Some of us are just back from the 2017 UK Owners Club meeting in the West Country. We had a record eighteen cars attend plus two fairly local members called in to see us. One of our visiting members was Allan Bullock who has very recently joined us. Allan met us on the Saturday morning at our Exeter hotel and joined us for much of our day drive across Devon. His car is a red Riviera version in beautiful condition. During conversation with Allan he revealed that he had actually used his car as a wedding car. Well if that doesn’t beg more information what does? Allan has kindly supplied the following information and pictures which I hope you enjoy viewing.
Martin Garrad
(Membership Secretary)
July 2017
It was great to see so many Barchettas last weekend at Exeter and to join in the drive. It is a shame that we didn’t know about it earlier as we could have planned to do the whole trip. My wife was very jealous to have missed out.
My Barchetta was originally purchased for a trip around The Alps to Italy visiting France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy. We also had a Barchetta inspired cake based on our road trip around The Alps
For that trip we wanted a convertible and I had always longed to undertake a European trip using a Barchetta. About a month before we were due to leave a one owner Riviera model came up for sale in Surrey. It was available with a full history and stacks of paperwork starting from the original DTR invoice right up to present day, all work by DTR. It only had a month’s MOT left so I took a little gamble on a few potential issues but this was reflected in the price I paid. Anyway all turned out ok, and my Italian specialist gave it a full service here in Devon, giving me an assurance that the car was ok for us to make the long trip!!! A good cleaning and a polish and we were off to Europe!!!
Since returning the car comes out on the odd sunny weekend and that’s about it, we do some trips around Devon and take it to car shows around the area, along with the Fiat Coupe 20v Turbos we have, both of which have just been restored.
It was great to use the Barchetta as a wedding car, some great memories. We did have a “Plan B” for inclement weather! If rain had threatened to spoil the fun we had two hired classic Jaguars as wedding cars in reserve.
Allan Bullock
July 2017