past_events/Griff_Growl

TVRCC Griff Growl 2006 Ettington Saturday 5th - Sunday 6th August 2006 Well, that’s the Griff Growl over for another year – and what a turn out we had this time around… 127 Griffs altogether in one place – that’s the most EVER (unless anyone can disprove it) - and not one the same as any of the others. We were also joined by 45 other TVR models, bringing the total to 173 TVRs over the weekend. Photos by Roger and Chris Thomas See full article in Sprint Magazine


We started the weekend off with 35 of us meeting up on the Friday to go on our Beer & Curry night in Stratford. We met in the White Horse pub down the road – some us were still there from lunchtime I think! And from when the coach picked us up to when it dropped us off again much later, we never stopped laughing! The nosh at the Curry House was brilliant and some of the staff were very entertaining and so was Jeffsy with his rugby song renditions on the coach on the way home! He’ll have to learn the ‘clean’ versions for next time (although maybe not!). The coach dropped us all back at the White Horse, one or two lightweights headed for bed (think they were planning on getting up early to wash their Griffs on Saturday morning!) and the rest of us went to the bar to get another round in. Saturday came round all to swiftly, and it was with tired eyes and sore heads that we headed out to set things up and finish getting the signs up and welcome packs ready etc. By 2pm we’d matched the total number of Griffs at last year’s do and by 2.30pm we’d got over 100 Griffs. The day went from great to even greater totalling 109 Griffs in all. Sunday bought another 16 different Griffs.



Newest and oldest?


We managed to pull together a fair few of the ‘famous’ Griffs over the weekend, namely: J631 NFV - the ocean haze factory publicity car, featured in numerous magazine articles, driven by Jeremy Clarkson through Europe and starred in the film “The Dancing Queen” with Helena Bonham Carter and Rik Mayall. J524 MHG - Neill Andersons development car which also featured in numerous magazine articles – the Growl was its first outing after a 3 year rebuild. Was the development car for much of the the Cerbera. 284 JNN, the 2nd Griff built, registered in 1989, and another ex-factory development car. This Griff has had 21 different engines throughout its life and was one of the 1991 Motor Show Griffs. A15 TVR – another one of 3 1991 Motor Show Griffs. L118 BFV – one of the two 500 pre serp publicity cars and sister of L110BFV. LJ03 ZFZ – the last registered Griff, unless someone knows otherwise. R33 SON – the pale blue 500 used in the publicity postcards, although Peter deemed it not famous enough to park with the other famous Griffs. And Marc Hockin managed to come along to show off his Griff Racer and to mingle with fellow Growlers. Good luck to Marc in the coming races and Championship. Thanks to Dom and Marc for co-ordinating his mid season engine work to coincide with the Growl.






One or two people were taking things a bit seriously though – it developed into a competition to see who’d travelled the furthest! Well, those that stood out by far were Lindsey Durbin who flew over from Sydney sans Griff to join us at the Growl for the start of his holiday. And then there were Gry Solveig Laenn and Per Terje Laenn who travelled all the way from Norway to bring their Griff to the Growl. This was the start of their two week holiday and they travelled from Bergen to Newcastle by ferry and then drove down to Ettington roughly 742 miles in all. The longest day trip must have been Gary Clelland who travelled from Aberdeen via Dundee to bring the raspberry 500 press car to the Growl – an 800+ mile round trip!!! We had lots of support over the weekend from various traders: The Polishing Company; ACT; TVR Power; Joolz with his rolling road; Steve Heath; Carl Baker – the alarm god; TVR Car Club stand and What a Picture! We also had various bods selling their auto jumble (another man’s junk is another man’s prize and all that!) and a very nice man - Dave McKendrick - roaming the car park testing the volume of your exhaust – the car’s exhaust that is (especially after that curry!). Saturday disappeared in the blink of an eye and we were back down to the White Horse for our Saturday BBQ & Band Night. Kirk and Ali really did us proud, the BBQ went down a storm – never seen so much nosh, soon devoured that though. And Kirk managed to get a local brewer to agree to us naming one of the guest beers for the weekend – Goff’s Growler. We managed to drink our way through that and then some – much merriment all round. We did the Prize Draw with some great prizes donated by: Julian from Ride Drive; Mike from The Polishing Company; Charles of What a Picture!; Kirk and Ali of the White Horse; and Derek Gardiner of Absolutely Shocks.

A brace of SEs





		Any colour so long as it's yellow


Prizes were handed out for the ‘Concours’ and decibel level competitions – In the concourse competition Best New Griff went to David Jones with C5TVR and Best Used Griff went to Paul Bennett with J631NFV. The loudest Griff prize went to Ashley Gibbons in his heavily modified pre cat with 120.4db at 4,000 rpm, although Sharon, the Bristol RO managed 114.2, not car assisted!! A very nice couple, Richard and Carol kindly made Growl bottle openers and key rings – all sporting the Growl details of course. These were sold over the course of the weekend for our adopted charity – the Multiple Sclerosis Society – a charity which is very close to our hearts, particularly Graham and Sarah who helped organise this year’s Growl. The sale of the key rings made £201 for the charity. Richard and Carol also designed and manufactured a beer tap sign for Goff’s Growler which was auctioned off for charity, raising a further £100 thanks to Tez McKendrick. The winners of the Ride Drive experience generously donated the prize back to us so that we could auction it for the Charity and this is still ongoing via PistonHeads.



Of course some non Griffs came too!





Sunday was a sedate affair, after the heavy afternoon/night before, so apologies to those who were only able to make it that day! Paul has a great picture of Chrissie Blandford deciding it maybe a good idea to dive onto the almost flat bouncy castle on Saturday night – she obviously enjoyed the evening. There was more activity around the traders who all enjoyed the opportunity to build relationships with TVR owners and people disappeared on runs out and returned to tell of their run! And all too soon it was time to leave. Paul and I were, as usual, the last to leave and we were very sad that another Growl had drawn to a close. The smiling faces made it all worthwhile as did the offers of help for 2007 – now about next year… A big thank you to all attendees and traders for their time and donations and for making this one of the biggest and most successful single model focussed events ever. Lets make 2007 the undisputed best. Andrea, Paul, Graham, Sarah, maggit, Lorraine and Simon If you know of any other news or items you think would be worth adding to this website please let us know.