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 About us
A history lesson...
In June 1999, I purchased a bright red 1993 Mk2 N/A GTO. I
had no idea what it was, I saw it on a dealer's forecourt in Basingstoke and
just fell in love with it. It was all my mate Lee's fault. He'd taken me to a
place called Japatrans down in Dorking one day and, although I didn't realise
it at the time, I had spotted a red Mk1 GTO and taken a shine to it. However,
at £18K they wanted far too much for it, so I walked away and thought no
more about it. Until I saw this Mk2 that is!
I was very surprised when I did a search on the net and
couldn't find any owners clubs. The air conditioning had packed up and I
desperately wanted to speak to other owners about the best place to get parts.
Sure there was 3si.org, but
everyone there was based in the US, so they weren't likely to know where in the
UK I could get a new aircon compressor. I started to post on the forums at
3si.org anyhow, but found there were very few UK people posting and it all
seemed to be very US centric. I kept searching the net and slowly started
stumbling upon the odd UK based web site. One of the earliest was Simon Jones,
who had a lovely looking Blue mk2 GTO (his site is no longer up unfortunately).
Eventually, I took a few photo's of my GTO and threw up a
very simple web page with some pics and a bit of blurb. On that page I also
posted my e-mail address and invited other owners to contact me.
Not long after, I started to get a steady stream of e-mails
and started building a network of GTO owners. I'd met the odd person down at
Hallmarks in Thatcham (now defunct) but in June 2000 I arranged the first
proper GTO meeting. At that first meeting 9 GTO's showed up! I was gobsmacked!
I took some photo's and threw up a web page (still available
here).
After that, the e-mails went into overdrive, so I set up a
basic forum using a service called Coolboard. One of the guys at that first
meeting was Andy Dodd, who turned out to be a web developer. I managed to get
some web space from 3si.org (we became uk.3si.org), Andy knocked up a web site
(including the original "flames" logo) and off we went! GTOUK was in
business!
The next main event was JAE 2000. We were only there for the
Sunday afternoon, but Andy and I managed to get 13 GTO's to show up. Not a bad
start to what has become an annual institution.
I then met Ewan Kingham, who was extremely keen to get
involved. Over a period of time I got to know Ewan very well, and Andy, Ewan
and myself would occasionally meet and discuss ideas for a club. We even had a
session at Santa Pod (event report still available
here).
I met Ewan down at Eurospec one day and went for a beer
where we laid the foundations for a properly run club with a committee and
everything. We both agreed that to progress things we needed to start a
membership scheme, which would involve money, hence the need for a committee
and a treasurer to deal with it all. All we needed was someone to deal with the
finances.
About this time, a persistent little bugger who went by the
name of Simon Baker started e-mailing me wanting to meet up. I eventually met
him at Cheively Services on the way up to Santa Pod (event report
here). He thought we were a disorganised rabble and needed
shaking up a bit, but he volunteered to do the finances, which was a big
relief.
Finally the club consistitution was ratified at
JAPS 2001
and we started to collect membership fees by offering a "gold" membership
system.
The web site went from strength to strength and when
Coolboard (which was free) was eventually withdrawn from service, we moved to
another free forum called Aimoo. That became really popular, and we had to
start paying to use it, but we had money in the kitty now so it wasn't a
problem.
Some of the earliest members to help out with the running of
the club were Pete Draper, Mark Sturman and Kev Hodgson (thanks guys, without
you this club would have been a non-starter). Others have long since moved on
to pastures new (Ewan and Gazza for instance), while newer members have joined
the club and have been elected on to the committee (such as Brendan, Dave, Rob
and Ian).
Today, we have thousands of people using the forums,
hundreds of paid up members, and a wealth of knowledge that was unimaginable
just a few short years ago. We've had people driving across Europe in their
cars, we've had people attending Le Mans, we've got meets happening all over
the country, we've shipped over rare parts from the US, we've got one of the
best kitted out stands at the annual shows, we've had cars featured on TV and
in magazines, hell we've even helped Mitsubishi themselves find parts!
With AGM's every year, our annual attendance at JAE and
Japfest and various regional meets being organised, there is always a chance
you too can get involved with the running of this fantastic club. I am very
proud of what it has become and have made some great new friends. I hope you do
too!
Paul Roberts
GTOUK President
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