Out of the Woodwork 2003 was held October 11-13 in New Jersey. Former TVR of America importer, Gerry Sagerman, was this year's special guest and the featured model of TVR this year was the 2500M.
Out of the Woodwork 2003 was held October 11-13 in New Jersey. Former TVR of America importer, Gerry Sagerman, was this year's special guest and the featured model of TVR this year was the 2500M. |
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See more pictures of Woodwork 2003 at Charlie Colbert's "Taming the Truculent Troll" web site.
The TVR Car Club North America's annual gathering for this year, Out of the Woodwork 2003 was held October 10-13 in New Jersey and brought together TVR owners from all across the US, Canada, and England for the weekend. This year's special guest was Gerry Sagerman, who, through his company TVR of America, Inc., was the importer of TVR in the United States from the mid sixties through the late seventies, bringing in Vixens, 2500s, 2500Ms and the 3000 series cars.
Gerry spoke during the annual awards banquet on Saturday night, recalling his years with TVR, and also as a sportscar racer during the early to mid sixties, competing against some of the great names in sportscar racing in the US in a TVR Grantura. He also told about what it took to make TVR a successful independent brand of sportscar in the US and how he worked with Martin Lilley to introduce six-cylinder power to the TVR line in 1970 and brought over the very first Triumph powered 2500 Vixen to the states. In fact, it was that very car that was at this year's event, owned by John Zuccarelli and fresh from a restoration by David Zumstein in California. That car, resplendent in its yellow paint, was the only one brought in with fuel injection rather than the normal Stromberg carburetion. Gerry was taken back to 1970 when he saw the car and how true the restoration was to its originality.
Gerry was kept busy throughout the weekend, looking at all the various TVRs that had assembled, as well as autographing various items of memorabilia. One very special item of memorabilia was brought to the event by Gerry, it was a 1/4 scale fiberglass model of the TVR Zante, of which one actual car was ever produced before the project was abandoned. The model he brought was one of only two ever built by Specialized Mouldings in England and which was used for wind tunnel testing on the car. Gerry donated his model to the club to be auctioned off at the annual TVRCCNA Woodwork auction and the winning bid was entered by Bill Sanford, Regional Organizer of the Southwest Region of the club.
The array of TVRs that attended this year covered a broad spectrum, ranging from two Jomars, a roadster and a coupe brought by Alex Saidel of New Hampshire, son of the first TVR importer in the US, Ray Saidel, on up to a 1993 Griffith 4.3 brought down from Canada. There were also Granturas, Tuscans, Griffiths, Vixens, 2500s, 2500Ms, 3000 Series cars, wedges(including 280is, 350i, and 450SE), an S3, and the aforementioned Griffith 4.3.
On the day of the show, the weather could not have been nicer, with bright blue skies and pleasant temperatures and the cars started rolling in and kept rolling in. In fact, we ran out of pre-prepared registration packets for the participants because a number of those present had not pre-registered. Some of the other marques in attendance included Morgan, Mini, Reliant, MG, Jaguar, Saab, Aston-Martin, Lotus, Ferrari and more. When the show concluded, awards were handed out and the top two awards were presented after awards in all the various classes had been handed out. The President's Award, presented by Gerry Sagerman and myself, went to John Zuccarelli for his 1970 TVR 2500 and the Best of Show Award went to Dan Kruze for his beautiful Jaguar D-Type replica.
The TVR Car Club North America wants to express its appreciation to all those who attended and to all the companies that helped sponsor the weekend's events. We look forward to having an even better turnout next year for Woodwork 2004.
Marshall Moore
President, TVRCCNA