Interesting coment in this weeks Classic Car Weekly, where a review appears on an Alpine for sale in Manchester. It says... "Alpines have a strong following but have rather lacked the sophisticated club support that has for many decades surrounded MG's and Triumphs. Perhaps as a consequence prices are lower and restored examples less plentiful"

I think as a club we must improve our standards and lose the image that our cars are full of mixed up parts and specifications. Owners should be encouraged to restore cars to a high standard close to factory spec...and preserve the Alpine marque... just as it states we should do in our club rules.

Interesting comment in this weeks Classic Car Weekly, where a review appears on an Alpine for sale in Manchester. It says... "Alpines have a strong following but have rather lacked the sophisticated club support that has for many decades surrounded MG's and Triumphs. Perhaps as a consequence prices are lower and restored examples less plentiful"


I think Classic Car Weekly should really know better than to intimate that our club is lacking in sophistication when compared to the MG owners club which is after all a professional undertaking & not run by volunteers as the SAOC is.

The SAOC is the envy of many classic car clubs bucking the current trend of falling numbers we have a growing membership & a progressive local area scene.

With a group of volunteers who often fit their devotion to the Club & Alpine around their often busy business & family lives we have managed to produce for our members an excellent publication to mark the 50th Anniversary of our car not to mention a good quality club magazine. We have arranged a European tour to Cannes to mark the launch of the Alpine, Win (in association with the ARCC) a coveted prize at last years Silverstone classic event finishing runners up to some small outfit called Ferrari & with Rods sterling work this year who knows we might win it outright in 2009.

We also have the Annual National which again is the envy of many other clubs several of whom make regular requests to join in our events because unlike the SAOC they lack the capability & support to do multi day events on their own.

In its 30 plus years of existence this small unsophisticated club has done what is stated in our rules and preserved the marque.

By preserving the marque I mean preserving its very existence. When the club was formed and during its early years by all accounts there was virtually nil professional support for the Alpine which was not surprising when you compare the numbers of Alpines in existence then and now with much larger numbers of both MG's & Triumphs & as a result many Alpines found their way to the scrap heap. The marque was then truly preserved by a very few early members of the SAOC many of whom still support the club and freely give their advice in the continued preservation of our cars. The Alpine Guide is a tribute to many of these founding members, a document which is still extensively used by new owners to this day.

One of the great things about the SAOC is it's diversity, not only in its memberships and the varied skills they bring to the club but also in the differing ways they use their cars, whether this be in racing or rallying. In restoring cars ether to produce up rated performance versions or even factory perfect original specimens. Some of course want no more out of their Alpines than to drive them in the warm summer sun and socialise with other owners.




If by improving our standards means just encouraging the renovation of Factory perfect examples for concours I think that may turn a lot of people off.

Although it is a view I disagree with, many members have said we should drop the concours from our National events in future, saying it is a minority interest event supported by only a few participants each year. Just look how the thread concerning Carburettors and Special Tuning has taken off since May with 76 posts compared with 32 since January concerning the concors changes. Maybe for good or bad this shows where the interest is at least on the forum.

Our strength lies in our diversity, our different interests in the club & the way we use our cars. Small we maybe, the envy of many other clubs we surely are, less sophisticated I think not

Look forward to seeing you all at the AGM!!!!

I think the one thing that needs promoting is this forum. It's the 21st century and forums like this are an absolute godsend! Recently there's been quite a bit of activity here, but in the past there have been only a few post on the entire forum in one month and then only a few people bother to reply - and it's usually the same handful of people. Compare this forum to the SAOCA forum which gets many posts per day and often has no less than 5 members logged on at any one time. OK, there seem to be a lot more Alpines in the US, so that might explain why there are more posters, but maybe our US counterparts are just much more ready to embrace this up-to-date way of sharing information. I have to say, when I have a question I usually post on their forum not this one, because I know I will get at least one answer (usually several in fact), but I would rather post here as quite a lot of the time the differences in US and UK cars is quite considerable and of course are US counterparts will often recommend getting a part from a certain US vendor, which is obviously not possible.

Just to give a few facts and figures, this forum currently has 411 registered users and only 42 users have 10 or more posts (basicall 10% are regular posters). Only 262 of the total registered user have made any posts at all!

Compare this with the SAOCA forum; they have 1365 registered users and about 275 memebers have made 10 or more posts (about 20% are regualr posters).

I'm a memeber of countless forums on the internet and I think they are amazing things! Obviously it's nice to meet with people face to face at club nights or at meetings, but these don't happpen everyday and sometimes you want answers yesterday! For me, they are pretty much the only source of information I can easily get my hands on. I don't think I'm in a unique position, but I may be one of the only Alpine owners who is under 30 with two young children under 6. This means I can't get to club meets or shows very often so I rely on forums massively. I really think this forum needs to be promoted a bit more; it's a well laid out forum with nicely devided sections etc, but there just seem to be a lack of regualr posters. All to often I see posts being made on behalf of club members; if these memebers actaully registered and posted themselves we could improve the imformation cache considerably!

[quote="stevew"]
I think Classic Car Weekly should really know better than to intimate that our club is lacking in sophistication when compared to the MG owners club which is after all a professional undertaking & not run by volunteers as the SAOC is./quote]

Hey... easy Steve !

I think you have taken the article in Classic Car Weekly out of context.

The person writing the article is not critisizing our club as neither am I.

What they were saying whilst reviewing a series V for sale was that the overall quality of Alpines is not as good compared to MGs and Triumphs and therefore does not have the sophistication of these other marques which reflects in the Alpines resale value.

It is easy to find a good clean MG or Triumph in original condition (nothing to do with concours) it is virtually impossible to find an original Alpine as they are nearly all modified or messed around with - the one in the Classic Car Weekly article is a GT with a hood conversion with Wolfrace wheels.

Steve, all your comments about the club are true... it is a great club with great members - my concern is nothing to do with the running of the club or concours cars but that we are drifting away from the factory specification (something fround upon in other clubs). If nothing is done what will happen is over the next couple of decades you will end up with Alpine shaped cars and not true Alpine cars like the ones we are celebrating this year.

Hi.

As Forum admin. I would welcome any suggestions as to the expansion of it.