UK Cruisers Club history



	THE HISTORY OF UK CRUISERS It all began with Pat Yule (Foxytanith) Let me tell you how it all started… Just like most other would-be owners, it was “love at first sight” when I first saw the concept PT Cruiser. When it was announced that the car would be produced and available to Europe, there was no stopping me. A deposit was left with the dealer in November 1999. I then drove him mad for the next eight months until my black Cruiser arrived on July 14, 2000. Around March 2000, while chewing off my fingernails waiting for the “big event', I discovered the American PT Cruiser Club on the Internet and joined. I had so much support from the many friends I made there – many of whom were also waiting to take delivery of their Cruisers – that it made me think about something for the waiting Brits. The problem was that I was the only Brit visiting the U.S. chat room at this point. Then up popped Steve “Ginger” Farrant. My first step was to start a free PT Cruiser forum on Yahoo. Towards the end of 2000, the board had about 40 members. There were about 1,000 PTs now cruising the UK and four of us owners decided to meet up. We then decided that it was time for a proper club to be inaugurated and we set to work discussing ideas about the best way forward to achieve this. Between us we discovered that we had all the skills we needed. In January 2001, UK Cruisers was born. We started with four members and we now have over 350. Membership ranges in age from about 19 up to 80 with the average age being around 40. We even have 4 American PT owners. Our first real meeting was in May 2001 when the N.A.S.C (National Association of Street Clubs), a UK hot Rod organization, kindly invited us to attend their Spring Nationals. We had about 10 cruisers attend and even managed to sign up some new members and our numbers grew to 35. We then attended an American Automobile event as guests of the British Mopar Club on a cold and damp day in June. We had about 15 cruisers there and caused quite a stir! Chrysler UK presented a drag racing day in July 2001 at Santa Pod where we were kindly allowed to have a club display. The managing director of Chrysler UK, Simon Elliot, judged the “best turned-out PT competition” and presented the winner (Steve) with a voucher for £150 and a beautiful trophy. In the future, this award will be known as the “Chrysler Trophy” and used each year at our annual event. 2002 was MASSIVE for the club, to date we had held 24 PT Events all over the country (from Glasgow to Chichester!), a trip to France and Belgium for the European PT Rally and had many more to come. There was something going on almost every weekend! Our largest PT gathering of the year was in August 2002 in Northampton, where there were over 120 PT Cruisers in attendance over the weekend of our annual PT Picnic in the Park! The events for 2003 were well underway with the PT Cruiser Clinic held in March with over 50 PT Cruisers in attendance at Myltons Chrysler in Bedford. The annual ‘Picnic in the Park’ event saw another increase in numbers. In 2004, 2005 and 2006 the membership grew, along with the attendance at the respective PITP events. A crew of Area Reps and Club Organisers were put into place to help with the evergrowing membership base. In April of 2007, we saw 76 cruisers attend an organised meet at Cadbury World, in the West Midlands. This was the biggest gathering of PTs for a one day event to date - can it be beaten in 2008? PITP for 2007 boasted over 250 cruisers throughout the course of the weekend, and from this year's feedback, 2008 promises to be bigger and even better. As we are coming to the end of 2007, the UK Cruisers club has over 750 registered members, and a full compliment of Reps and Organisers to help the club continue to grow from strength to strength. The events calendar this year was extremely full, with a wide variety of meets spanning the UK. Most weekends a meet or two can be found to cover most people’s interests. Each year there is also at least one journey to Europe and cruises to areas around the UK, with a full schedule of organised attractions on offer. You can get more information by viewing our forum for up-to-date information. You can also find out up-to-date details of what's going on from our calendar of events. Friendships are being forged, technical knowledge is exchanged and all the other good things that come from a member's club are happening. New members are arriving to the club daily. If you would like more information about UK Cruisers, peruse this web site or contact Steelcruisers by phone on 020 8335 3430 or by email at membership@ukcruisers.net

UK CRUISERS - PEOPLE PASSIONATE ABOUT THEIR PTs

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Any opinions expressed on this site are not necessarily those of Chrysler LLC. Copyright UK Cruisers 2008