Great Speakers & A Great Turnout !
The 50 JEC Members, Partners & Friends were drawn from a totyal of 8 Regions: Oxfordshire, Warwicvkshire & North Oxfordshire, Central West Midlands, Warwickshire Conentry & Hinckley, Bucks & Herts, Berks & Thames Valley, Wiltshitre and even as far away as South Wales.
Oxfordshire Region Chair, Steve Daniels, welcomed everyone and then ran through a short presentation of ex-Royal Household cars now in JEC Member ownership that he had been told about. These included a brace of XJs, an XK, a Mark 2, and a quick nod was made to our King's I=Pace and HM The Queen Elizabeth's X-Type.
Graham Robson and Cameron Slater, with technical support by Paul, then delivered a great hours worth of interesting history lerssons about the Royal Family's engagemebnt with the motor car for over 120 years.
We Were Honoured To Have HM Queen Elizabeth's Daimler V8 X308 Join Us
With the very kind support of Neil Campbell, Collections Manager, at the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, we were even able to have a 'Royal Jaguar' join us.
This car was the 126,000 X308 made and the very last of the line. Originally destined to go direct to the JDHT, HM The Queen was prepared to have it a sumptuous Blue rather than her usual British Racing Green.
Those present were very keen to see the car, test the comfy inside and see the blues lit.
Sincere thanks went to John Jansen, a JDHT Volunteer and Oxfordshire Region Member, for having the courage to bring it through Banbury to the event !!
So What Did We Learn ?
The simple answer to that is a huge amount ! This included:
1. Daimler received their royal warrant as far back as 1902.
2. Between 1953 and 2022, QEII had more cars than all her predecessors put together.
3. Most Kings had more enthusiastic (and some said better) drivers as their Queens.
4. King Edward VIII was the first royal to break ranks and have a foreign car, a Buick. But as it was built in Canada under licence, they saw it as still British.
5. HM The Queen Mother, being a canny Scot, had her Jaguar Mark VIIM 'uprated' first to a Mark VIII and then to a Mark IX.
It also became clear that the JEC Oxfordshire Region had both been supported with many of the Jaguars in the JDHT collection but there's also more to play for yet !!
And The Evening Did Not End Quite There !
Attendees were more than happy to make a £5 donation for charity on the door. With additional donation by the BMM Speakers and the auctioning of a Bicester Heritage Scramble Guest ticket, a total of £220 was raised, that will be split between Crohn's & Colitis UK (Oxfordshire Region's chosen charity for 2024-25), the Banbury Cricket Club (who also took over £200 in Bar sales !) and the speaker fee to the BMM (itself a charitable organisation).
Oxfordshire Region was pleasewd to send away the BMM team with both copious thanks and a gift each of Meguiar's cleaning products (being a key Sponsor of the JEC).
A truly successful evening indeed !
