Warmup Run - Saturday April 5th
This year’s Warmup run was organised by the Club secretary and took place on April 5th on a surprisingly warm and sunny day – on some previous Warmup runs we have had to endure snow and ice!
The run started with breakfast at Castleton Farm Shop who very kindly opened early for us. 45 members, friends and partners assembled at 09:30 and it was very encouraging to see MGs of various types and ages lined up in the car park. Having pre-ordered, the service was extremely efficient and everyone enjoyed their breakfast whilst catching up with the other members.
We departed Castleton at around 10:30 for the short 15-minute run to The Autolounge. Founded in April 2019 from a passion for cars, The Auto Lounge has grown into becoming the “Home of luxury and performance cars in Scotland!” Over the past six years they have supplied hundreds of the finest classic, sports and super cars to new and existing customer’s up and down the country and across the globe, to countries such as Cyprus, Malta, Singapore & New Zealand!
Their primary objective remains: to provide customers with a bespoke, relaxed and overall better experience when buying, selling or sourcing their luxury and performance vehicles.
2023 saw the business expand into the own new boutique showroom designed specifically to create the perfect space to view and explore the stock, set in 80 acres of idyllic Aberdeenshire countryside and surrounded by some of the UK’s most breathtaking roads.
They have also opened a new state-of-the-art service centre with experienced technician Reece Gillan at the helm, bringing years’ worth of OEM knowledge from Porsche / VAG and various other marques.
Co-founder Graham Davidson and his team welcomed us and gave us a very comprehensive tour of the facilities which includes a workshop and storage facility. Current stock for sale includes Aston Martins, Ferraris, Porsches, McLaren, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, a Ford GT40, Lamborghinis as well as some hot hatches and a couple of very rare motorcycles, including a Brabus and a limited-edition Yamaha YZF-R1 GYTR 20th Anniversary Edition (number 18 of 20). It is believed that of the 20 bikes originally built, only 3 have never been ridden and this is one of them!
All too soon the visit was over, and we headed off for a 30-mile run through the Aberdeenshire countryside to Aboyne for a fabulous lunch at The Boat.
Despite the original forecast for rain later in the day, luckily the sunny weather held and everyone enjoyed the day.
Special thanks to the staff at both Castleton and The Boat for looking after us, to Graham and the Team at The Autolounge for a fascinating visit and to Roger for the photos. (Note: the photos of the Autolounge Showroom were downloaded from the internet and are very low resolution.)
