Competitions are great fun; unless you have to judge a winner. The second #GreyFoxLCM competition has been harder than the last to judge. All entries displayed the pride, humour, pluck and creativity that are the best hallmarks of our national character. Thank you all for entering by posting images on Twitter and Instagram.
The final decision was mine alone and I've selected this image by Gavin Kelly whose tweet said, 'Built by MG in Abingdon '55, rebuilt by my dad in Liverpool '77'. I selected it because it's obviously a very personal image for Gavin, the MG is one of my favourite cars, it was built during my birth year and it emphasises the durability and style of a classic British product. Well done Gavin, we'll be in touch to sort out your prize.
Please support all the wonderful brands who supported this competition and Grey Fox Blog. Details of the competition and prizes are here.
I'm grateful to the blog's own personal stylist, Sarah Gilfillan and to Katharine Watson of Push PR for helping me to narrow down the choices when judging. Without their help, I'd give all the entries a prize. Thanks also to the brands involved for supporting the competition and Grey Fox Blog.
Many thanks David (not only for your kind decision, but also the site, and the enormous amount of work you evidently put into it), and also to the sponsors.
ReplyDeleteI own a couple of brands (Spoke and Pantherella), so know first hand of the excellent product quality and customer service these sponsors represent; a few have been on my shopping list for a while, thanks in a large part to David's database of UK suppliers; a few I have aspired to.
Thanks also for the kind comments on the photo. The story behind it was a drive down to Cornwall for a holiday (dad being a self-employed mechanic, thought holidays were for retirement, so this was already notable). Suddenly an unplanned turn into a farmer's yard was made - he'd spotted the wing of the MG sticking out of a haystack in the farmer's field - I doubt many other people would have recognised it. The holiday was cut short when dad made a deal on the 'heap of scrap' as we called it. Evenings and weekends over the next year or so were spent restoring it, with my 'help'. It was one of a handful of such projects: VW camper van, Daimler, and best of all an E-Type (dad had been a Jaguar student-apprentice earlier, and used to race C- and D- types as part of the work team). All of these were sold on at cost, to people he thought would love them.
When I saw the competition was due to finish on fathers day, there was really only one image I thought of submitting. Unfortunately, those holidays postponed to retirement never really happened, due to the cruel onset of Parkinsons shortly after he retired, but thankfully his life left many memories.
-A proud son.
Congratulations, Gavin. It was the obvious story behind the car that drew me to the entry. A wonderful British car. GF
ReplyDeleteFantastic, and what a great spirit the photo was posted in Gavin. And seeing as we're on cars, don't you notice that those old ones had very upright and narrow engines, well evidenced in the first photo, whereas today when you look under the bonnet (I do try to avoid this) there is an absolute expanse of, well, stuff.
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