Hatton National SD1 meeting 2005 *

The National Rover SD1 meeting in Hatton, 2005

This year I went to the National Rover SD1 day held at Hatton National World near Warwick. The trip was one to remember, in good and bad ways.

Here a photo shoot of that particular day.

You are the Chairman are you? Do you need any help with that?

'Yes well, I'm the Chairman now, come any closer.....'

'Yum....The Chairman wasn't bad, maybe a bit more gravy next time........... who next?????

Caravans, tents and Sd1 cars, a nice combination..

Are you all hungry.. sorry, you have to wait until all the members of the board arrive and we finish setting up these bbq's.... isn't there a Haynes manual for this?

Dark clouds appear above Hatton, was it the bad weather or the BBQ....

Jean-Marc Nosbaum and his brother from Luxemburg visited the meeting as well.

Great fun!!!

The next day, cars being cleaned and washed before the day start. You must, if you want to win a price in "nicest, prettiest and most shinny SD1"...

The club shop can't be missed, buy t-shirts, sun shades, muks all kind of parts that the real SD1 enthusiast does not want to miss.

Perfect job, Stuart!

Jean-marcs car, tired after the long drive... you should have seen him.... :-)

The big guys appeared on the scene as well...

Some with, and some without any engine...

Several line ups...

Very nice sunroofs opened up!

and also a lot of bonnets....

It was a great day for all of use. Sadly there was a bad point for us. When we drove up to Hatton, near the M25 Dartford tunnel the gearbox from my 2.6 started to make this rather nasty noise... Sd1 drivers are probably aware what happened.

And with a holiday of a week after the National on Sunday it really made me wondering how this could be solved.

Calling the AA or our sister organization the ANWB was no option. They could not help me out, since I was pretty sure they had a spare box, so I decided to drive on. We made it to Hatton on Saturday and joined the BBQ.

The next day, Ian from the Runcorn Center which always appear on these days was my helping hand. He showed up with a choice of 2 gearboxes in his car. I bought one of them, and with the help of Lee Allen we swapped the box the next day in front of Lee his house.

Thanks Lee, I really appreciate that effort. Now we could have a nice holiday after all. Looking forward to our next visit to England, till next year!