Bourne again Rovers
The salerooms of auction house Golding Young & Mawer in Bourne, Lincolnshire, are based at the former workshops of the BRM racing team.
Auctioneer Colin Young wanted to do something different for the town’s Classic Car & Bike Carnival on 18 June, so he contacted me to see if we could get any Rover 200 BRMs along to display outside the premises.
So, a message to that effect was placed on thebrm.co.uk forum, after which a number of acceptances and apologies were soon received. The evening before the display, three of us ‘gentlemen racers’ had a drive along the former BRM road test route from Colsterworth, ending up for the obligatory photo outside the former home of Raymond Mays, founding father of ERA and BRM.
While we were never going to be able to compete with the 22 examples that graced this year’s Pride of Longbridge, our eight-car line-up looked great in the Sunday sunshine. Bourne-based heritage racing car specialist Hall & Hall lent a 1974 BRM V12 P201 racing car that was also displayed in the former BRM steel store.
The 1999 Rover 200 BRMs were produced to pay homage to the 1960s’ gas turbine prototype collaboration between the two marques. Colin’s own Rover 200 BRM – V909 GAP – was looking especially good as it had just been treated to a new coat of paint at Halls Garage (Hall’s a popular surname around here), up the road in Morton. Colin had wanted the car to look its best for the gathering and it was ready just in time – at 2pm the day before the event. Don’t touch the paintwork!