Volkswagen O.C. Rally (June 3rd)
The Volkswagen Owners’ Club of Great Britain held a rally on June 3rd, for which a record entry was obtained. Competing VWs surrounded the Albert Hall on the Sunday morning, to the astonishment of Kensington residents, although, in fact, the rumour that Ronald Woolf, V.O.C. Secretary, had dispatched a telegram to Wolfsburg reading “Objective successfully surrounded” was untrue!
Leaving en masse, the crews made for the lunch stop at Ockley in Surrey, endeavouring to collect en route an 1896 penny, a spring onion, a ‘bus and Green Line ticket [I paid a conductor 1s. 4d. for the latter while my navigator was attempting to get one out of a used-tickets box on a nearby coach!—Ed.], six pine cones, a peanut in its shell, a pair of brown shoelaces, and a picture of Nottingham castle. Your Editor managed all these, except the peanut, for on examination those in his packet were found to be shelled, but the shoelaces entailed making emergency laces from the cords of the VW’s seat-covers!
In the afternoon a navigation-cum-observation run took place and, as in the morning, the lower the mileage the fewer the lost marks. This caused your Editor’s navigator, a lady recently home from Kenya, to take him down into a remote valley, along a track up which there was no return; apparently she saw nothing unusual in such a “road.” In the end the VW bull-dozed a small wood, with no damage beyond some scratches along the body, and was able to emerge triumphantly at a padlocked level-crossing, first car to blaze this trail. But it did not win the rally!
During tea on the lawn at the delightful home of the Club’s President, A. Colbourn-Baber, at Gomshall, it was announced that Mr. Thomas had done this, with 152 marks, Mr. Carpenter being second with 151 marks, and Mr. Haynes third with 149 1/2 marks. They received, respectively, an engraved pint tankard, engraved half-pint tankard, and an engraved ashtray.
Hon. Sec.: R. D. Woolf, 40, Send Close, Send Road, Send, Surrey.