Variety pack

THE MAYHEAD 'FLEET' of classic cars isn't what it once was. I'd just achieved the motoring nirvana of having all five cars - more a grouping of waifs and strays than a collection - roadworthy in May last year when an unexpected medical diagnosis made me reassess my life choices. Since then, two cars have left Scuderia Mayhead.

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One of the survivors, a 1946 MG TC, may already be known to readers of this magazine as it featured in Octane 242. Found during the research into my book Goldie, the biography of record-breaker Alfred Goldie Gardner, the car was one of the very first TCs to emerge from the Abingdon factory after the Second World War and was given to Gardner to promote the brand during his record attempts. I later discovered many photographs at Beaulieu showing Goldie using the car to test the routes of his attempts in Italy and Belgium in 1946, and I believe it was the first car ever to run the Jabbeke speed trials route near Ostend.