at the show to help them in their fundraising efforts.

Fairhope is under financial duress (as are many other cities) to the point that they've instituted a city sales tax - the first in the city's history. However, an event that brings money-spending visitors to the city should not be forced to bear the burden of the results of questionable government actions that brought this beautiful village on the bay to this condition, in my opinion. 

Stay tuned for more developments on this subject.

What British Marque is Named After a River in Ohio?

Yeah, that's a tough one but if you hate a mystery, I'll spell it out for you: Lagonda. Most British car enthusiasts know of the Lagonda marque as part of the Aston Martin concern. Lagonda, however predates Aston Martin by a few years. 

Founded in 1906 by an Ohio-born son of a preacher named Wilbur Gunn as a motorcycle builder in Staines, Middlesex, UK, Lagonda was successful almost right out of the starting gate. Gunn's Lagonda motorcycle won the 1905 London-Edinburgh trial. By 1907, Gunn took the path that many other motorcycle builders were following and launched an automobile in an effort to capitalize on the public's demand. As with his motorcycle, his Lagonda automobile was a racing success, winning the 1910 Moscow-St Petersburg trial. 

At Gunn's death in 1920, the firm was taken over by its senior management team and the offerings were taken upmarket. Technical advances such as twin overhead cams, hemispherical combustion chambers and superchargers were part and parcel to the Lagonda name. Other models utilized bought-in engines (a common practice at the time) from Crossley and Meadows along with license-built pre-selector gearboxes from Maybach.

1938 Lagonda Rapide

Upmarket was not where the company needed to be when the Great Depression hit the world. By 1935, the firm was in the hands of a receiver and bids were solicited for its assets. Competing bids from Rolls-Royce and an investor named Alan Good were considered with Good becoming the owner of Lagonda. 

Once Good took over the firm, he persuaded none other than W O Bentley to leave Rolls-Royce and join the company as a designer and competitions manager. Bentley worked his magic by adding higher-power engine options, torsion bar suspension and hydraulic brakes. The lower slung cars looked the part of high performance motoring. Bentley's crowning achievement was the 4.5 liter, 180 bhp, V12 engine in the 1937 Rapide model.

Once again, financial clouds gathered after World War Two and the firm became the property of David Brown - owner of Aston Martin and the two companies were merged under single management. Lagonda produced gentlemen's sporting transportation after the David Brown acquisition, but the marque later became known as a builder of sporting saloon cars (that's a sedan, cowboy) not unlike the offerings of Jaguar. 

Eventually, Lagonda became a model name for Aston Martin saloon cars with the last one being a very wedge-shaped design from the pen of William Towns. Now, a rather hideous SUV-crossover-station wagon thingy is planned to wear the Lagonda badge in the near future. I've ranted about that in earlier posts here.

By the way, don't look for Lagonda Creek in Ohio - it has been renamed Buck Creek and it runs through Springfield. There are a number of areas there named Lagonda after the original name of the creek which was a native word meaning buck horn or crooked horn.     

Nurburgring Threatened

The future of the storied Nurburgring race course is under threat.

An expensive theme park was constructed on the site of the racetrack, funded primarily by the German government and operated by a private consortium. While the theme park construction raised a few eyebrows, it has been discovered that the park is a financial black hole for German taxpayers. Now the private operators are seeking control of the complete Nurburgring complex in an effort to shift some of the operating revenue from the track to the theme park operation. In fact, a significant increase in fees for tourists to drive the 'Ring as well higher fees for automakers to test cars there have been proposed.

A number of non-racing events have been produced at the track site including music festivals and celebrity concerts. The events have been branded with the "Ring-Kultur" name which has infuriated Nurburgring enthusiasts.

A grassroots effort has been launched in Germany to prevent the historic track from further encroachment. Check out the Save the Nurburgring web site set up to spread the word and keep pressure on German politicians. Sign the on-line petition and tell a friend. 

Car Show Overload?

I've been assigned the task of publicity for the last couple of British Car Festivals and with help from several other club members, we've been able to get our message on the airwaves and into some respectable print media. This year, however, it was a bit more challenging.  We did get our event listed in the usual enthusiast publications and web sites and other British car clubs in the southeast placed us on their activity calendars.  

Photo credit: Lise Gagne

I could not get the story included in the events calendars of several regional magazines (Mobile Bay Monthly being one) although we did get some print coverage in the local newspapers. Not being able to get the word out in a wide reaching form makes it difficult to keep the general public attendance numbers up and reach out to prospective British car enthusiasts. 


As with most blowhards with a keyboard and high speed Internet, I've got a theory as to the root of the problem: saturation.

It seems like every volunteer fire department, church with a parking lot or restaurant with a need to generate traffic has a car show or cruise in of some sort. There's hardly a week that passes that a notice of a car show with a worthy fund raising cause doesn't pop up in my email in box. I cannot imagine how many badly-worded 'press releases' get out to the local print and broadcast media. I think we might be getting lost in the crowd.

British Car Festival is one of the area's oldest car shows with twenty years of history under its belt. I can think of only two or three others in the area that have had a longer run than our humble show. How can we set ourselves apart from the show and shines and make our event worthy of mention? 

I'm open to ideas and we need volunteers with contacts. We've got about a year before the next BCF. That's plenty of time to develop a battle plan!    

Oh God - They're Actually Going to Build it

Some of you long time readers may remember the post about Aston Martin's Lagonda concept unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 2009. If you didn't catch the post, it's here under Women Fainted - Strong Men Wept. If you don't want to be bothered with making the clicking action on the link above, here's a photo to show you how gruesome ugly can be.


Press reports today indicate that Aston Martin will indeed build this mutant. It's difficult to understand how this storied firm could build cars as beautiful as the DB series and seriously consider adding this smear to their CV.

Wasn't the Cygnet bad enough?

Alcohol & Gasoline Don't Mix

At least that's what the old drinking and driving PSAs on TV used to say.

I am pleased to see that Wilson's Service Center at the top of Spanish Fort Hill on US 31 is selling uncut, honest to goodness gasoline - no ethanol added. Wilson's is a full-service gas station so don't be surprised when an employee fills your tank, washes your windshield and offers to check your oil.

You may have to explain this to your children.

E15 Fuels Are on the Way

By now you've probably read the stories about the effects of running 10% ethanol in our classic cars. There have been several studies that indicate that E10 will affect the rubber fuel lines, gaskets and other components that contain fuel. A leak in a fuel-containing component is not a happy thought. Neither is the idea of water dropping out of solution and creating a puddle in the bottom of the fuel tank.

The EPA has announced that gasoline with 15% ethanol will be in pumps in a matter months. This move is bound to make large farming companies (Archer Daniels Midland, for one) even larger. Political payback or farsighted energy policy - that's for you to decide.

Bet this will make your morning bowl of corn flakes more pricey, too.

Update - The nice folks over at the Hemmings blog put up a link to Pure-Gas.org - -a web site listing gas stations dispensing uncut, pure gasoline. Check out this post at Hemmings for more details.