Events

Forthcoming

Walter Hayes Lecture 2010

Wednesday 13th January 2010 - The Royal Automobile Club, 89 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5HS

This now well established annual dinner and lecture given in memory of Walter Hayes, the Trust's first chairman, will be held on the evening of Wednesday 13th January 2010. As always it is held in conjunction with the Royal Automobile Club in the splendid Mountbatten room on the first floor of the Club's premises in Pall Mall, London.

The guest speaker for the evening will be Chris Porritt who will be talking about the new One-77.

To avoid disappointment please book your ticket now as this is always a popular event and tickets sell very quickly. To reserve your place contact Anne Wright, the Trust Secretary, on 01865 400414 or email secretary@amheritrust.org.

Tickets are £64 for members, £68 for non-members.

Reports

Dudley Coram Memorial Lecture 2009 - Report

The annual Dudley Coram Lecture took place at the Barn on Saturday 10th October 2009, when nearly 90 members and guests turned out to hear Brian Joscelyne talk about "The David Brown Racing Years 1948-59".

Brian, who has probably been to more Le Mans 24 Hour races than anyone else associated with the Club, and has also competed there, gave a comprehensive précis of the Aston Martin team entries during that decade. Using the brand new audio visual facilities now available at the Barn, the talk was illustrated with dozens of period photos, many taken by Brian himself and never before seen in public. As an added bonus, Brian brought along Ted Cutting who was able to add some technical details and anecdotes which simply put the icing on the cake.

At the conclusion of the talk, and much to Brian's surprise, he was presented with the Trust's Mort Morris-Goodall trophy for his outstanding contribution to the Club and Trust over the years.

External Event: Driven Together book signing by Richard Meredith, and an Aston Martin and Newport Pagnell Exhibition.

Richard Meredith's book, Driven Together, tells the story of his adventure - to be the first car crossing of the New Asian Highway, driving a V8 Vantage from Tokyo to London – a journey of 10,000 miles through 18 nations. Richard signed copies of his book on 11 April 2009 at the Milton Keynes Waterstones bookstore, where the car was also on display.

On the same day “Discover Milton Keynes” mounted a small exhibition on the heritage of Aston Martin and its Newport Pagnell connection. Many of the images used in the display came from the Trust’s own archive.

Drayson Racing

To read about Drayson Racing's performance this year, please see our News page.

External Event: Legends of Le Mans Film Festival - Report

A film festival dedicated to the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours race took place on the 7th and 8th March 2009 at Eynsham Hall in Oxfordshire.

Organised by the team behind the 2008 Jim Clark Film Festival, the event featured three hours of archive Le Mans footage, focusing mainly on the period 1955-75.

A guest speaker panel session also took place, including Jackie Oliver; Richard Attwood; David Piper; John Wagstaff; and Peter Riley.

The highlight of the Festival was a gala dinner on the Saturday night.

Walter Hayes Memorial Lecture 2009 - Report

The annual dinner and Lecture in honour of the late Walter Hayes was held on 14 January 2009 at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London and attended by nearly 135 Members of the Trust, AMOC and the Royal Automboile Club. It was hosted by Trust Chairman, Chris Lendrum, who welcomed Club President, Viscountess Downe, and Club Chairman, Richard Jackson.

The speaker was George Howard-Chappell, the Team Principal of Aston Martin Racing at Banbury - the joint operation of Prodrive and AML Ltd.  He also has the role of Technical Director and so was able to give his audience the inside story of the development of the DBR9, the competition version of the DB9.  So successful has this model been that it has twice won the RAC Tourist Trophy race at Silverstone and twice the GT1 class in the Le Mans 24 Hours over the last two years.  As a result of this latest win in 2008 George was asked to receive the Members Trophy from the hands of the Club’s Chairman Richard Jackson.  He was also presented with a model of the 1921 ‘A3’ by Chris Lendrum as a thank you on behalf of the Trust, concluding a successful evening.

Dudley Coram Memorial Lecture 2008 - Report

This year's Dudley Coram lecture, the 30th by our reckoning, attracted a good number of Members and friends to the Barn. David Taylor gave a fascinating account of the Sutherland years at Feltham and of the Sutherland family who kept the firm going, so it was nice to welcome to the event Ian Sutherland, son of the late Gordon Sutherland. It was Ian who discovered his father's files on the attempts to make the cross rotary valved engine work, and who wrote the story in the Trust's publication "Aston", no. 9. The question and answer session afterwards was appreciated, as were the interesting Aston Martins that turned up for the occassion.   Unfortunately, problems occurred with the sound equipment and the Trust regret the obvious disappointment this may have caused. A video of an interview with Gordon Sutherland himself could therefore not be played. However, a DVD of this has been distributed to attendees.