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6th & 7th May 2006Growler 3And finally it arrived, Growler III. The clubs biggest event of the year had been so long in the planning, that at times it felt it would never get here. However, over the first weekend in May it truly did arrive and all the months of hard work that went on behind the scenes paid off, as over 100 XK8 and XKRs assembled at the British Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon, Warwickshire. Having enjoyed a wonderful meal we moved swiftly onto the after dinner speeches. It was my pleasure first of all to acknowledge two of our club members. One for having travelled a long distance to get here, the other who was about to travel an even longer distance emigrating to Australia. First of all, I was delighted to call Anders Dyson to the stage and present him with an award for having travelled the furthest distance to join us at Growler III. Anders and his wife Lollo are from Malmö in the south of Sweden and had made the journey to England specifically to attend our Growler event. Next I invited Conor Crowley on stage. Conor with his wife Linda and family were soon to emigrate to Australia. I was able to present him with a small gift on behalf of the club and a card signed by many of the members (and Ian Callum).
Conor has been a regular face at many of our club events and I’m sure we will all miss him, but we wish him and Linda well in their new home at Mandurah near Perth.
With the speeches over the 9 piece soul band “Rubbersoul” kicked off their set and young Jodie Hall (age 9) & Jack Gregory (age 9) showed us oldies how to dance by being first on the dance floor, where they stayed until the end of the night. We took over the entire truck stop at the services as we reassembled in to 5 long lines of XK’s totalling some 70 cars. From the services, it was just a short trip down the M40 to the Gaydon exit and our arrival at the British Heritage Motor Centre. Here we joined up with yet more members and their cars, taking over the entire Northern arena which had been reserved for us. In all, we had over 100 cars on display as well as other guests in attendance swelling our overall numbers. We also had a number of prospective new members come along having seen our adverts in Jaguar World Magazine (Phil Weeden from JWM was also there preparing an article to go in a later edition).
Taking time out away from our own display of cars, members were able to take in the attractions of the motor museum. This comprehensive museum captures everything related to British motoring with a huge collection of well preserved vehicles and motoring memorabilia. There were also several Aston Martin’s, although this was hardly a surprise given that we were of course next door to the new Aston Martin factory.
There are so many people who worked tirelessly to help make this event a success. My wife Karen for making most of the arrangements with the hotel and taking care of the ticket distribution and revenues, Tony Hall for donating the Rally Plates that member’s displayed on their cars during the convoy, Ian Callum for his excellent after-dinner speech, Jaguar Cars Ltd for generously donating the trophies, all our traders who had supported the event, Jason Venn for videoing the proceedings throughout the weekend, Jodie Hall and Robert & Jack Gregory for being my little helpers and finally the staff of the Stratford Victoria hotel and the British Heritage Motor Museum at Gaydon who made this a fabulous weekend for the club. Above all, none of this would have happened without you, our loyal and dedicated club members and enthusiasts, for coming along to Gaydon and showing your support. It made me very proud to see you all there and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. Growler III was an enormous success and will be a tough act to follow. However, as we now move into our fourth year as a club, we continue to go from strength to strength. I am confident that with the launch of the new 2006 Jaguar XK, we will be able to attract yet more members to the club and so Growler IV, in May 2007 will be even better. That will be the challenge for all of us and one I’m already looking forward to.
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The celebrations kicked off on the Saturday night when many members and their partners arrived at the museum for a dinner dance in the large Kestrel suite. On display as members arrived was one of the new Jaguar XK convertibles (one of two cars kindly lent to us for the weekend by Jaguar Cars Ltd). This one was finished in Indigo Blue with a matching blue roof. Whilst guests mingled in the bar area, Jodie Hall along with Robert & Jack Gregory used the time to do a sterling job of selling raffle tickets for the many prizes on offer in the club raffle.
It was then my privilege and a great honour on behalf of the club, to invite our guest speaker for the evening, Mr Ian Callum, to take the floor. Ian was appointed Director of Design at Jaguar cars in 1999 launching the new XJ saloon and S-type facelift. He headed the design team towards the R-Coupe, RD-6, the Advanced Lightweight Coupe and other advanced design concept cars as well of course, as designing the all new aluminium bodied Jaguar XK.
Ian graced us with an informative talk accompanied by a slide presentation. He talked of the design process for the new XK and how it had evolved from the lineage of previous Jaguar sports cars. Ian showed us slides from the original concepts of the ‘old’ XK8 and of the various full size clay models that had been produced. Suffice to say, we could have been driving a radically different model of car from the one we all know and love.
Moving to the new 2006 XK, again Ian showed a number of slides featuring drawings and mock-ups that charted the history of the new car, from initial concept to the one now in the showrooms. It was interesting to note, that when the Advanced Lightweight Coupe was launched to worldwide acclaim at the 2005 Detroit Motor Show, the final design for the new XK had already been approved. Ian also advised, that in designing the new car, they had started with the convertible model first before moving to the coupe. This ensured that the convertible was a beautiful car in its own right rather than just a coupe with the roof sawn off. Ian’s informative and entertaining talk gave us all a really good insight into the whole design process for the new car as well as an appreciation of some of the frustrations the design team felt, at having to comply with some of the tough new legal requirements for car design. Ian was given a warm round of applause for his talk and we were delighted that he had found the time in his hectic schedule to come and join us at our celebration dinner (having flown back from Mexico earlier that day).
Taking a break mid-way through the evening we drew the winning prize tickets for the raffle. We had some fabulous prizes on offer, including a Switchable Steering system kindly donated by Paramount Performance, a free service donated by Elite & Performance Jags. Ltd, an indoor car cover donated by Classic Additions and some exclusive design prints signed by Ian Callum. A big thank you to all the companies and members who supported us by donating the prizes. We managed to raise a profitable £420 for club funds. The dancing then continued until the early hours until it was time to catch our coach back to the Stratford Victoria hotel, where most of us were staying for the night. 
Outside in the main arena, an unexpected surprise was a unique solo flypast. Darren Jan-Janin, the eldest son of member Alan Jan-Janin, had recently qualified for his solo pilots licence. He flew over our display of cars in his Piper 28 aircraft in the afternoon and was able to take a couple of aerial photographs, so thanks Darren. Also taking place at the Heritage Museum, was the arrival of the “Early Bird” classic car rally organised by Hants & Berks Motor Club Ltd., who are celebrating their Diamond anniversary this year. Only another 57 years to go for the XKEC then!
Throughout the day, members were submitting their voting slips for the various awards categories kindly donated by Jaguar Cars Ltd. I was personally delighted to announce the winners and present their prizes at the end of the afternoon. The first category was for ‘Best Modified Car’, and by a clear majority, this went to one of our newest, not to mention youngest members, Keron Pirie. Keron has a lot of experience in custom building and modifying cars. He has worked his way through all manner of Japanese cars but over the past year, has been working on his XKR. Our next award was for the ‘Best XK8’, a car that truly has become a modern classic over the ten years since its launch. The prize went to member Mike Campbell, for his XK8 convertible in Jaguar Racing Green. Mike’s car has had a number of modifications carried out by Elite & Performance Jags Ltd., and 
was a deserving class winner. Next up was the prize for ‘Best XKR’ and our members voted for the Silver XKR convertible owned by Peter Tapper. Pete’s car has also undergone some subtle modifications, the most striking of which are the stunning new Arden alloy wheels. Finally, our main award of the day. Jaguar cars had allowed us to call this “The Geoff Lawson Memorial - BEST OF SHOW” trophy in memory of the man who designed the XK8. I was delighted to present this special crystal bowl to member Joan Miller, who had travelled up from Cornwall in her Silver XKR coupe. A standard 2005 model, Joan had added quite a number of significant embellishments to her car for the Growler weekend, turning the car into what she called “The Pink Pussy”. As mentioned, Anders Dyson had received an award for having travelled the furthest to attend, completing a 2,000 mile round trip from Sweden by way of Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France. Our final award was for the furthest travelled in the UK, and member Keith Warden from Edinburgh was the winner. Congratulations to all our winners this year and for some well turned out cars.
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