2019 Veteran Car Run .
shape . I can feel it ; he ’ s got some legs on him , so hopefully we ’ re going to be the year that gets him finishing again .”
Beyond the work itself , so much of what the team does relies heavily on passing knowledge of this veteran car down to the next generation . Alona Enraght-Moony points out that : “ Relatively speaking , there are so few people working on it that , if we ’ re the year where the tradition dies out because we don ’ t recruit a couple of freshers and pass on the information , it ’ ll be a disaster ! We can ’ t let that happen because we feel the weight of history . You ’ re talking about bits of metal that are 120 years old , and you actually cannot mess this up , you can ’ t just leave it . If six people don ’ t work on it , it ’ s not going to happen , so you have to keep showing up to do your bit . It ’ s rewarding but it can also be a lot of frustration , and it mostly doesn ’ t work !”
“ Don ’ t say that !” says Sean . But Alona agrees that this perseverance makes everything all the more special when the car is working .“ When it ’ s been 3am and you ’ ve been doing this twice a week for the last two months , and the engine ’ s finally turning over , it ’ s a magical feeling .” So much of the spirit of Team Bo ’ revolves around its legacy that members such as Sean and Alona have inherited . Once you ’ ve been part of Team Bo ’, it seems , you never really leave it , and many ex-members still find themselves coming back to work on the car again . “ We have a lot of strong alumni connections ,” says Sean . “ There ’ s a great support network so we can ask the Chair from any given year a random question that needs a solution – typically the Chairs of recent years , because they were the ones we were working under . The former Chairs do have a lot of knowledge under their belts , so it ’ s very nice to have them so close to us in spirit . Actually , many of the former Chairs came down to witness the rebuild because they themselves had never seen Bo ’ this deconstructed before . They were learning while we were .”
“ Sometimes alumni who worked on this in the 1980s will come up to us and say : ‘ I didn ’ t know you still have him , it ’ s great that he ’ s still around ’,’’ Alona adds . “ There are people who worked on this car 20 , 30 , 40 years ago and they ’ ll sometimes show up out of the blue . It ’ s heartwarming to know that maybe in another 40 years it ’ ll still be around .” From what we ’ ve seen and heard , Team Bo ’ will probably be competing in the Run for a lot longer than that . -
32 The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run 32