The British Invasion in Stowe, Vt., always has Featured Marques, and this year Mini/MINI is one of them.

The Invasion will take place at the Stowe Events Field on Weeks Hill Road, right off Mountain Road on which several of our favorite places to stay are located. The Invasion has used the spacious Events Field for many years now to accommodate its usual run of more than 600 British motorcars.

The dates are Friday, September 19th, through Sunday, September 21st, with the event officially beginning with the Registrants Reception late Friday afternoon and continuing until Sunday with the Competition of Colors and the Tailgate Picnic Competition.

NEMO members are regular attendees and it would be nice if we could keep our numbers up this year, particularly with our favorite cars being "Featured."

All the information you need about registering is available at the British Invasion website, www.britishinvasion.com. Do not tarry, though, as the pre-registration deadline is September 2nd. Registration will be available on the field from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, September 19th for procrastinators, but Friday registrants will be lumped in a single class and not be able to compete in a specific marque class.

So download the necessary registration forms ASAP (you can compete in the popular-vote British Classic or the judged Concours d'Elegance) and secure your lodgings before they are all sold out.

We will see you there!

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — The inaugural Bay State Motor Festival took place on Sunday, June 8th, 2025 at Cushing Memorial Park in Framingham. The Festival celebrated the history of automobile manufacturing in Massachusetts, as well as showcasing classic and vintage cars from around the world.

Cushing Park occupies 67 acres and has a huge lawn with shade trees, a playground, and a walking path around the perimeter. Despite rain all day and night on Saturday, the lawn was remarkably dry on Sunday. It is always more pleasant to hold a car event on a lawn and there was plenty of room between the vehicles to walk around.

NEMO member Ken Lemoine, the executive director of the Bay State Motor Festival, reached out to numerous local British car clubs to encourage members to attend with their cars, and areas were set aside for club members to park together. Vehicles were also grouped by marque, model, vintage, and body style.

Of the seven million cars made in Massachusetts, 4.6 million were made in Framingham at the General Motors plant from 1947 to 1989. The Bay State Manufacturing Company manufactured 2500 of its own cars in Framingham from 1922 to 1925. Ken owns the last known surviving Bay State sedan, a 1924 Model 1 Five Passenger Sedan, which inspired the Festival name and was parked front and center at the Made in Massachusetts display. Ken has been restoring the car for eight years, and has done copious research to get all the details correct.

A Framingham bakery, Cake Dolls, created a cake that was a scale replica of the Bay State car. The cake was shared with show attendees as part of Framingham’s 325th birthday celebration.

Other rare and unusual Massachusetts vehicles included Springfield-built Rolls-Royces, Knoxes, and Indian motorcycles. Also displayed were a 1917 Locomobile built in Brookline, a Waltham-built 1914 Metz, a Newton-built 1922 Stanley Steamer, a 1903 Grout built in Orange, a 1905 Marsh Light built in Brockton, a 1962 Saab Quantum III made in Hudson, and others. There were numerous Massachusetts-built GM cars, including three Pontiac GTOs, a 1951 Pontiac Fleetline, and a pristine 1961 Chevy Impala.

I drove my 1950 Morris Minor Tourer and pulled into the registration line behind a 1911 Ford Model T sedan. At 8:30 a.m. the temperature was already in the mid-70s and I hoped none of the waiting cars would overheat. The Model T died at the top of a small hill. The engine was hot and would not start, so three high school students volunteering at the Festival were called over to push the car to a parking spot on the lawn. I parked with other NEMO members in a circle of British cars, directly across from the Made in Massachusetts display.

My pop-up tent was a gathering place for NEMO members and friends. Car show regulars Wendy Birchmire, Iain Barker, and Bob Brownell drove their classic Minis. New member Dave Panich attended with his recently acquired 1971 Mini 1000. Ken Lemoine brought his 1965 Mini Traveller, Faith Lamprey and Bruce Vild drove a modern MINI Clubman, and John Gallagher brought his 1940 Morris 10 Series M saloon, a model I had never seen before.

The Morris 10 has monocoque construction, an overhead-valve 37hp engine, and a variation on suicide doors. The doors share a single set of hinges with the front doors opening toward the rear of the car, and the rear doors opening towards the front. Except for the lack of running boards, the Morris 10 was similar to various late 1930s American cars.

In addition to the British cars previously mentioned, others included MGAs, MGBs, MG Midgets, Bentleys, Land Rovers, a 1962 Daimler SP250, a Triumph TR6, Austin Healeys, and modern Jaguars. Phil and Judy Roy brought their rare 1961 MGA Twin-Cam, and there was an even rarer 1962 MGA Mk2 1600 Deluxe, one of only 290 roadsters built using leftover parts after the Twin Cam was discontinued. Michael Rosen drove his 1962 MGA 1600 Mk2, and displayed the original radio, which was manufactured in Melrose, Mass. Also present was a highly original 1925 Bentley 3 Litre dicky seat convertible that was built in Springfield, Mass. The Daimler SP250 won the best British car award, a tough call given all the other rare British cars in attendance.

There were far too many noteworthy vehicles to describe them all, so I will only cover a few of my favorites. The Made in Massachusetts display featured numerous Brass Era cars from the early 1900s through 1917, several of which are true horseless carriages. I suspect most people have never heard of Grout, Knox, Marsh Light, Metz, or Locomobile. The 1903 Grout and 1904 Knox have tiller steering and two-cylinder air cooled engines. The 1905 Marsh Light is comparatively modern since it has a steering wheel, though it also has a two-cylinder air cooled engine.

I was familiar with Locomobile because my great grandfather owned a dealership in Bridgeport, Conn., where the factory was located. Very early Locomobiles were powered by steam, but in 1902 they switched to gasoline engines. The 1917 Locomobile Model 48 Dual Cowl Sportif present at the Festival has a six-cylinder engine, and custom coachwork built by the Farnum and Nelson Company in Brookline, Mass. The rear seat has a separate windscreen and convertible “cape top.” The engine is highly polished with brass and copper components, and the fan belt is fashioned from many small pieces of leather. This impeccably restored car has won awards at multiple Concours events around the US. It won the Best Made in Massachusetts award, and were it up to me, it would also have won Best in Show.

Both of the Springfield-built Rolls-Royces were woodie wagons, or as the British call them, “shooting brakes.” The 1927 Rolls was the larger of the two and featured three rows of seats made from wooden slats. The car was re-bodied during World War II to qualify for a “farm vehicle” gasoline ration. The 1934 Rolls had two rows of leather seats and was definitely more luxurious. The owner drove it to Framingham from Exeter, NH, and the car won the Best in Show award.

I was walking the show field with Bruce Vild when we saw a 1962 Saab Quantum III in the Made in Massachusetts display. Bruce knew exactly what the car was but I had no idea. The Quantum III was one of a series of five privately designed and built roadsters using various Saab components. It was a concept vehicle intended to be a production car and two copies were built in Hudson, MA. But the car was turned down by Saab in Sweden and never went into production. Instead, Saab designed and produced two generations of the Sonett.

The Best Made in Framingham award went to Mike and Wendy McGoldrick’s 1967 Pontiac GTO, which was present in the Made in Massachusetts display. I met Wendy and Mike at the Wheels of Wellesley show several years ago where several NEMO members brought classic Minis. Wendy was so taken by the Minis that she joined NEMO, and considered buying one. However, given Mike’s preference for muscle cars, they ultimately did not.

The Festival was very well organized and admission was free to the public. I counted six food trucks and several stands selling a variety of cuisines and sweets. There were numerous corporate sponsors and local businesses, some of which gave away free swag (my wife won two free car washes by playing cornhole).

I believe there were 17 awards given out. Some of the judges worked in the automotive industry and others were sponsors. A sound system playing classic rock and pop music ran out of a 1945 Dodge tank truck. Framingham resident and longtime Magic 106.7 DJ David O'Leary served as the master of ceremonies.

Below is a link to a gallery of photos and videos taken by Lynne Damianos, the official Festival photographer. There are photos of most of the registered vehicles, many car owners, and the Cushing Memorial Park grounds: https://damianosphotography.pic-time.com/UnpZdrlf3WIHP.

The 2025 Festival was a big success with about 250 registered vehicles. The organizers are already planning for the next event, which will take place on Sunday, June 7th, 2026. It will be an all-marques show, and feature vehicles made in New England, children’s pedal car races, and more.

BRISTOL, R.I., June 6-7 — British Motorcars of New England delivered another fine event in conjunction with the local booster group, Explore Bristol Rhode Island (www.explorebristolri.com), that included a Friday morning drive, a visit to the Rhode Island Veterans’ Home, an evening block party and a car show the following day.

BMCNE’s Rick Crosby once again served as tour guide for the drive around the Rhode Island/Massachusetts East Bay area that began at 9 a.m. Friday. Participants were back in time to regroup in Colt State Park for the visit to the nearby Veterans’ Home in the early afternoon.

My partner Faith Lamprey and I, relieved of our usual vendor duties, were able to make the trip to the Veterans’ Home — a recently renovated and nicely landscaped facility — for the first time, and it was fun displaying our car at the Home in the circular drive leading up to the front entrance and chatting and trading jokes with some of the residents. We could see why this has always been a popular feature of the British Motorcars in Bristol weekend.

The customary parade through downtown Bristol to Independence Park for the Friday night block party seemed to draw fewer spectators than usual, but that was probably because this was graduation weekend for the local high school and people’s attention was otherwise diverted. Still, there were British flags displayed in front of several homes and businesses with folks waving and giving us a reason to smile and honk our horns.

A live band, a food truck and a tent serving drafts from a nearby craft brewery awaited us in Independence Park. After a snack and a brew, we wandered across the street with friends from the Cape Cod British Car Club for dinner, being careful with our alcohol consumption as we had to head back home that night.

Saturday morning brought the threat of rain and even thunderstorms, but more than 100 cars showed up at Colt State Park for the show. Austin-Healey was the featured marque. As our classic Mini was in the shop, our MGB was the vehicle of choice this weekend.

New this year was electronic voting, with the ballot accessed by a QR code that listed all the entries. Once in the system, you simply tapped your phone to select a favorite in each class. Everyone knows I absolutely hate QR codes because I always have trouble with them, but once I logged on I was impressed with how easy voting was. Each selection was recorded and by 1 p.m. the system was shut off.

As the votes were tallied immediately, by 2:30 not only were the winners determined and the awards given, but all the tents were put away, the class signs were gathered up and the field was empty! The customary paper ballot method would have required manual counting that would not have been over by that time. So, kudos to BMCNE for instituting the new system.

The only thing I found that was a problem (and it was my fault, really, for not having a spare camera slung around my neck) was that my preoccupation with voting meant I did not use my phone as a camera until it was almost too late. Thus, many pictures “escaped” me, including the Minis that came out for the show. Next year I’ll know better and either not vote, or bounce between voting and taking pictures.

Steven Aoyama’s VTEC station wagon, always a crowd pleaser, scooped Best in Class among the classic Minis, with Michael Walsh’s stock OEW sedan (which I voted for) in second. Sue MacDuff’s 2013 Cooper topped the MINI class.

One last bit I must mention. After making a number of special awards as the show drew to a close, Tom Bernier, BMCNE’s master of ceremonies, called Faith and me up front. On behalf of the club, he saluted our work on British Marque Car Club News and gave us a beautiful handcrafted wooden plaque to commemorate our retirement, a grille badge from our friends in the Delaware Valley Classic MG Chapter (another club to which we belong), and a very special scrapbook assembled by BMCNE member Mallory Walsh with congratulatory greetings from dozens of the Marque’s Participating Clubs. This was an emotional experience and I hope I conveyed our gratitude to BMCNE, which had been with us from the very first issue in 1990, adequately in the remarks I made after the presentation.

Thanks, BMCNE, and congratulations on another excellent British Motorcars in Bristol.

WATERFORD, Conn., Jun. 1 — The Connecticut MG Club managed another rainless, albeit windy day at this year’s “British by the Sea” gathering at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. An eye-popping array of British vehicles of all sorts — easily topping 300, I heard 340 from a couple of people — filled the field, with the largest number of Land Rovers I’ve seen at any multi-marque show, including Stowe. There were four rows of them, classic and modern, 30 at least and more likely 40.

The featured marque/model was MGA, and Robert Daddario’s beautiful example, registered as a 1963 model, was Best of Show.

NEMO’s own Mark Fodor topped the Mini Classic class with his 1962 Austin. Raymond Lewis’ 1963 Austin made second, and Lorine and Derick Karabec, up from Ulster Park, N.Y., landed third with their 1962 Wolseley Hornet.

A Clubman won the New Mini class, but it wasn’t my partner Faith Lamprey’s BRG 2019. It was a stunning black-on-black 2010 model owned by Derek Shepard. Steve Barrow’s 2012 Cooper S was second, and Scott Baylock’s 2021 GP3, also black-on-black, came third.

Among the NEMO cars in the Classic class were the familiar “Thurd” of Dave Black and Sebastien Geerens’ 1981 Rover Mini 1000, which he advertised as a “Belgian car” on his windscreen card.

Another NEMO member attending was Dave Icaza, but he brought a Triumph TR3B to the show instead of his 1969 Austin Countryman.

Along with the Land Rovers, the Morgans and Lotus also had their customary impressive displays. But there were rare cars, too, most notably a Dellow MkIIB Trials Car that was shown at the Lime Rock Historic Festival last year and featured in British Marque Car Club News.

There was also an MG TD sporting a Ford engine, I suspect from a junked Mustang. The lump fit nicely in the engine bay though the very concept would make a T Series purist shudder.

Missing among the vendors lined up on the right side of the field was British Marque as this was the first event Faith and I attended since the Marque ended publication. It was a little strange, but kind of nice that the only things we had to worry about was that our car looked presentable enough to show and there was enough gas in it to get us to Waterford and back.

PUTNAM, Conn., May 4 — Eighteen members attended the NEMO planning meeting at the Black Dog Bar and Grille in Putnam, CT. We shared the agenda in advance, which included the topic of how the club will communicate with members when British Marque Car Club News ceases publication after the May issue.

There was a cocktail hour until people on the reservation list arrived. A few additional members who were not on the list also showed up. Fortunately, there was plenty of space in the room, and the restaurant had already set extra places.

After lunch, prior to the start of the meeting, Dave and Barbara Newman gave Faith Lamprey and Bruce Vild a huge thanks and a plaque commemorating their years of service in publishing the British Marque. The plaque includes the NEMO logo and the message, “Thank You For 35 Years of the British Marque Car Club News.” This was well deserved, and the message was echoed by many other clubs in the May issue of British Marque.

Next, we moved on to the meeting agenda.

Dave Newman had proposed several of the agenda items, and he led off by asking whether NEMO should host a future Mini Meet East. NEMO ran this event twice in the past, as did Brits of the Hudson with some NEMO support. Mini Meet East requires a huge amount of work, and no one at the meeting expressed an interest in taking it on.

I followed up with the topic of communicating with members after the final NEMO newsletter is published in the Marque. In the fall, I priced out several email services and concluded that ConstantContact was our best alternative. They provide a large variety of message templates that include newsletters and surveys.

A related topic was upgrading the NEMO website. The current site is hosted on the British Marque server, which is on life support. The site was created using old web development tools and cannot be imported as is to a new host. I also researched web hosting services in the fall, and recommend moving to WordPress. It is one of the best-known services and provides a lot of website templates to use as a starting point.

NEMO member Sebastien Geerens told the group he is working on a driving rally with a lunch stop (date to be determined.)

Other topics included the dues structure and amount starting July 1st, and the benefits received by paying members versus non-members who only subscribe to the Google Group or social networking sites. NEMO currently has 53 paying households, some of whom are couples, so the number of individuals is higher. Dave Newman pointed out that there are free MINI clubs that simply have a Facebook page and don’t charge dues.

The question was raised that without British Marque, is there continued value of a paid club? I joined NEMO to meet other classic Mini owners, and for the technical expertise and repair help. There are some very skilled mechanics in NEMO, several of whom work on British cars for a living. I like to check with club experts, not just rely on the myriad of on-line repair information (some of which is wrong.) At the meeting, I spoke with Derick Karabec and Dave Icaza about replacing the rear wheel bearing in my 1968 Mini with a Timkin tapered roller bearing. They both told me not to torque the hub bolt to 60 pounds, even though the Workshop Manual and on-line sites say to do so. Also, I just completed a full brake replacement on my Mini, and was in frequent contact with Dave Black and Iain Barker for advice. Case in point!

We ultimately agreed to keep the $20 annual dues. This will be used to pay for ConstantContact, the new web host, and a consultant to help develop a new website. The newsletter will be sent out via ConstantContact and hopefully will be posted on the existing website until the new site is available. These decisions will be revisited in about six months.

Get involved? How?

Newsletter Editor needed

Meet other Mini/MINI owners! Have fun with photos! Research new events! Publicize events! Earn the club’s eternal gratitude!

After 11 years of serving as the newsletter editor, I am ready to pass along the job. I’m happy to help a new editor get started and will continue to write some articles. Please let me know if you’re interested.

Also needed:

• Authors for newsletter articles

• Additional ConstantContact administrators to write and send messages

• Developer to create/maintain the new website (experience necessary)

• Posting content on the new website

• Planning and running events

Please contact me at dschwartz1957@gmail.com

The Bay State Motor Festival will take place on June 8th, 2025 at Cushing Memorial Park in Framingham, Mass. The Festival will celebrate the history of automobile manufacturing in Massachusetts, as well as showcasing classic and vintage cars from around the world.

NEMO member Ken Lemoine is the executive director of the Festival. He reached out to local British car clubs to welcome them to the event and encourage members to attend with their cars. An area will be set aside for British cars to park together.

Of the seven million cars made in Massachusetts, 4.6 million were made in Framingham at the General Motors plant from 1947 to 1989. Twenty-five hundred cars were built at the Bay State Manufacturing Company in Framingham from 1922 to 1925. Ken owns the last known surviving Bay State sedan, which will be on display at the Festival.

A Made-in-Massachusetts display will feature Springfield-built Rolls-Royces and Indian motorcycles, a Waltham-built Metz, Newton-built Stanley Steamers, Natick-built Northway trucks and others.

Vehicle pre-registration is $25, show-day registration is $30, and spectators are free. Show vehicles can arrive starting at 8 a.m. The show opens to the general public at 9 a.m.

See the event website https://baystatemotorfestival.com for additional information.