I arrived at the Hanover Hotel, in my wife's VW Golf, at around five thirty, checked into my room and freshened up in readiness for an assault on the bar where I expected to find most of our members.

Sure enough the bar was half full of members, but as thirsty as I was, I had a small job to do. Scot, a Ghibli Cup owner and Maserati enthusiast, had lent me a very rare book and I was happy to return it. With Scot were Andy Heywood and Kerry McMullen, the Head of MIE, who was Andy's guest and had been invited by the club to be one of the judges at the concours.

We shared the odd drink, Kerry seemed to enjoy a pint of Boddingtons, and chatted till it was time to attend the club's AGM. Following the AGM, members enjoyed a wholesome buffet dinner in an area of the hotel's Brasserie specially reserved for the club. After dinner we returned to the bar, where much to my annoyance they had run out of Campari. However, all was not entirely lost as I found an acceptable replacement in their ten-year-old malt and was able to continue our Maserati talk until the early hours.

After a traditional English breakfast; perhaps I should add substantial to that, we were off on the short drive to Stanford Hall. Our group was among the first to arrive and having paid the modest GB £7.00 entrance fee I followed the Maseratis, and while they parked in a reserved area, I 'hid' my wife's Golf behind the Graypaul marquee.

David Thomas was setting up his bookstall and I noticed he was selling the latest issue of the Maserati: Catalogue Raisonné at the special 'give-away' price of only GB £49.99, reduced from the original asking price of GB £129.99. As I already have a copy of the earlier version, I had decided not to pay £129.99 for this latest version in what amounted to just one additional chapter. But at £49.99 it was a steal and well worth it! I immediately phoned my friend Marcello Candini in Italy to ask if he wanted a copy at this very low price, needless to say he said yes! He can't get it that cheap over there!

I understand that David Thomas Books still have copies available!!!

I wandered around taking the odd photo as the cars began to arrive. It was then that I spotted Richard and Jarle. Jarle had come over from Norway to attend the concours and being a regular contributor to our pages it was great to finally meet him. It was then that we heard the roar of a car being 'fired up'. It was of course Anthony Hartley's superb recreation of Maserati's fabulous 16 cylinder Tipo V4. We rushed over to see this magnificent work of art for no other words can describe it, it's quite magnificent! Mr Hartley has spent the last eight to ten years with the project and estimates he has spent in excess of 12,000 hours working on it. Just think, he has made every nut and bolt on this car working from factory drawings. You could almost say that this car was made in the same manner as the original.

It was now time for lunch so we set off to the Graypaul marquee for the traditional club barbeque. Chicken, steak, sausages, burgers and all kinds of salads were laid out before us and we came away with our plates suitably filled. Now I'm not one to complain and I'm not saying that the steak was tough, but it did help when the other diners held the table when I cut my steak!!!

After lunch I went over to the Graypaul stand and had another good look at the new Quattroporte. Graypaul had also brought along the new Coupe and Spyder. The rest of the afternoon was spent taking photographs and meeting old friends. It was great to see so many of you there! A final count established that 96 cars attended the concours, I'm pretty sure the numbers were up on last year, it certainly looked like it.

Finally a word about concours winner Norman and his Indy. Norman came all the way from Scotland to attend the concours and only bought the car a coupe of weeks ago. He has been a Maserati enthusiast fro a while now but wanted to buy 'the right car'. Well he certainly did that, congratulations Norman!