Day 1 at the 190Sl International Group Texas convention - Concours

We drove the 250 mile trip down to Fredericksburg with only 168 miles on the clock since the completion of the rebuild with Steve in the 280SL and Will in the team support truck plus Sean Parker in his (by UK standards) Monster truck.
No problems with the car other than a minor carb adjustment by Sean which had it running even better. 50mph winds made the first drive rather eventful and as they subsided we lowered the top and pressed on to the hotel with big smiles on our faces.
The following day (day1 of the Convention) we were up relatively early and after a good Texan breakfast were cleaning the car in readiness for the Concours.  She attracted many great comments, particularly around the Dark Blue colour which many thought was black until the sun shone on the car.
Judging came around and a panels of experts came to inspect individual elements of the car.  The end outcome was that the car won the Best car in the Concours and was awarded the only Gold Class award as well.  Quite an achievement for Team Samples who are now to be known as Gold class Team Samples!  A great achievement for the car, the first time it has been on a major trip in about 15 years.
Huge thanks to Will Samples, Steve Ady, Steve Crowley, Sean Parker, Manuel and all others who put such hard effort into rebuilding the car to such a high standard.  A huge thanks to Will for all his friendship and support over the last 10 years, for allowing me to come and camp out at his Ranch for days at a time each year and work on and learn about the car.  You have been a star and a real friend.

Here are shots of some of the other fantastic cars at the convention.