The Club Scene – Spring, 1992

So we enter another year, another season, and one which (if current indications are anything to go by) is rather uncertain at best. The down turn in the economy, the changes taking place in the world at large… nothing is for certain any more it seems, except the overwhelming accepted premise that all will work out in the end!

Two things are for certain, however. One is our love of British cars, and the fellowship and mutual help that goes with ownership of a Triumph, a Healey or MG. The other is that whatever happens, we at Moss Motors will be there right behind you, supplying the elusive part of information you sometimes need to fully enjoy driving or restoring your British classic, no matter what is happening outside in the real world!

Our policy of supporting British car clubs, their meetings and events, no matter how large or how small, will certainly continue throughout 1992. All you have to do for your part is to let us have details of your club, your officers, where you meet and we will disseminate such information to the many people who ask us to find them a club. Sometimes this works in strange ways! There is the owner who called and said, “I wish to join a club. Which is the nearest one to me?” Upon asking where he lived, I was told he resided at (and here we’ve changed the information!) 10856 Longbridge Street, Anytown. I didn’t even need to look at the Moss Motors’ club database for this one! The local secretary of the Club the fellow was seeking lives at 10859 Longbridge Street. They’d never met, or even seen each other driving their classic down the street, although they owned the same model of car on the same block!

So, if you want to know where your local club is, then write to us, and we’ll try and help you get into the exciting and rewarding world of British car clubs. Some of the rewards are meeting a nice bunch of people, enjoying a wide range of related club activities and gaining, in many cases, unrivaled technical knowledge from people who’ve been down the repair and restoration road a long time ago! There are clubs for every make of British car you can imagine, from the diminutive Berkeley and Metropolitan, to the huge national organizations for the Healeys, Triumphs and MGs. If you are not a member of a club, try it, you’ll love it! You’ll most likely find that it will add enormously to the enjoyment of your classic British sports car.

Many of the clubs produce superb club magazines and newsletters and for the past two years we have run the Moss Motoring Journalism awards to acknowledge the hard work put into, and the quality of club publications. However, for the coming year we have decided to put the MOJAs (as they became known) on hold, and we will not be running them until further notice. There are several reasons for this decision, not least the tremendous upsurge in desktop publishing techniques which has seen some of the best newsletters we’ve ever looked at come into this office. Since all clubs do not have this facility we need to re-evaluate how the awards are judged and categorized, in regard to numbers of members and resources, the various formats employed and how much professional input (if any) the magazine enjoys. We hope to revitalize this contest soon and we will keep you informed. In the meantime, we’d appreciate that editors please keep sending copies of your club newsletters to us here at Moss! We enjoy receiving them and we do read every one! They are then filed in the Moss archives for future posterity, not recycled. If you would like us to consider advertising in your club publication, please send us a copy with the rates and we’ll do our best to assist you.

Our Club Donation Support program will be another certainty for the coming year, and I’ll take the opportunity to restate the ground rules once again. Please write or fax us If your club is holding an event, a picnic, or a rally. We’ll try to send out a few door prizes, one of our original (but often copied) 10% discount/free shipping vouchers for every participant, and “Do Not Touch” cards for auto displays. However, you must write to us at least 6 weeks in advance, giving the name, date, place and numbers expected. We will then try to list the event in Moss Motoring to maximize your attendance. We cannot stress enough the importance of early notification to us here at Moss of your meeting. We cannot act upon even a week’s notice, especially when our Club & Event staff is away from the office with the Moss Road Show during the summer! Get your request in as early as possible so we can support you to the utmost.

A couple of final points on Club Support: our current policy precludes cash donations to your events except in very exceptional circumstances. Our donations take the form of parts and accessories suitable for the event you’ve outlined, plus advertising in your program where applicable. We do not accept solicitations from individuals, only from recognized clubs, on club letterhead where possible, and of course you can always fax us!

Finally, on to what we call the Moss Road Show 1992. I thought I would draw your attention to a few of the biggies this coming summer! Want to see myriads of MGs all together? Toronto in July is the place to be. MGCanada ’92 promises to be the largest-ever gathering of MGs in North America! Want to see hundreds of Healeys in a superb mountain setting? Make your way to Breckenridge. Colorado for the 40th Anniversary celebration of the Big Healeys. Totally Triumph would find you at the huge Vintage Triumph Register get-together in Savannah, GA, or the Triumph Register of America meet in Ohio. Find details in our events calendar on the opposing page. Of course I mustn’t omit mention of our own All British “Britfest” at our Moss New Jersey facility on April 11th, or our tremendously successful MG, Triumph, and Austin-Healey Marque days at our Goleta headquarters. If you’re not sure what goes on at Moss marque days, turn to page 1 for details!

So in an uncertain world, these meetings are (almost!) certain, and we have a lot to look forward to in the summer of ’92! Enjoy! Rest assured we are with you one hundred per cent!