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  • Day 13

    Donington Park, Castle Donington, Derby

    September 7, 2017 in England ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Hi Folks,

    This is a new way of sending you a report. I have had trouble with adding photos to emails and last night lost my whole report so I am trying a different approach. Let me know it it works.

    Well these last few days have been made up of cars, cars and more cars.

    Day 10 - Monday. Left our London Hotel at 9am and passed by some famous landmarks including Harrods and Trafalgar Square. We travelled north to the town of Hethel where we were booked for a Lotus Factory Tour. As we were delayed by heavy traffic it was a sandwich on the bus for lunch which enabled us to reach the Lotus Sportscar Factory just before the appointed time of 1pm. No photos were allowed but we enjoyed our tour of how an expensive Sportscar is made. After this finished we were taken to Classic Lotus where the son of founder Colin Chapman runs the repair and refurbishment of older Lotus Racing Cars.
    Our accommodation on Monday night was at Lynford Hall which was an old English country estate that dated back to 1851. It reminded me of one of those old homes you find in Midsummer Murders or an Agatha Christie TV show. In fact at Lynhall Hall they do have murder mysteries staged there and the setting is ideal.

    Day 11 - Tuesday. We were off to visit Donington Park. Here we were to find the largest showcase of Grand Prix Racing Cars in the world. There was also a display of Russian Military Vehicles going back to World War 2 and included vehicles that I had never seen before.
    Our accommodation for the next 2 nights was at Nuthurst Grange Hotel, another old English home set on 7 acres.

    Day 12 - Wednesday. We were away by 8.20 and our first appointment was at the Aston Martin Factory. Now Gary found this particularly interesting as he had worked for David Brown Tractors in England back in the sixties and David Brown himself had bought Aston Martin in 1947 and owned it until 1972. This is why many of the models have DB in the model name. These are all hand built and all the staff were dressed either in a white polo shirts or overalls all embossed with the Aston Martin logo. They all looked very professional. Quite an amazing tour of a very expensive car. Having been used in several James Bond movies was great advertising for their product.
    We drove on and after lunch we arrived at the British Motor Museum which again was filled with many old British cars.

    Day 13 - Thursday. Another 8.30 departure and this time we were headed to the famed car manufacturer Morgan. They still build cars by hand and use wood for the frames. As well as their popular 4 wheeler they also still build a 3 wheeler which continues to be a great selling model.
    They provided lunch for us when we finished the tour and we headed off once more this time bound for The National Automobile Museum in the vehicle of Beaulieu. Gary and I had been here before and again found this museum really interesting.

    Thursday night we were bound for Portsmouth which is a lovely old harbour town with some great attractions including the imposing Spinaker Tower.

    Tomorrow we are off to the Goodwood Revival so again it should be a busy day.

    Take care,

    Barb
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