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London to Brighton 2001 (South London and Surrey Land Rover Club) 23rd September 2001  GRUMble on Marine Parade, Brighton Palace Pier in background. A long drive in GRUMble and a lot of fuel (LPG is much more in ready supply 'up north'!) We left Sheffield on Saturday afternoon and didn't make particularly good time due to traffic, still, a good run and ideal to really test the LPG conversion, power steering and Rimmer Brothers stainless steel large bore exhaust! We'd decided not to camp at Crystal Palace the night before the run as Police warnings over a suspected terrorist incident made us think that the less vehicles going into London on the Saturday the better! We arrived quite late and stopped over at Scott and Kates in Farnborough to check out progress on their 101 ambi conversion - now a superb bright yellow! Early Sunday morning we all decided that it wasn't really feasible to get into London, so we'd meet up with some friends of Scott and Kate on the run somewhere on the M23 - this was co-ordinated by Scott via sms messages, which is quite handy as you can't hear yourself think in a 101 at high speed, let alone conduct a mobile phone conversation - isn't technology great! As we arrived at Brighton the sun broke out and a little piece of summer returned - obviously someone 'up there' likes Land Rovers! We followed the convoy down to Marine Parade and were waved in - even though we'd said we weren't officially with the run. The officials for the run (rightfully) wouldn't let us pass the 'Finish' line, and suggested that we park on the left just before it and go in on foot - which is exactly what we did - and some pictures follow of a rather good turnout of 101s. (I tried to be 'creative' by getting the camera at an angle for some shots - it didn't work!) We returned to GRUMble, spoke briefly to a small gathering of people interested in our conversions and various works, gave some batteries that we'd picked up from Andy Thomlinson at Stoneleigh to another 101 owner called Julian who lives in Brighton, said goodbye to Scott and Kate, and went to my mums house - 5 miles away, for a warm welcome and a cuppa! Notwithstanding, the very brief time we spent at the event was filled with meeting other 101 owners old and new, catching up on gossip with Laurie and Helena and generally drooling over some of the super examples of the Marque on display. GRUMble performed perfectly, and the sun kept shining! Click thumbnail below to see image in 640X480 resolution Originals in high resolution - 1280X960 available HERE
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