Our October run was to “Mean Machines” in Morley.  We all met there as planned and the early birds found parking at the rear while the later arrivals parked across the road.

The business is relatively new and consists of several factory units, being a panel and paint shop and a car sales shop, within walking distance to the main hub.

Due to stringent laws regarding car sales businesses opening or trading on Sundays, Mean Machine’s Management staff were kind enough to open up so that we could have a look around, but obviously not to buy.  There was a very diversified collection of cars, all of which were for sale - at the right price.

I couldn’t believe the price of the VW Kombi vans! Who would ever have thought that these would fetch big dollars.  I am old enough to remember these damn things clogging up freeways and country roads as they clack, clack, clacked their way along flat out at 60mph.  I always thought (after the infamous Lada Niva) that these were the worst automobile ever made – and my opinion still hasn’t changed.  Maybe we should all start collecting Lada’s!

Anyway, we ventured back to the Mean Machine hub where we could wander around looking at all the memorabilia or sit at the bar and enjoy a drink.  We ordered our meals from the menu at the bar before we were shown into our own private dining room where our food and drinks were served to us.

The private dining room had an overhead projector and large pull down screen, so whilst we ate we were able to watch several videos of club runs as well as a very old piece of footage from a Ray Martin show back in 1981 in which a black ‘S’ Series was driven into the studio and talked about by Tony Davis.

Many thanks to Peter Mill for making this available and also to Peter’s daughter, Sharon, and her husband for converting them from VHS to DVD.

At around 3pm it was time to make our way home after a very enjoyable and relaxing day.  The turnout of members was excellent and makes arranging these kinds of outings worthwhile.