'Out of the Woodwork'

By Marshall Moore

The weekend of October 11-13, 2002 was the TVR Car Club North America's annual event, "Out of the Woodwork" 2002, held at Round Valley State Park in western New Jersey USA. While the honored model of TVR this year was the V-8 powered Griffiths of the 1960's, the wedge cars were also in attendance from across the US and Canada.

The honored guest of the weekend was Mike Mooney, who used to work for Jack Griffith in the mid-sixties when the Griffith 200 and Griffith 400s were being produced. He is writing a soon-to-be-released book on the cars called "The Griffith Years", in which he chronicles the activities of those years, and the characteristics of all the cars, and all of the "players" with the company during those years.

390SE & 450SE		Canadian TVR 450SE

One of the Griffiths in attendance was an original race car which was presented in its original form, having been stored for many years. This was its first outing in almost a decade.
 
While rain hampered activities and travel during the first part of the weekend, by Sunday, conditions started drying out and the car show was held, although attendance was down a bit from previous years. What should have been a 5 hour drive to New Jersey for me, turned out to be a 9 hour drive due to driving rain, fog, horrible traffic, and a 2-3 hour delay, sitting idle on the interstate highway in Pennsylvania, because of a large tractor-trailer which jackknifed across both lanes of traffic.

Group shot		280i's

Since my Tasmin was not weather tight (imagine that, a convertible that leaks!!!), I arrived at the hotel damp, with carpets that were waterlogged, and nerves that were almost shot!!!
 
We had a decent turnout of wedge cars during the weekend including about a half-dozen examples of the Tasnin/280i, a 390SE, and a beautiful 450SE that was driven down from Canada by its septugenarian owner. The 280i class of the car show was won by Ed Koch's beautiful, very low mileage, original 1985 280i and my 1983 Tasmin came in second.  Only one S2 coupe was in attendance, that being a very well presented charcoal grey coupe owned by George Czerw of Pennsylvania.

My Tasmin		280i S2 Coupe

Others included a 1984 280i owned by Bill Sanford of California who picked it up in Florida on the way to the show, and was trailering it back across the country on his way home. Next year, with cooperation from the weather, we anticipate doubling our attendance overall, and in virtually every class of TVR.

Regards,

Marshall Moore