Nothing beats the feeling of pulling back the curtains on a Sunday morning to reveal a stunning blue sky- perfect weather for another Cars and Coffee Liverpool meeting. It’ s exciting, opening that squeaky garage door to reveal your pride and joy. But the adrenaline starts pumping big time as soon as you crank up the V8, shattering the peaceful surroundings.
Everyone rocked up before the 9.00am kick-off at Chung Ku restaurant. The beautiful sight of Frank Steel’ s vintage Mercedes Benz pickup L 206 D truck, in a vibrant orange, drove in with ticking sound of its dainty diesel engine. One of the wonderful things about these meetings are the stories from gentlemen such as Frank about his motoring years. The truck was bought from brand new in the 1970’ s for his flagging business on the Wirral, used and battered through the years as a workhorse, has now become a museum piece after being fully restored down to the last nut and bolt 20 years ago. You could say the truck has come full circle, after not only being a tool of the trade, but its become a classic piece of desirable history. The next generation should take note- if your vehicles are looked after- they should last forever.
The meeting was yet another full house- reaching 400 vehicles. Thanks to Dave Simmon’ s Liverpool Scooter Club, the Scotch Piper members for introducing a lot of friends and family to the event. A new member to the meeting was a surprise for the big kids amongst us, especially the ones who were born around the 80’ s.
Fans of the television series Knight Rider were thrilled by the arrival of the legendary car Kitt. Knight Rider featured David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a hi-tech crime-fighter assisted by KITT( standing for Knight Industries Two Thousand), an artificially intelligent, self-aware and seemingly indestructible- heavily modified 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. Featuring a futuristic dashboard with hundreds of blinking lights( see left) to denote massive computer power with a two handle steering wheel.
Well, KITT did amaze us and entertained the crowd, it could really talk!!! The voice totally puzzled the young kids. This month the variety of cars was very diverse, with the weather coaxing all those rareties out of hibernation. The usual fanatical supercars and the classics were shimmering away in their element on the bank holiday. The Riley’ s and Austin Mini appeared head to head with Tony Meredith’ s newly owned Corvette Stingray and the beautifully pair of original Jaguar E-Types in fixed head and roadster V12.
The charity for this meeting was the Liverpool Lord Mayor’ s chosen charities. Thanks to the Lee family and especially David Gidman from HR Owen who made yet another appearance with a rare Lamborghini Aventador S in a striking blood red, one of only seven in this country- very pleasing for the local bloggers, vloggers and tweeters. Within a short time they raised £ 251.55 but we sadly missed Roz Gladden( Liverpool Lord Mayor) herself as she had a last minute rush to hospital. We send our best wishes and hope she is back on her feet soon.
Cars and Coffee Liverpool recently helped organise an event for the Cash For Kids‘ Superheroes’ Charity. Five Supercars were chosen to pick up five children dressed as superheroes. The lineup was Richard Birchwood in a McLaren, Sean Dorgan in a Ferrari 488 Spider, David Gidman in the Lamborghini Aventador S, Chris Jones from Liverpool Williams BMW in the i8 and myself in a Porsche 991 Turbo S( thanks to Chris at OCD Porsche Specialist for prepping the car and to Rob McPartland). The joy and happiness it brought to the children definitely made this fundraiser worth while. Well done to Carole Clare and thank you to Merseyside Police- especially the motorbike patrol unit for a tremendous job holding back all the traffic for us to drive around the city.
Please get in touch with carsandcoffeeliverpool @ gmail. com for any help or interesting projects you have coming up. wirrallife. com 93