It is difficult not to come across as a northern whiner about stuff like this.
I am, at the moment at least, in the relatively fortunate position that my company covers the daily running costs of my Astra (though how long that will last as diesel gets stupidly expensive remains to be seen) so 'attending' shows is not really a problem for me. What is a problem is the prick of conscience I feel when I roll up to a show, like last year's Nats, in a 55-60mpg Astra and expect others to supply 10-15mpg cars for me to look at, and enjoy.
There was a post on the MOCGB forum about someone who was complaining that, to attend a large national Mustang event this year, he had had to put just over £100 worth of petrol in his Mustang. Well, I am sorry, but it was last century when I last had to put 'only' £100 in my car (and a 30mpg V6 Buick at that) to attend a national show. These days, an event like Billing or the Nats in one of my cars (though not Linda's Monaco which is amazingly economical at steady motorway speeds - although when you see the, what seems like 1inch bore, carb ... maybe not
) would run me at least £300 in petrol alone, and £60 just to get into the right country. What is annoying is that £300 is not spent on particularily enjoyable motoring, no back roads hooning on a sunny Sunday, but a long (380 mile each way), noisy, vibratory motorway bore, which is, lets face it, no real fun. These cars aren't really designed for that. (Monacos - yes, Cobras - no) It always makes me laugh when folk are amazed at U.S. survivor musclecars emerging with 'only' 10000 miles on the clock. No wonder the mileage is so low, no one in their right mind would drive them any distance in the first place. A pootle to the local cruise, the nearest Dairy Queen, maybe, but Atlantic-Pacific jaunts ? Em, no way.
Along with the distance/cost are the vagaries of the British weather.
Look at the impact that the perceived hint of bad weather had on last year's MoPar Nats. I have no idea of the real figures (the unexpectedly good weather would have brought out the accessible day trippers) but the long weekend attender numbers certainly looked way down and only looked better than usual due to the restricted camping areas giving the place a 'busy' feel. Had we been allowed to camp as usual, it would have looked very thin, plus, as can be expected from now on, foreign attendee numbers will drop quite dramatically for the reasons of cost and the fact that they are now confident enough to organise their own national events, based on the successful blue print provided by the U.K. event. What will 'save' the U.K. MoPar Nats is it is a big event where cars get to race and show, and the attendance of non-MoPar muscle cars to boost numbers. One of the excellent things the guys have always done right from the start is encourage it to be, despite its name, a non-MoPar only event. Like it or not, the MoPar Nats survives because of the non MoPars.
Returning to the weather, long distance travellers are more susceptible to the weather vagaries, because, they tend to commit to the weekend. Should the weather turn nasty, they can't just bail out and be home and warm in a couple of hours, car safely tucked up and chamois'd.
So, what is going to happen is that National events are going to mean the south of England, and the attenders are going to be southern Englanders. Clubs will fracture. Single make clubs will hold together better than multi make clubs due to the internet and a common purpose. Multi make clubs will fracture because, let's face it, they are all whingers who reckon they can do better than the club officials and form yet another breakaway from the breakaway from the first breakaway club. These breakaway clubs will become local clubs with, at best 50 nominal members, and actually only 10 or so meeting attenders, and the vanners won't talk to the F-Bodyers, and the barge owners will mutter darkly that it cost them £30 to bring their Cad-Linc-Chry-o-supertanker to the meeting. And there were only ten people there, and nobody fawned over their car so they won't bring it next time.
This is exactly what happened up here. Folk find out that there is an 'American' car club meet so they come along and find, em, three cars in the car park, but ten enthusiasts in the Brewers Fayre. They expected to find a car park full of old American cars, just like they see every month in Classic American (let's ignore for a moment that at least 30% of CA's featured cars are not U.K. based) and are disappointed when there aren't. So, they don't come back. The other huge snag is that the folk already there now know one another and have fallen into that techno-babble-yankeecar-small block-torqueflite speak that is almost impenetrable to outsiders, and, with the best will in the world, it is difficult for them to break into, and difficult for the babblers to allow them in.
We tried up here, and we failed. We are now a close knit group of folk who 'know' one another, and, importantly, have known one another for years and years and years (25 in some cases) and we have to just get on with it. I think this model will spread south, if it hasn't reached some places already.
As I mentioned before, single make clubs will survive better due to a common purpose. However, the strongest clubs, the Corvette club, the MMA, the MOCGB have their own peculiar problems. All suffer from model splits. The banter may be light hearted, but there is definite model 'snobbery'. It may be 'invisible' to you guys, but to an outsider it is glaringly obvious. The other snag is that, due to their popularity, the cars covered by these clubs are gob smackingly expensive, and over priced. This makes them self selecting. The MMA suffers worse in this because, frankly, MoPar Muscle died in 1974 so the pool is restricted. Ford still builds Mustangs, and GM Corvettes, so the MOCGB can still attract younger members who can afford cheap nineties Mustangs, and the Corvette guys can high end, by offering rich folk a hugely impressive modern vehicle that they can buy and hence join a club just the same as they could with Porsches or Aston Martins.
The 'classics' will always be pricey though. This will never change. There is a 'pool' of owners who, like high end house owners, can afford to move around and buy and swap the top end cars, while the rest of us are (and I am speaking personally here) have now got we have until we die.
Ho-hum, I rambled off there.
All the best
