Figaro and Friends at Woodies – Sunday 14th August 2022

Words and Pictures: Gary Wilbur Wright

Here in Netley Abbey, just outside of Southampton we are kind of on the border between the South East and the South West chapters of the club so living here it’s a bit more difficult to get to things that are organised, basically means travelling further which can be a bit of a pain at times.

So here in the Netley Abbey we have a great wine bar called Woodies which does good food and drink but just as importantly has a large car park and the chap who runs it called Connor is very amenable to hosting car meets.

So with the help of a friend’s daughter called Genevieve (who runs Fuel Power, have a look on the internet, it’s a YouTube channel focused on vehicles – link is Fuel Power – YouTube) we organised our first “Solent” car meet on Sunday 14th August calling it “Figaro and Friends” so we could get more cars there. As it turned out we had six Figaros and five other cars turn up on the day which wasn’t too bad for a first try at fairly short notice at the height of the holiday period.

Of the six Figs, we had two quite new owners, Sue Spencer and Diane Bell. Sue has a very nice Lapis Fig whilst Diane’s was in a rather sparkly metallic red with some cool alloys. So I think it helped them with being able to get to know some other club members and also gain more information and knowledge about their new unique cars.

More known around the club was Dee Davies dressed to match her very lovely Topaz Mist Fig. Also we had Tom Brake with his Dad Shaun along with Gurt and Ezra their Figs. Last but not least was the Fig belonging to my wife Marcella and her Pale Aqua called Betty so we managed to get a line up in season order of the four standard colours. We know of a few more local Figaros so hopefully, we’ll get more turn up next time.

There was talk on the day of seeing if we should propose a sub-chapter for us local to the Solent area so having spoken (by email of course, after the day) to Kevin and Sue that is something that is currently being considered. I hope we will run a pilot to see if this idea works and can generate more club activity/interest.

For the “Friends” that came over, apart from my X-type Jaguar 3 litre, 4×4 estate, we had a cute 1954 Austin A30 van, a 1990 Citroen 2CV in amazing condition, an early Mazda MX5 NA with the cute pop-up lights, and an awesome Westfield XI (Lotus replica ) that looked more race car than a road car, so a good spread of cars. We plan to have more local to Solent events, so watch this space.

Many thanks to all who helped make the day possible and most of all, fun; and also many thanks for everyone who turned up on the day and made it special for us all, see you next time. Thanks, Wilbur.