Manky Monkey Motors

Gawd I'm tired.
Taz & I were in Yorkshire yesterday -a quick jaunt to the other end of the country. We had a vague plan for the wekend- rent a Transit van, load up the sofa I built from a Jaguar rear seat a couple of years ago, drive to Doncaster & deliver it to Shabby who's buying it from me, plus take along an old Suzuki jeep axle we had sat in the garden, either for use by someone up there or to be weighed in for scrap.
Find a Travel Inn or similar, stay overnight, awake refreshed on Sunday morning then drive down to Santa Pod in Bedfordshire to the Mopar Nationals meet to collect a section of bodywork from one of the traders for Taz's Dodge Charger.
Great plan.
Didn't happen.
Got up for work on Saturday morning at 3.30am, 45 minute commute to work, 7 hour shift then 45 minute commute back. Rented the van. Drove 3 or 4 hours to Doncaster. Shabby wasn't home. Madron wasn't home. Texon was though. Several hours of nattering with him & his kin, (Hiya Tex'  ;) ). Collect a set of fibreglass rod seats Ron's made for Lunatic. Get seriously stressed out driving round & round Doncaster in the dark looking for Shabby's house. Finally find it & collect some parts for my Pop from his neighbour. Set off late in the evening to hunt for a hotel for the night. Driving back down the M1, stopping at every Travel Inn at every services on the way. Not a single room available anywhere. Bugger. Driving, driving driving. Eventually we're so far South we decide to hell with it, let's go home.
So we arrived back in Guildford in the early hours of this morning, absolutely shattered. It's now nearly 8am & we're up again & getting ready to head back up to Bedfordshire for the Mopar meet. The trader we've got to see has come over from Belgium for the weekend so we really need to find him. Taz hasn't got his phone number & we've no idea what he looks like. I suspect today won't go any smoother than yesterday. We'll keep you posted.      :(

;D aint life Great ;D

  :'(What a bummer hope todat goes better

You'll be able to find him! He's the one with half a charger hanging out of his van!! ;D

;D PMSL

I was happy it didnt go to plan I got to meet you and a pleasure it was WELCOME ANYTIME :)

if i known you were coming u could have stayed with us in sunny Norton

Texon, it was good to meet you too, so yes, in a way it was good that it didn't quite go to plan.
By the time we finally got on the M1 it was very late but thanks anyway GPZ. Shabby's neighbour did suggest a local hotel but we were hoping to get in somewhere near to the Pod. We got to the Pod today at about 10.30 ish and it was already very, very hot. We bumped into a guy from the MMA web site who lives not too far from us and he also owns a Charger but in bright Yellow. We also saw StrokerBlue, (this site and MMA site), but he was a tad hung over so left him to it. Our next find was Dave2lanes and his crew getting ready to take everything to the strip so a quick hello, natter, then goodbye and good luck. Pascal, the guy bringing the bulkhead over, was easy to find as he had a big stall with his website all over it. He was a very pleasant and friendly chap who spoke better English than we do. The bulkhead is now tucked up with my Charger in the garage and is in so much better condition than mine. Hardly any rust on it, including where the windscreen sits. Will post photos on my thread when I've had a chance to go through them. We also bought a scale model '69 Charger R/T in Black and it's wicked. Will take photos in the daylight tomorrow and post them on. Everything works, right down to the propshaft turning with the back wheels & even the glove box opens -no bag of boiled sweets in it though, much to Manky's disappointment. How wicked it that  ;D Anyway 2 very weary monkeys now. All I need is a shower and sleep.

Another scale model! I make that 3 now, not that i`m keeping count or owt.

 ;D Yes it is 3 now  ;D

That sounds worryingly stalker -ish TB! You know too much.  :o
Haven't really got the room in our little cottage for loads of ornaments, but we're rapidly building a collection of Charger artifacts to rival my Monkey one.
We would've called in on FLC in Rotherham too but just didn't have the time. 
Day 2 of the weekend went much smoother than Day 1 but was equally shattering. I feel like I've been driving for about a week non-stop. For anyone who hasn't been, Santa Pod's the country's oldest drag racing track, built on the site of the old World War 2 airfield on the outskirts of Poddington village in Bedfordshire. Being an ex airfield, it's very flat & open -no shelter at all from the weather, whether it's skin scorching sun or torrential rain. It was unbelievably hot there. Not my thing at all. Just makes me uncomfortable & irritable. Spent the whole day brushing off thousands of tiny black thunder bugs & squinting into the sun. Had a splitting headache, which seemed to make the noise of dozens of Mopar muscle machines bloody loud. I love the atmosphere of drag racing, but must admit I was glad to get home to the peace & quiet of the Surrey countryside.
As Taz said, the replacement bulkhead panel for her Charger's safely stowed in the barn now. Definitely worth buying, so a worthwhile trip.
Next job is to get Valley Gas Speed Shop to nip over & give us a rough qoute for straightening the chassis & fitting the bulkhead. They're not answering their phone at the moment. If it sounds like it's going to be stupidly expensive, we'll be sorting it ourselves, under the guidance of Mr Goforest.
-what could possibly go wrong?!  :P

I`m harmless, i do get VERY LONELY IN MY LITTLE ROOM THO   ;D

Scarey dude alert!  :o

should of popped in

There you go, before your next outing just check the MMM map, see who`s on the way n check to see if their in  :D

Don't worry, we've already said that once we get all our projects finished we're going to embark on a grand MMMotors tour of the country, visiting everyone on the list.
You have been warned!  ;D

We are up in Scotland in October.

someone has to be  ;D

dont you want to take gordon brown with you on a one way trip  :)

we got a couple of years then ;D

Ah but what I forgot to say was that we'll be nicking your Charger  ;D

If we're taking a Charger to Scotland we'd better start saving now for the petrol.  :o

ha ha, wish i had kept my gob shut now  ;D

 ;D