Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

Are you in a club? or do you not see the point/need?

I've been in a few classic clubs over the years, usually when I first buy a car (or whatever) and am looking for some pointers re finding parts etc. I think thats always been my main reason for joining a club, and when I've found who the right contacts are for sourcing bits, there doesn't seem much need to continue being a member. One club I joined in the early 90s, then dropped out after 2 or 3 years. A couple of years back I rejoined, curious to see how it had improved/changed/developed over the intervening 13 years, but little had changed and I didn't bother renewing. If anything the quality of the content regarding the vehicle that was of prime interest to me, had tailed off a fair bit.

I sometimes wonder about joining a multi-make club instead, perhaps a club for enthusiasts in this area, regardless of the car's make and age.

What do you prefer? one make/model clubs, or clubs where anything goes???

Rick
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[Uncle Joe]

The trouble with a lot of clubs is the fact that some of them can have rules that are too tying, which takes away some of the enjoyment.

As an example, I was asked to join a club here a couple of weeks ago. This particular one demands that you are present for at least 6 club meetings a year, in spite of the fact that they are at 'stupid' times, ie 17:00 on a Saturday during Summer, and the club is an hours drive away... I prefer to actually drive my classic somewhere that I want to go, I had enough of meetings when I was working.

Maybe though, we could start a club of our own, forum members by invitation only?

UJ

[gillberry]

We are in 3 marque clubs and they all suffer from those in charge being clicky and having their heads up their a***s . Locally we are in Norwich classic vehicle club which caters for all cars but even these seem to be getting above themselves . Can these people not understand all we are interested in are the cars and not how high and mighty we can feel .

[Rick]

are multi-marque clubs easier going then? perhaps less hung up about counting rivets and aligning screwheads, and more focused on enjoying old motors whatever they are? not having been in such a club, am curious to find out

RJ
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[Uncle Joe]

The trouble with multi marque clubs is to many clicks tend to form, making them even worse than the one make clubs....a kind of group pressure that sometimes causes to much Tension

UJ

[Stuchamp]

I don't belong to any local clubs, prefering to be a 'lone wolf'.

I do belong to the Studebaker National Drivers Club and have attended a few of the regional and national events. Their meets have always been very friendly and family oriented.

I did have a bad experience with a national street machine club that I will not name. They were not what they advertised and after 3 months I told them I was no longer interested in being a member and asked for a partial refund on my dues. After much haggling I finally got a full refund months later.

[Old-Nail]

I am currently a member of three clubs and joined them for the reasons Rick gave, i.e. spares and technical assistance etc.

I'll rate the clubs individually based on my experience of them and how long I've been a member.

Standard motor club
£25.00 a year.

The Standard club does seem to have a good following, however from my perspective the only real use to me would be the technical help offered by the enthusiasts giving their telephone numbers in the club mag. (The mag itself is dire by the way)

The Austin counties club.

£20

The counties club seems to orientate itself more for the benefit of those 'down south', therefore the club meetings etc are always too far to travel for a northern heathen such as myself.

The web forum is sadly underused, and any attempts to inquire about any spares by email is steadfastly ignored by the spares chap.. you have to ring him apparently
The club magazine however is quite good.

2CVGB
£20

The Citroen 2cv club is genuinely run by 'real' 2cv enthusiasts, some of those guys live and breathe their cars and the meetings are held all over the country to give fair access to all.
The web forum is an example to all, with technical help available in abundance within moments of posing your question.
Spares availability is immense, you could build a new 2cv - every nut and bolt is available somewhere!

The club is friendly, nationwide, and no matter if you are a wealthy man with an immaculate example or a student with a rust bucket you are equally welcomed to join the fun....fun? Yes the club has a firm tongue in cheek approach to it's meetings, definitely the club for non-faction fun!

Oh!, and the club mag is the best out there!

The opinions expressed above are not intended to promote or disparage any club, they are simply the result of joining each and speaking as I find, if anyone should take offense then all I can say is improve and maybe I'll be happier with the money I spent on joining!

[pigtin]

I belonged to a small (predominantly Austin 7) club from it's formation about 8 years ago until about two years ago.
The club was ruined by one troublemaker and a couple more members with fragile ego's.
A group of 20 of us left and formed a group that calls itself the 'Castaways'. To avoid the problems that beset the previous club we have no officials. We elected 3 small teddy bears and a rubber chicken as our committee and (so far) they have performed faultlessly.
Somewhere I have a photo of this group of luminaries and I will post it when I find it.

[Brian M]

This is one of my hobby horses.

For 10 years during the 1990's I was on the Committee of a local multi make club and edited the magazine for 8 years. I even did a presentation in support of multi-make clubs at the FBHVC annual meeting to over 600 enthusiasts and had a real go at the one make Clubs!

After the sudden death of our Chairman that Club went all political and I quickly got out.

I joined the Standard Owners Club when I had my Standard Pennants but as all their meetings were in the Midlands and North, never went to one of them.

I went to a local meeting to join the Rover P6 Owners Club, had a drink with a rather strange bunch of guys and wasn't even asked if I wanted to join their Club!

When I got my Volvo I joined the Volvo Owners Club - but as they really concentrate on the modern Volvos I didn't renew as over £30 for a half page on Amazons in a quarterly magazine didn't seem to me to represent good value.

Three years ago a friend of mine suggested an American style Car Meet and so we thought we would give it a try. No membership, no Committee, just a bunch of like minded enthusiasts who know that there is a meeting every month and who come along if they feel like it. We usually have 40-50 cars at the meet and now do a couple of shows where we get in excess of 200 cars each year. This to me is the ideal way to meet up. No prima donnas, you are equally welcome with a scruffy Morris Minor or a concourse Hispano Suiza. Yes - we have had both.

[pigtin]

The American style car meet sounds a good idea but the only drawback is insurance schemes; In order to get a good rate from my insurers I am asked if I belong to a club and I don't know if a 'car meet' would qualify.
Like Brian, I edited a club magazine for a while; what a thankless task.
Getting any input from members was like pulling teeth and I never had any feedback on articles or competitions. I tried a spoof 'motorists agony column' and a 'caption competition' and was never quite sure whether they liked them, or they found them offensive.
Eventually I was contributing 90% of the content and I was worried it was becoming a personal ego trip, so I resigned.

[Rick]

Fascinating stuff fellas, really interesting

An informal gathering has started at the local pub, first one was last month by all accounts. No officials or anything, just word of mouth from what I hear. The next (2nd) gathering is next Thursday, so I'll bobble over and see what gives. I think it may have been organised by the VSCC (Vintage Sports Car Club), so whether only pre-war motors are encouraged or not I don't know as yet, but the feedback I've heard so far is positive. Fingers crossed.

Old Nail, did I send you the link to a forum that talks a lot about Counties Austins, run buy a guy in NZ? if not I'll send it over, some good stuff on there

RJ

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[buzzy bee]

Hi

You will have to let me know what the meet is like, and what cars they allow?

I normally have a beekeeping meeting, and am on the same thursday, but if it is a good meeting I may have to come over next month! I may even have an old landy to come in by then!

Cheers

Dave

[Rick]

Yeah I'll let you know what its like!

I was in the Standard Motor Club a while back too, I found the club quite good, and they had a decent, often updated, website. My problem, which I had with the Ford club too, was that I was only interested in my model of car, and the remaining 90% of the mag didn't really apply to me, other than for a casual read. I guess if you are a marque fanatic, then reading anything about the make is good, whereas I'm usually interested in my type of vehicle only.

I wondered if a multi-make club might be more interesting, I guess it might depend on whether they have an age cut-off for accepted cars or not? I'm not interested in stuff from after the 80s (and most 70s stuff isn't my cup of tea either) so that could put me off a bit from the anything-goes clubs..

R
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[buzzy bee]

Hi

The idea of a "Just turn up meet" is very apealing to me, no comitments, no fees, just a place where you know there will be some other like minded people! I am not sure my vies on cut off dates, as it would be good to be free, to take what ever car you want to, but then I supose it would spoil it if 50 near new cars turned up!

I have found that one of the main points of a club is assistace and spare parts but I haven't really found this to be the case when youa re in a club, car club at least! With ebay and other sites on the net, like this forum, advice and spares are easy to obtain anyhow!

Cheers

Dave

[Rick]

Yup the clubs I think were more useful before the internet took off, and were perhaps the only source of help with unusual vehicles (even E83Ws!!), but with the 'net and amount of info there is out there, the usefullness of clubs has diminished a fair bit I think, and most haven't adapted with the times. The FSOC for instance has a dire website that hasn't been updated in years, whereas it could be a hub for all things sidevalve on the web, with a bit of effort.

I take my trilby off to those who run clubs though, as has been said it must be a thankless task a lot of the time, encouraging contributions (articles etc) is always a big headache, and political bs is never far away when it comes to big committees, and the occasional over-inflated ego

R
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