Isle of Man Festival of Motoring - September 19th to 22nd

Way back in March 2023, an e-mail forwarded to me detailed a 2024 trip to the Isle of Man for the annual Festival of Motoring. 

The e-mail said: “With over 70 MG's attending the Isle of Man Festival of Motoring in 2021 and 2022, we are delighted to give MG Clubs and MG Owners advance notification of the 2024 event theme 'THE BEST OF BRITISH'.

Exclusively for 2024 the Isle of Man Festival of Motoring will be restricting the event to ONLY include British Marques and with MG's being British through and through, we expect a great turn out!”

I forwarded this to the members and fairly quickly got a very favourable response – quite a few people were up for it! It would mean missing the biennial Shetland Classic Car Show which would also be in 2024, but since a number of members have been to the Shetland Show a few times already, it was decided that we would attend the IOM Festival instead.

A discount was offered for early booking, so by the end of April 2023, 18 members/ 9 cars had been signed up for the trip. Our group consisted of 4 MGB Roadsters, 4 MG TFs and an MGB GT.

All we had to do now, was wait…..

At the beginning of September 2024, we each received our ‘pack’ which was extremely well put together and contained a variety of things such as a Road Book for the island tour on the Thursday, ferry tickets, accommodation vouchers, lanyards, rally plates etc. etc.

Everyone was busy beavering away to get the cars ready – in my case a quick service and oil change and then a quick clean up. I had a problem adjusting the rear brakes as the ‘new’ adjusters I had fitted a year or so before turned out to be slightly shorter than the originals and with the wear on the rear brake shoes I couldn’t get them to lock the rear wheels; I kept turning the adjuster and eventually it went too far and the shoes closed behind it! On both sides.... Luckily, I hadn’t thrown the originals away and found them in my box of ‘bits that might come in useful at some point’ , re-fitted them and all was well. Something to investigate further over the winter. 

Foolishly, I also decided to touch up a couple of stone chips on the rear wings and discovered a few small rust holes. The more I tried to clean them up, the bigger they got! I therefore spent the next couple of days cleaning, de-rusting, filling with P38 and P40 and finally spraying a small patch on either side of the car with a rattle can to make it presentable!  The colour didn't quite match exactly and unfortunately I didn't have enough paint to do both wings, but I managed to blend it in reasonably well!

Nigel was also suffering a few last-minute glitches with his MGB GT with a stuck (closed) thermostat leading to overheating on the final test run – fortunately easily fixed – but trickier to fix quickly was an alternator failure. The alternator was only 2 years old, but it seemed to be failing diode by diode but luckily members Jim Skinner and Alastair Chisholm came to his rescue and managed to source and fit a new diode pack.

Alistair and Susan Thomson also had to get a new starter fitted to their B a couple of weeks before, but eventually all the cars were ready! Or so we thought!

Some had decided to travel part way down a couple of days before and so there was only a handful of us meeting at the Castleton Farm Shop for a coffee and a bacon roll on Tuesday 17th September, on the way to Heysham; the gremlins still hadn’t decided to leave us alone just yet though! Roger suffered a sticking rear brake caliper on the way to Castleton in his TF, but luckily, he had a spare at home and went back to get it fixed. John’s MGB had started to make some very alarming noises under the bonnet as well; not immediately identifiable but it seemed to be running OK so we all set off for Lancaster for a night in the Premier Inn before heading for the ferry at Heysham on Wednesday 18th.   

After a trouble-free crossing we arrived on a sunny Isle of Man and headed off to the hotel out by the Airport. A Scenic Car Tours rep was there to meet us and ensure we all got checked in OK. The hotel was full with other entrants to the event so as well as our MGs in the car park, there were a handful of other MGs, Morgans, Triumphs and many others.

We were all set! Or so we thought….

The noise from the engine bay of John’s MGB had got progressively worse so first thing in the morning we had a good look and it turned out to be the dynamo fan that was slowly breaking up and was rattling around on the shaft. It sounded much worse than it was, but John headed into Douglas to see if he could find anyone to fix it. He was in luck, he spotted a mechanic opening up his garage, explained the problem to him and he said he could fix it later in the morning! It meant that John and Jill would miss the first part of the island tour, but it was important to get it fixed for the rest of the trip.

Thursday 19th September   

This was billed as an island fun run, and we had each received a very comprehensive road book detailing a leisurely tour of the island. Obviously, we didn’t have to follow it and could make our own way around, but most of us followed it and were treated to some fabulous roads and superb scenery. Helped in no small way by the fantastic weather.

First stop off was at the magnificent Sound Café at Port Erin. The car park was full with classic cars of all shapes and sizes so we had to park up the road, but it was great to meet other regional members of the MGOC.

We then headed off to Peel where we all parked in the Castle car park, had a good chat with other people, a visit to the Castle and a fantastic lunch from a small seafood vendor on the beach. 

Friday 20th September

Friday dawned bright and sunny again and the highlight for today was 2 individual runs up the magnificent SLOC mountain road which was closed for us.  The SLOC connects the A7 Ballasalla to Port Erin road near Port Erin to the A3 Castletown to Ramsey road south of Foxdale. It  is known as the SLOC Road as it bends through the SLOC, a pass on the southern side of Cronk ny Arrey Laa. 

Those on the morning runs assembled at 'Coffee Cottage' and were held in the large car park before setting off to the starting point. We were set off at approximately 1-minute intervals and after the first run, we went back to the start to have another go. Not knowing the roads was a bit of a disadvantage, but nonetheless it was brilliant being able to use all of the road safe in the knowledge that you wouldn’t meet anyone coming the other way. After the runs, we headed off to Jurby where some entrants did a Jurby track session, but none of our members had put their names down for this so we headed for the nearby Isle of Man Motor Museum. After lunch in the café, we explored this fabulous Museum and then headed back to the Hotel to get ready for the evening. 

From the hotel, we headed in convoy to the Washing Floors at Laxey to park for the tram up to the Victory Café. This is a description of the washing floors according to the Great Laxey Mine Railway website:

“Deposits of metal ores usually consist of a mixture of minerals and although the miners would try to mine only the minerals of value, inevitably worthless material would be brought to the surface with the ore. The process of separating the waste and sorting the valuable ores was known as "dressing". This was carried out at the "Washing Floors", built in 1848 and which were situated in the area now known as the Valley Gardens, where the Great Laxey Mine Railway has its terminus. Nearly three hundred people worked on the Washing Floors in the 1870s, including a number of women and children.

Trains loaded with ore arrived at the top of the washing floors through the tunnel beneath the main road (and later the Manx Electric Railway line) at the top of the storage bunkers. The tramway wagons were uncoupled and the contents tipped down the "teams" to the bunkers below. The sloping stonework of the "teams" still survives and the wear on the stone from the ore falling from the tramway wagons is still apparent. 

Waste stone was then hand sorted and the pieces of ore were placed in the crusher. A number of other processes using machinery powered by waterwheels and with names such as "jiggers" and "buddles" separated the ore into different types. At the end of the process, a horse tramway carried the ore down the Glen Road to Laxey Harbour from where it was shipped away to smelting works in South Wales. 

Waste stone was tipped on the other side of the main road and eventually the immense pile of "deads", as it was known, towered above the adjacent houses. The "deads" were removed during the Second World War and were used to construct runways at two RAF stations in the north of the Island. The machinery on the Washing Floors was scrapped in 1935.”

From here, we caught the tram up to the famous Victory Café for a ‘Pie in the Sky’ supper. The Victory Cafe is based in an ex Cold War Rotor Radar Station overlooking the 31st Milestone of the TT Racecourse, just by the Bungalow on the Snaefell Mountain Railway. After the supper, complete with entertainment, we got the tram back – in thick fog!

Saturday 21st September

On Saturday, all the 350 odd entrants assembled for the Loch Promenade Display along the sea front in Douglas. This proved to be a very popular attraction and there were lots of visitors wandering around looking at the cars and speaking with the owners. We were also able to wander around Douglas and see the sites, including a statue of the Bee Gees who were all born in Douglas, and Norman Wisdom who lived on the Isle of Man.

Sunday 22nd September

Sunday was probably the most anticipated day of the entire trip! We all congregated at the TT start line / grandstand early in the morning when once again, the weather was fantastic. After a briefing, we were divided into separate groups as 350 cars doing a lap together would have been a bit excessive, and set off in convoy for a police escorted lap of the entire TT circuit. We were able to ignore red lights and give ways as there was a policeman at every junction to wave us on. In almost every village we drove through the locals all congregated and waved enthusiastically as we drove by. Wherever we stopped, many people came to have a chat and nearly all thanked us for visiting the island.   The part of the course up over the mountains was closed for us as well; we were in the first section of the convoy and hence we were first to arrive at the famous Creg Ny Baa café which is situated on the 90° bend of the same name, where we had a fantastic ‘afternoon tea’. We had around an hour there before we had to leave to allow the next part of the convoy to arrive. 

We then returned back to the start / finish line and assembled on the pit lane for a photo opportunity. It was then back to the hotel for a quick change before the coach picked us up for the Grand Dinner / Dance in Douglas. 

We had originally decided to get the ferry back on Monday morning, but having booked for the dinner dance, none of us really fancied getting up at very silly o’clock for the ferry. We therefore elected to stay for an extra night and on Monday, a few of us visited the Aviation Museum at the nearby Airport and in the afternoon, Anita had booked us all on a visit to the fabulous Laxey Wheel. Scenic Car Tours had arranged some activities on Monday, including a ride on the steam train, but as we had only decided to stay the extra night very late on everything was fully booked.

And all too soon, the trip was over! After a very smooth crossing back we all went our separate ways, some deciding to break the journey up with a night stop en-route, and others doing the journey in a oner. The only problem we encountered was a massive rainstorm en-route which, certainly in my case at least, found every single leak in the car – there are many!   

All in all, a fantastic trip which was brilliantly organised by Scenic Car Tours. The locals were extremely friendly, and we were welcomed in every pub and café that we visited. We will definitely be back!   

The (much compressed to get below the required 200mb limit!) videos below show my first run up the SLOC, part of the Sunday TT course parade taken by a friend of one of our members who lives on the island, and finally a couple of  videos of sections of the parade run.

The photos below the videos are an amalgamation of pictures taken by the Club Secretary, club member Rob Buchan and some of the official pictures from Scenic Car Tours. Note that due to the way that the web host uploads photos, these are in no particular order!  More of the Scenic Car Tours official pictures can be found by following the link below: