President’s Report - March 2023

I recall reading a quote recently along the following lines: “Take care of your car in the garage and your
car will take care of you on the road.” Very apt for our technical section this month, led by Noel Baker, where the topic for discussion was regular and preventative maintenance with a focus on preparing our cars for the run across to Hahndorf or the Federal Rally later this month. This proved to be a very popular event with a good number of members presenting their cars for inspection, up on the hoist at LGSI, or peering into engine bays in the car park. A number of relatively common and expected maintenance items were identified along with a few unexpected issues that with a little attention now would prevent a potential breakdown, especially on a long run at high speed.

BAH welcomed the Trustees of the Sir Henry Royce Foundation on Saturday 11th February for a special meeting to thank the volunteers staffing the archive and to welcome a very kind donation by Barry & Marion Drake of their 1973 Silver Shadow SRH 15953. Later in the car park we were able to witness the handover, as per the SHRF Custodianship programme, to the new custodian of SRH 15953 for one year, Hugh King (NSW). Hugh will maintain this vehicle and use it for Club events. March is looking to be a busy month kicking off with the Kalorama Rally on Sunday 5th followed by our General Meeting where Keith Mortimer will be our speaker. Keith is recently appointed as AOMC President will present an update on all the AOMC events for the year and introduce an interesting initiative for classic car clubs in terms of carbon offsets. Saturday 11th we have arranged a special event for all of our new members at Ranelagh Club in Mt Eliza organised by Membership Secretary David Ord and a mid-week run on Wednesday 15th courtesy of Keith Mortimer. To cap off the month there is a large contingent of Victoria Branch members heading over to South Australia in the last week of March for the Federal Rally in Hahndorf.

Finally, one more of those wonderful stories that make PMCs legendary. “To test the durability of the seats, Rolls-Royce use ‘Squirming Irma’ a 200 pound simulated bottom that squirms on the seats being tested up to one million times. There is no truth in this story that the device was designed to replace a Mrs Irma Dugdale, a Rolls-Royce factory employee who retired in 1952 after 30 years of faithful service!”

Howard Wraight