Sometimes, everyday folk just amaze you with their generosity.
I was involved with a charity auction this weekend, to raise money for Little Havens Children's Hospice in Essex. Entitled 'The Elise Garden Party', it was the idea of my friend (and Floyd fan) Michael Hipperson, who invited 100 Lotus owners plus a few well known names from the car racing world to this event. World land speed record holder (at 763mph!) Wing Commander Andy Green gave up his time to give a great 90min talk and filmshow about setting the record in the supersonic car 'Thrust SSC'.
I donated two items, a Lewis Hamilton signed print which made £1200 and an original painting of Jim Clark in Formula Junior, which made £2800. There were 30 lots, 200 people in the room and £26K was raised, outstanding!
L to R: Sir John Whitmore, team Lotus driver from the 1960s and the auctioneer for the evening, the fastest man on earth Andy Green, Martin Donnelly F1 Lotus driver from 1990 and Jack Sears, Lotus Cortina driver and Jim Clark's team mate in the 1960s. Jack is also responsible for the 70mph speed limit. In 1964 he drove for Shelby Cobra at Le Mans and they tested the car on the M1, before speed limits were in place. The police were shocked to find Jack doing 170mph, the government were spurred into action and eventually decided to put a limit, but it took them a further 3 years to do it! All Jack's fault..
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The Lewis print made £1200:
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Clark original £2800:
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In awe of those who dig deep to give their hard earned cash at events like this.
We had a great BBQ at the lovely Rainthorpe hall near Norwich yesterday. Some of the Lotus Elises were parked in a '60' to celebrate the Lotus anniversary and I went along for the ride to get some shots from above.
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Lotus brought along the new Evora, unveiled at the motor show 2 weeks ago. This is the prototype.
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a pleasure to have been involved with and to help out a little.
