Swedish Car Day In The United Kingdom

Posted on 30. Apr, 2008 by Ryan in 2000-2009, Events, United Kingdom

Photo Credit: Robin Morley

Robin Morley, a Saab enthusiast has been responsible for organizing Swedish Car Day in the United Kingdom this past Saturday at the Haynes International Motor Museum in Sparkford.

It is very nice to see more Swedish Car Days, given that the North East of the United States now has two strong, we can use more of these events being spread out to other towns, cities, and countries all over the world.

Lastly, it was also nice to see a pair of Saab 9-3 Turbo-X’s present, representing both the Sport Sedan and SportCombi variations.

For more information on Swedish Car Day U.K, please visit their website directly. http://www.swedishday.co.uk/ and for more photographs, please visit her Flickr page

A thank you to Robin for providing the photographs and writeup below, enjoy:

Dear Driver

As you know I organized a Swedish Day here in the West Country at Haynes International Motor Museum, Sparkford.

The day was a fantastic success with everybody commenting on what a great day they had had.

The gates to the museum opened at just before 9am and we got down to getting the party tents erected. A few of the early arrivals helped and with-in the hour we were ready. By 10am a good dozen Saabs had turned up and we started to park them round the car park area that we had been reserved by Haynes.

By about 11.30 we had a very nice gathering of Saabs then the first Volvo turned up with a cheer from the Saab owners. After all it was a Swedish Day. The Volvo was a very smart gold C70.

During the day we had a total of 41 different cars turn up. A couple of Saabs did turn up as visitors to the museum so were invited to park with us. It was great to talk to so many enthusiasts.

The oldest car was a very beautifully kept 1968 Volvo 144 from a local man here in Yeovil. The newest car or I should say cars were a pair of Saab 9-3 Turbo X’s, both picked up earlier this week. One an estate and the other a saloon. A visitor from Germany on holiday in the West Country came along to the event too in his Volvo V40.

The Saabs and Volvo’s came from many places in the UK. Kent, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, West Midlands, Oxfordshire, West Sussex and here in Somerset.

Almost all the Saabs from the 99 & 96 to the newest models were on view. You will see a gallery of all those who entered at www.swedishday.co.uk, I hope I didn’t miss anybody out.

The other attraction of being at Haynes was the Museum. Everybody who signed their car in received a couple of tickets to get in the museum at a reduced rate. Almost everybody took a visit to enjoy the great cars within the Museum. The children had the play park as well, go-karts, diggers as well as the wooden fort/climbing frame. None of them looked bored.

During the day there were two judging competitions going on. One was named “The Most Admired” and was sponsored by Dave and Wendy from the “Designs on Something” embroidery company. Each entrant was given the task of choosing their Most Admired car at the show. The second was “Best in Show”, sponsored by Peter Swann from “The GB Motor Book Company” As Pete said it was very difficult to choose one as there were a great many “Best” cars, so he decided to ask himself, Which car would I like to travel home in?

The results for Most Admired were, 1st, David Dallimore with his Saab 99 Turbo in black & 2nd, Mark Smith with a Saab 99L in white. The Best in Show award went to Isabel Rankin in her Saab Classic 900 Convertible in red. You can see pictures of the winners at www.swedishday.co.uk.

I would like to thank everybody for supporting this event in its first year, the helpers, the two sponsors mentioned above, Tim and Haynes Museum for the location, Cheryl at Saab GB for arranging the banners and flags, my friends Simon, Pete & Alex for the constant support, the forums and blogs on the internet and my wife Kerry and daughter Azabeth. But the biggest thank you goes to all those lovely Saab’s and Volvo’s that came along on the day.

See you next year, Sunday the 26th April sounds like a good date.

Robin.

Tags: 9-3, 9-5, Automotive Component Group, car, Germany, new 9-5, new saab 9-3, saab, saab 9-3, saab 9-4x, saab 9-5, saab 9-5 wagon, saab 900, saab 9000, saab 99, Saab Automobile, saab ng900, United Kingdom, United States