Beat the Heat Run
Guilderton – 21 January 2007

The first Run of the year took place on Sunday 21 January 2007, with an early morning start, in order to “Beat the Heat”! Some twenty splendid Proper Motor Carriages met at the Café Azzura car-park in Floreat at 7.30am. There was a howling, and rather cold, easterly wind blowing, with clear blue skies, but the promise of a hot day. There was the usual early morning banter and greeting, inspecting and generally nosing about other people’s vehicles, and a general conviviality. Mick Rust and Glenice Matthews had motored on ahead, in order to ginger up the Guilderton Seaside Restaurant, in preparation for our planned arrival en masse.

The Guilderton beach car park took on the appearance of a used Rolls-Royce sales yard.	Lance Synnerdahl and baby, with respective bottles.

There was a beautifully restored, British Racing Green MGA, which attracted a lot of attention, but it was also interesting to compare the subtle differences between standard Shadows and same year coachbuilt vehicles, such as the lovely two door Corniche. There were quite major differences in the wing creases, wheelarch flares and bonnet lines, quite evident when the cars were parked side by side in the sun. The Bentleys ranged from two MkVI’s through to the very delectable and quite perfect Turbo RL belonging to Richard Erskine. (Talk nicely to Richard clutching wads of crispy notes, and this car could be yours!)

After a brief welcome from Neil Williamson, and a distribution of route sheets, the assembled throng dashed off to the West Coast Highway for the run north. Glenice and Mick had produced their usual detailed running sheet, which took the cars up the West Coast Highway, and on to Marmion Street. When we reached the Wanneroo Road there was a series of detours through an interesting market garden area, hidden in the dunes, with some challenging curves and junctions. The trip then took us up through the pine plantations behind Yanchep and Two Rocks, and past the turn off for the Gravity Research Centre.

The cars looked resplendent in the car park at Guilderton, and fortunately we were early enough to obtain some prime parking spots. The open convertible Franay-derived Derby Bentley driven by Peter Briggs, was a popular model for local holiday-makers and visitors to check over.

Everyone settled down in a special area of the Guilderton Restaurant and put in their orders for Breakfast. Unfortunately, the café was clearly swamped by our numbers, and their own staff shortages…and there was a considerable wait for the breakfasts to arrive…but it was time for a leisurely sit and chat, and that was nice. It was a real pleasure to see George Hunter arrive in his two-tone green Shadow, and looking well after a very serious period of illness. He advised that he had “died three times”, and “didn’t think much of his glimpses of the Other Side”, so he pulled through to stay with us all, thankfully.

Glenice had organized a cartoon competition, with plays on the term “Beach”, where contestants had to guess the place name, or words, associated with a cartoon. “Burns Beach”, and “City Beach” were fairly straightforward…but there was a lot of hooting and laughter associated with the cartoon and concept of “Son of a Beach”!!! Lance Synnerdahl won a bottle of wine for his suggested cartoon of “Scarborough Beach”, and is shown in the photograph matching bottles with his lovely newest babe.

Andrew Marsden