JowettTalk

Forumadmin wrote:For many years JCC operated a Premier Concours class for past winners. But with so few cars available, let alone entering competition, there are too many classes and not enough cars in each to make real meaningful competitions.

Agreed. This year at Basingstoke the number of entries was perhaps higher than it might have been, with several members persuaded at the reception desk to join in the concours competition for the benefit of the competition itself, and indeed several of them winning awards as a result. But left to their own devices the entries for the Standard/Early Javelin, Bradford and Special Body classes would have been very slim, and even with encouragement they were still fairly limited in number - any car of satisfactory standard entering the Bradford or Special Body class would have picked up a trophy. One thing noted was the increase in Jupiters entering, not sure why but this seems to have increased in popularity and interest, but perhaps if we can understand this a bit better we can understand how to improve the participation overall.

What would be useful are critical reports on cars that detail all things good and bad and form part of the club register that would be available for sellers to use. Of course, these would only be a snapshot and would contain a disclaimer but still would be useful.

I think if that happened you might find an awful lot of owners pulling out of concours. It is enough in the register to record Premier, 1st and 2nd class, that way a prospective owner will have an idea if they are looking at one of the best cars which is regularly driven to the national rally, and also substantiates the "regular concours winner" that we often see in classified adverts. Winning 3rd place two years running in 1978/9 is a bit different to Premier for the last 3 years.

I watched Scott doing such a critical analysis of Neil Belk's Jupiter and Tim Brown on Amy's car it is apparent that such analysis may not be all positive.

I think owners are ok with variations from factory spec being pointed out to them, which helps an owner who is aiming for 100% concours originality, and where they are losing marks for particularly obvious lack of quality that can be pointed out, but it does need to be done with tact. Many judges are fairly reluctant volunteers at the best of times, knowing that an owner will be on hand to contest their decisions as the car is judged may put some off altogether. Personally I would much rather have an open discussion with an owner, who is often fairly keen to point out their own failings, than to have a secret squirrel clipboard where owners don't get to see where they lost marks or correct an inaccuracy - we have been asked questions by judges in the past that probably helped to score the car, explaining that we knew the original interior and exterior colour from factory records, how it was restored, why and how safety modifications like seatbelts had been made etc.

Jack.

I would totally agree that the owner should be present whilst a vehicle is being judged and indeed way back it clearly stated that a vehicle would not be judged, i.e. would sort of be disqualified ,if the owner wasn't there.

Any points taken off for lack of originality were pointed out to the owner in a jocular fashion and generaly accepted in the same light hearted way. I remember judging a 1938 '10' owned by the then club secretary at one of the early national events at which there was probably only about half a dozen pre war cars present. All was going reasonably well points wise until I pulled forward the back seat sqab to investigate the ''luggage locker'' - behold it was unkempt with one wheel arch rusted right through. ''Bugger'' said the owner with a smile, '' I didn't think anyone would know how to get in there!'' - and marks were duly deducted without any hard feelings on anybody's part.

I am out of touch but perhaps concours and the judging thereof have become a wee bit too seriarse

george