In the latest batch of entries is this gorgeous 1902 Warwick Stanhope, entered by Ian Brough.  This is the oldest car ever to have entered Pre-War Prescott.

Just twelve days to go and everything is looking outstanding as we count down to a record entry for our tenth Prescott visit since 2003!  This morning I will be posting the last tickets to go from Seattle.  Any entries arriving after today will be ticketed by John Hicks from Gotherington who now has a supply in his hands.  There is still time to enter here!  Most tickets have now arrived with entrants.  Please check them and make sure they are what you expected to receive.  And don’t forget to check out the running entry list here.

 

 

 

Joy Rainey at Prescott earlier this year in her brand new 2018 McLaren F570S.

Just when the planning for our tenth Prescott is reaching the finishing line, it just keeps getting better!

We are very excited to announce that world-respected hillclimb and rally driver, and a firm supporter of Pre-War Prescott for many years, Joy Rainey has announced that she will be bringing her brand new McLaren F570S to Pre-War Prescott, and a run up the hill beside her in the McLaren will be auctioned in our lunchtime charity auction.  In addition, we have other supercars lined up with climbs in them being raffled, courtesy of Cotswold Motorsport, and H. R. Owen Cheltenham.  All funds raised will be donated directly to the RAF Charitable Trust.

Joy Rainey is the daughter of three time Australian Formula 3 champion, Murray.  Throughout her life Joy has achieved impressive goals in the world of motorsport including holding the ladies hill climbing record at Shelsley Walsh for a most impressive twenty-two years in a number of cars (including a modified Pilbeam single-seater, her father’s newly restored 1937 Alfa Romeo and a Murrain sportsracer).  She also claimed considerable achievements in long distance rallying, including completing the 2004 London to Sydney Marathon with her co-driver Trevor Hulks, a classic car restorer, in a 1970 Morris Minor.

In 1959 Joy accompanied her father when he spent a season racing in Europe.  Amongst the many people they met were Jean Behra who invited Joy to sit in his Ferrari and on another occasion Stirling Moss.  Opportunity struck whilst visiting the Cooper factory where Bruce McLaren was trying out a kart – undoubtedly the perfect solution for Joy.

Upon their return to Geelong, Murray started building and selling Rainey Karts with Joy having the prototype and it was not long before she won her first race.

By the time she was sixteen Joy had clocked up an impressive number of victories in karts and when she was old enough to have a road car Murray treated her to a specially adapted 1953 Morris Minor.

In 2009, Joy, together with Trevor, began planning their ‘trip of a lifetime’ – to drive her own 1904 single-cylinder Curved Dash Oldsmobile (with a top speed of approximately 28 mph, two gears and tiller steering), from Oceanside, California across to Daytona Beach, Florida – a distance of 2,903 miles.  The idea behind this was to re-enact a similar trip made by Whitman and Hammond more than one hundred years earlier, where they drove an Oldsmobile Curved Dash at a top speed of 20mph from San Francisco, arriving in New York 79 days later.

Tragically, after suffering from ill-health, Trevor died and Joy, understandably grief-stricken, abandoned all plans for their remarkable challenge.  It was not until the following year after a chance encounter with an old friend, Mark Riley, who had bought the late Murray’s Cooper-Norton, who suggested that he accompany Joy on the trip.

With a supportive team behind them, offering expert advice for everything involved in a trip such as this, Mark and Joy set out from America’s West Coast on 13th April, 2013, arriving 31 days later at Daytona Beach, Florida.  What is so remarkable is that the Oldsmobile ran perfectly – a touching and surely no better tribute to Trevor who had completely re-built the Oldsmobile.

The Foreword to Joy’s book ‘Joy Across America’ was written by Sir Stirling Moss OBE.  He concludes his remarks with: ‘Thank goodness she didn’t turn to Formula One!’

Hi Ho!  Hi Ho!  Its off to Pre-War Prescott we go!

Spectating at Pre-War Prescott is one of the most agreeable ways to spend a summer’s day in the glorious Costwolds.  For starters, for a piffling £25, you can bring your modern (or pre-war) car and park it in the Orchard, directly adjacent to the start line, and that £25 also covers everyone you can squeeze in to your car!  Simply turn up and pay at the gate (open at 9 a.m.).  You will all have full access to the Paddock, the hill and all of the displays, trade stands as well as fully licensed catering in the Paddock and the Clubhouse all day.

But that’s just the beginning.  Stop by one of the short safety briefing that will be carried out throughout the day, get your wrist band and then you can chat up one of the drivers and get a run up the hill!  Alternatively, avail yourself of a couple of raffle tickets and have the chance of a life-changing blast up the hill in one of the modern supercars that will be joining us on the day.   And its all in a good cause as 100% of the raffle funds will go directly to the RAF Charitable Trust.

In the lunch break, there will be a charity auction of automobilia and aeromobilia, and once again, all funds raised will be donated to the RAF Charitable Trust.  So if you have any quality items of perhaps general interest that are making your motor home untidy, please bring them along to the Vintage Minor Register marquee in the Paddock in the morning.  The Trust is a wonderful cause,  supporting many RAF personnel projects, but chiefly the Air Cadets – our future airmen and women.  The local ATC Squadrons will be on site during the day and we will try to get every one of them a ride up the hill during the day.  What better way to pass on our passion of vintage motoring to the next generation?

What else will you see?  As of today we have a fantastic entry of 175 pre-war, vintage and Centenarian cars already booked in, and expect more than 200 by the day.  In addition, the Riley RM Register is celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Riley RM Roadster.  They will be gathered in the Orchard, and look out for their cavalcade as they re-open the hill after the lunch break.

After the hill closes at 4 p.m., we will head up to the Clubhouse on the hill for a brief awards ceremony, followed by a tremendous evening BBQ buffet with live jazz music and dancing and a fully licensed bar serving fine local Prescott ales.  RAFA Gloucester will be displaying their newly-completed fifty foot long RAF Centenary commemorative tapestry in the Clubhouse.  Tickets for the evening are just £18 per person, can be booked here (where you can also pre-book your spectator entry if you wish) and they will also be available from the Vintage Minor Register marquee on the day.

The unique and fascinating Bugatti Trust museum in the Orchard will be open from 11.00 a.m. until 4.00 p.m.  Come and discover cars and inventions by Ettore Bugatti, sculptures by Rembrandt Bugatti, furniture by Carlo Bugatti and much more including their Summer Exhibition:  Chiron – The Man.  Entry is just £3 per person.

So put the day in you diary, and perhaps pack a picnic which you can lay out on the Orchard or on the hill, sit back, relax and enjoy a memorable day in this idyllic Cotswold setting!

 

 

 

It doesn’t get much better than this!  Three weeks this evening we will be concluding our Sunday Navigation Rally and Scenic Tour at Stanway House where we will line up our cars in the drive right in front of the house for photographs.

The glory of Stanway is the single-jet fountain in the Canal, a magnificent formal sheet of water, situated unusually on an elevated terrace 25 feet above the house.  The fountain rises  to over 300 feet, making it the tallest fountain in Britain (seconded by Witley Court at 121 feet), the tallest gravity fountain in the world (seconded by the Fountain of Fame at La Granja de San Ildefonso, Segovia, Spain at 154 feet), and the second tallest fountain in Europe, after the 400-foot-high turbine-driven fountain on Lake Geneva.

Once again, Lord Wemyss has generously offered to launch the Fountain, situated in the Canal, for us (precise timing to be announced at the conclusion).  Stroll up to the Canal for a close-up viewing, but be sure to give the swans a wide berth as they will be very protective of their cygnets!

Here is a superb drone video of the house, the gardens and the fountain.  See you there!

 

 

 

As in previous years, the Sunday route will offer the rare opportunity to visit glorious places not normally open to the public.

The hugely popular Gloucestershire Navigation Rally and parallel Scenic Tour will take place just three weeks today, on the Sunday following Pre-War Prescott.  We can accept 60 cars on the day and as of today we have 52 entries so there is still time for you to enter either event.  Both the rally and the tour follow the same route.  The Navigation Rally is a light-hearted affair with the added spice of a little competition and awards, while those looking for a more relaxing day out can enter the Scenic Tour.  The Scenic Tourists will be provided with a comprehensive Tour Handbook which will contain clear route directions and historical background notes on the places of interest that we will be visiting along the route.  The Navigation Rallyists will all be provided with a sealed envelope at the start containing the explicit route, so can, at any point, transfer to the Scenic Tour if they become hopelessly lost!

There will be a lunch stop at a hidden and quirky hostelry and we will be concluding at the glorious Jacobean Stanway House, courtesy of Lord Wemyss for traditional cream teas, home-made cakes and a private viewing of the magnificent 300 foot gravity fountain in the grounds, after the presentation of awards.  Navigation Rallyists will need a copy of Ordnance Survey Landranger map 163 – any edition, while the Scenic Tourists will not require a map.

On Sunday evening, the weekend will conclude with a farewell gathering at the Shutters Inn in Gotherington village, just along the lane from Prescott, to which all will be very welcome and traditional food and fine ales will be available.  So if you have entered Pre-War Prescott on Saturday (or are planning to), do consider making a weekend of it.  You can enter either or both days here.  And, dare I mention, the long range weather forecast from the Met Office is looking very good indeed for the whole weekend!

Double take?  Geoff May’s 1934 supercharged road/race Wolseley Hornet Special and his 3/4 scale copy.  Both cars will be climbing the hill on Saturday!

As of this morning, we have eight Wolseley Hornets entered for Pre-War Prescott.  Or nine if you include Geoff’s 3/4 scale copy!  This miniature masterpiece is powered by a 200 cc single cylinder motorcycle engine.  The Wolseley Hornet Special Club will also be bringing their marquee.  The club is one of many who will be holding their own gatherings at Pre-War Prescott, which provides an ‘umbrella’ for such clubs to gather and climb the hill.  These clubs are, by themselves, too small to hire Prescott alone, but at Pre-War Prescott, they can hold their own ‘gathering within a gathering’, parking together in a pre-allocated area of the Paddock for the day.  These clubs and their members enjoy the full range of activities and displays, have the opportunity to climb the hill and are free from all of the organizational and administrative burden involved in mounting the such an event.  All their members have to do is enter, and we do the rest!

Other clubs joining us this year include the MG Car Club MMM Register, the MG D Group, the Talbot Owners Club, the Herefordshire Austin Seven Club, the Bristol Austin Seven Club, the Historic BMW Club, the Morris Specials Group, the Octagon Car Club, the Riley Register, the Alvis Register and the Alvis Owners Club.  And of course the Vintage Minor Register!

We’ll get to Prescott if it kills us!

Midsummer’s Day and Pre-War Prescott is just one month today.  We have an incredible day lined up for you, and also a superb weekend, with great pub meets on Friday and Sunday evenings plus the hugely popular Sunday Navigation Rally and parallel Scenic Tour.  Add to that traditional home-made cream teas on the lawns at Stanway House on Sunday after noon and you have the quintessential English summer weekend.  With a month to the day, we have a mouthwatering entry for Prescott of 163 pre-war, vintage, and centenarian cars and a wide array of trade stalls and other attractions plus full catering and licensed bar all day, plus the social occasion of the year – the Pre-War Prescott BBQ and buffet with live jazz music presented by Mike Dowley and his ragtime band.  I don’t k now about you, but I can’t wait!

The good news is that there is still plenty of time to get your entry in, but you had better get it in el quicko if you want to climb the hill.  As of this morning, we had just 34 climbs left, BUT after a deep review of last year’s statistics, we have decided to offer another 25 climbs, making 500 in total, so we can offer an absolute limit of 59 more climbs.  This is because there are always a handful of last-minute cancellations due to illness, car problems, etc. and also because not all entrants who automatically receive a free climb take advantage of it, some preferring not to leave their picnic and bottle of claret – and you can’t blame them!

Right now we have 50 entries for Sunday – 18 in the navigation Rally and 32 scenic tourists.  There will be a number of awards to bestow including the fiercely contested Lewis and Nicholson Compass, competed for by teams of Austin Sevens and Morris Minors.  The Morris Minors will once again compete for the Roy Hogg Trophy.

Charles Trevelyan’s supreme Type 37A Bugatti SY 6 outside the Bugatti Trust, located in the Prescott orchard.  Charles is the President of the Bugatti Owners Club, our hosts for the day.                We expect SY6 to be gracing the Paddock, as it has done in previous years, and a one-in-a-lifetime ride up the hill in this historic car will be raffled on the day.

We are very pleased to announce that the Bugatti Trust Museum and Study Centre at Prescott will be open from 11 am to 3 pm at Pre-War Prescott.  The museum showcases examples of Ettore Bugatti’s most celebrated designs and extraordinary patents.  Entry to this unique and fascinating collection of Bugattis and Bugatti historical material is a mere £3 per person – reduced for Pre-War Prescott attendees from the regular £4-50.

The best way to support Pre-War Prescott (apart from entering!) is to become a member of the club that hosts Pre-War Prescott, and that is the Vintage Minor Register.  We were founded in 2000 and PWP 2018 is our tenth visit to Prescott hill.  Our first three visits were in 2003, 2008 and 2010.  To make up the numbers, we invited all pre-war cars to join us.  At the 2010 event the Bugatti Owners Club invited us to make the day an annul event for pre-war cars as there was a gap in the Prescott events programme for such an event.  We agreed, and Pre-War Prescott was born!  We held the first Pre-War Prescott in 2011 and this year will the the seventh Pre-War Prescott.  In the spirit of the event, and our history, we formally opened up Register membership to all pre-war cars last year and now have around 250 members worldwide with a tremendous selection of pre-war cars among our ranks.

Membership carries many benefits.  Register members enjoy a discounted entry fee of £30 instead of the regular £45, and as the annual Register subscription is £30, then you save half of that if you enter Pre-War Prescott.  Members receive a very high quality all-colour quarterly Magazine packed with fascinating news, historical and technical articles, event reports and more.  In addition, there is the monthly e-mailed Newsletter, and all of the other facilities you would expect from a pre-war car club, including a website, forum, free advertising, technical assistance and so on.

If you take a look at the Entry List, you will see that about a third of all entries have been submitted by Register Members and they have entered  a wide selection of pre-war cars.

If you would like to join us, simply go here and sign up.  If you have already entered for Pre-War Prescott this year and would like to become a member, you can join for just £15!  (I will refund half of your £30 charge.)

Joining us will mean that you become part of our enthusiastic ‘family’ and will be supporting the Pre-War Prescott weekend, Pre-War Shuttleworth and all our other pre-war motoring activities as we develop and grow.

The tickets are all printed!  Here’s how the ticketing works.  At the end of June (two weeks time), I will be enveloping everyone’s tickets in pre-addressed envelopes.  I pack all this lot, plus spare tickets for late entrants and ship them over in bulk to John Hicks in Gotherington.  He then takes the whole lot to his local Post Office and the postmistress does the rest.  For entries received after I ship the tickets, John will post tickets out from the spares I send him.  The Entry From states that entries should be posted by 30th June, but we CAN accept entries after that date – it is just less work and complication for John and I if we have the entries by then.  Some time between now and the end of June, may I ask everyone to check their entry online so as to avoid any ticketing errors that may have crept in.

That all being said, we have a fantastic record entry in prospect for this, our tenth visit to Prescott, as you will see from the Entry List which is updated daily as entries arrive.

For any LAST MINUTE entries, when there is too little time for even John to post tickets, the gate marshals will have a list of those entries and you will be ticketed at the gate.  Of course, you can also simply turn up on the day and pay at the gate, but then you won’t receive your free climb for pre-booking.  There will also be a supply of Saturday evening BBQ tickets available on the day.  And those free beer tickets are exclusively for those who volunteer to marshal on the day!