The BritishV8 Pub

BritishV8’s message board has been operational since October 17, 2007. In those 16 years, we’ve hardly experienced any downtime at all… until this week.

This week, users have been unable to create new threads or messages.

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BIG NEWS for those of us who use this message board, and apologies up front to Curtis, I was going to run this post past him before I put it up, but I don't think there's anything in here he'd be offended by and it does contain a fair bit of news so it should be welcome.

Since much of the recent excitement some of you might have become aware of was at the instigation of yours truly, I suspect maybe more than one denizen of the Deviants will want to know just WTF, over? More than a few changes all around us and we as individuals need to get a handle on it, like yesterday you know? 'What's this I hear about...' etc.

Well yes we did sort of upset the apple cart in some respects but it was all for a good cause and I'm sure you will mostly agree once the dust settles. As we all know this site has Historical Significance, at least for a certain subset of car enthusiasts. (I'm really starting to like that 'certain subset' business:-) Regardless our heartfelt thanks go out to those who made it all possible. Kurt Schley the giant with the vision to see what it might become, the guys who looked after the Newsletter for awhile when Kurt could no longer continue, and Curtis who had the longest running Stewardship and made some very good improvements. Now comes the day when those Denizens take matters into their own very capable hands. We are a band of Doers, willing to tolerate a certain level of talk but only for so long before action has to be taken. We've all proven that in our own lives. Those who will tread that uncommon path do not shirk when action is called for.

So anyway we sold the MG-Roadmaster. A tree fell on it and we took the insurance settlement and sold the car. Not what we expected but I think we made the most of it, considering the Roadmaster campaign had achieved its goals and active participation was on the decline. After all was said and done insurance proceeds were about $18K and we kept the car under a Salvage title. We then sold that to Jacob Tayrien (pronounced vega-Tarian) and hope to hear more of him. That brought us to around $20K after adding that to our balance of around 2 grand and paying off the other deal.

Speaking of which, I've been talking to Curtis and we agreed on a lot of things including bringing the website into the ownership and control of our own favorite charitable organization, the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society (or BADASS for short). Now this is guaranteed to please a lot of people and those not so well pleased are as always more than welcome here in spite of their intransigence. May they become true believers in the end. The deal was as fair as we could make it all the way around and Curtis will be available when needed as an advisor, we more than welcome his input at any time and for any reason, recognizing that his disposable time is on a tight budget.

So we have taken a couple of sharp right turns, but hopefully we know what we are doing.

Now before this could even get off the ground we had to make some other changes. I can hear questions about this and that detail including, "You Did WHAT? Who authorized THAT?" so be cool, and think mellow thoughts, it's all good. There was a good bit of back room maneuvering going on for some time now. The first thing we did was get group approval at Townsend last year to move forward, and at Long Island we called a BADASS meeting with four agenda items, and I think we proceeded in accordance with all expected diligence.

First we changed the focus of the organization's mission statement from maintaining and campaigning the MGB-Roadmaster to the new mission to acquire and operate the BritishV8 website.
The next item was to sell the salvaged car to Jacob at the agreed price.
Third item was to approve the acquisition of the website in accordance with the mission statement, the background work of which had already been done.
And finally, we held officer elections with the results being Carl Floyd at the helm, Al Moore as his co-pilot (yeah, mixing metaphors but it's valid) and Mike Moore as Treasurer, each and every one of them with all the authority and responsibilities such offices represent. We felt as a group that the three of them give us the highest potential for good and interesting progress into the future that will benefit us all. As we know calls for officer elections are infrequent in the organization but it is the right of any member in good standing to lobby for such actions. We felt our new leaders are well positioned for whatever length of term they are willing to serve and it's my request to you all that we let them do the job as they see fit and not burden them with spurious demands. (You all see what I did there, right? I had to get the Spurious in there somehow, even though it is a separate organization.) Subsequent to wrapping up the Long Island meet, the car and title have been delivered to Jacob in Arizona and our team is involved in the process of transitioning the website with the least disruption. Have patience with them if there is a hiccup here and there. We've recently become comfortable with Carl as an acting administrator and now he has full authority to deal with any issues that come up and Al has the experience and know-how to back him up and make recommendations. Mike of course is well known to many of us and a trusted brother. I see good things ahead, let's do our utmost to support them in this new mission. Pledges of support are appropriate of course if you feel so inclined. Perhaps someone can add a link for Mike on that one. In the meantime I exhort you all to make use of the website just like in the old days, post your threads, and be active participants. We're rolling it back to it's glory days and then charging ahead. Give the crew time to get a few things in shape, but we hope to soon see changes like updated HIWD postings and whatever else Carl has in mind. I want to specifically thank you guys, and let us know if there is anything we can do to help. But more than anything else, PARTICIPATE and encourage participation in others. This is the ONLY member owned forum devoted to performance enhancements of ALL British cars and particularly those which have been given transplants of various types as well as the proper locus for meet notifications, reports and information. Let's make it our own and give it the participation we all deserve.

What did I forget? I'm sure there's something.

Jim Blackwood, founding President and former VP
British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2025 11:54AM by BlownMGB-V8.

Awesome News !!
Well said Jim