6R4 Meet at Prodrive Banbury

A couple of months back Malc had a phone call from the 6r4 club to see if his car would be available for display, it turned out there was going to be a celebration of 40 years of Rothmans racing, it was to be held at the Prodrive factory in Banbury, near Oxford. Malc loves people seeing his cars so it didn't take much persuasion, he agreed the car could be there is they gave him half a dozen free passes so he and a few select mates could join the factory tour. The deal was done, Malc went down with a couple of old friends while me and Russ mate took the car on the transporter.

We loaded up the day before, gave the car a quick once over with the glossy juice and left early in the morning to get the 120 odd mile journey done by 10 am. It was all quite uneventful, except sat nav took us along a most peculiar route, I think maybe Russ had selected the "maximum pothole" option, rather than the "lets's not screw about" option in the route selection menu. In reality it didn't seem any longer, time wise and was actually a rather pleasant route. anyway, enough of that!

We unloaded next to the ex Colin McRae 410 BHP full rally spec monster owned and expertly restored by a most pleasant chap called Dr Ian Rowlance. Both cars drew many admiring glances and no small amount of photography, as these cars always do wherever they go.

The factory tour was absolutely amazing, a lot of it is secret work so there were lots of cars covered in cloth that we weren't allowed near but there were plenty we could look at and a few we were allowed to photograph. In the foyer they had 3 Rothmans liveried cars - A Porsche 911, a beautiful Dave Sutton prepared Mk2 Escort and the 6R4 resplendent in the Rothmans White blue and gold, they looked most splendid sat together, all were immaculate. The factory tour included the areas where the Dacia and Land Rovers were prepared for the Dakar rally, surely still the most vicious thing you can possibly do to a motor vehicle. We also got to see where the Aston Martin DB9's come in, get stripped and totally rebuilt in to class defining race cars - very impressive.

The whole place was as clean, tidy and well organised as you would imagine, there were hundreds of workstations, one could imagine the buzz of activity on the average work day. Perhaps surprising was the breadth and depth of the various business areas Prodrive operate in - it's not just cars but lifestyle products and design too. I was very impressed with the driving simulator that they produce and sell but at 60k, I think Mrs might have something to say about it. It was a thing of beauty though with its genuine GT3 seat trimmed in the finest leather and it's gorgeous piano black finish over a frame of 19 layers of birch ply. I'm still dreaming about it now. I find it rather special when somebody makes something like that with beauty as well as function. How much can you get for a human kidney these days? Is it 60 grand?

The lady that did the tour was superb, she has worked there for some 17 years and was a very enthusiastic evangelist for not just the products, but the company as a whole - just the sort of person you want working for you, really. She made the tour - very knowledgeable, no bs, totally relatable.

Perhaps the best part of the day from my perspective is that there were several people there with very close associations to the 6R4 programme - people that had worked on the development of the car and that knew the cars inside out. There is literally nowhere else in the world that you can get that sort of information - it isn't written down anywhere. They only made 200 examples and that was 40 years ago, it is believed that there are less than 20 genuine ones left, many of those now have Cosworth motors in, the knowledge isn't there any more except for in a very small number of brains. To have access to the folks that provide the life support mechanism for those brains was worth it's weight in gold, getting their contact details was like winning the lottery. We have to do a cam belt on it sooner rather than later, being able to interrogate somebody that has done it 50 times over was simply brilliant - thanks Mike, thanks Ian.  Now that we know for sure which belt is fitted we will get one ordered, get it fitted and then hopefully get the car out a bit more often - it always creates a stir wherever it goes.

It was only a short visit, we were there at 10 and left just after 2, with 2 1/2 hours drive each way it was still a long old day for a pair of semi geriatrics - that transporter has no a/c, it was very hot and it gets a bit uncomfortable after the first 15 seconds. the return drive was no more eventful than the drive there, which was fine, we don't like adventure when we have 1/3 of a million quids worth of irreplaceable hardware on the back.

We couldn't be bothered to get the car off so left it on the waggon, went home and fell asleep. It was just before I lost consciousness that I found the keys to the car still in my pocket from when I lad locked it up after we loaded it. Bugger. Oh well, I phoned Malc, he's going to pop round and get them, which is good because tomorrow is my birthday and I don't want to use it up going backwards and forwards to Boston. Anyway, it's almost certainly Russell's fault, he should have never trusted me like that! Ridiculous!