Club History

Sometime in 1991 three friends, Andy Hopkins, Kevin Chuck and Geoff Sims were talking classic cars in their local pub, one of them had noticed that an Andy Smallbone from Basingstoke had asked a question in ‘Practical Classics’ and an idea was hatched that if they could find Andy the four of them might form a Classic Car Club. They looked through the local telephone directory looking for A. Smallbone  there weren’t very many and Andy was soon contacted and agreed to meet the others. Things went well and they formed The Basingstoke Classic Car Club.

The first meetings were held in The Beacon Pub, South Ham.  At that time Andy was working as a painter and decorator at the Met. Office in Bracknell where he met electrician Trevor Sibley and realising they had a common interest he invited Trevor along and so Trevor joined the club and then brought along his friend Bob Topliss.

The club soon grew to about 10 - 15 members and the pub became too small, so they moved to Hook Cricket Club’s Pavilion in about 1992. They got someone to open the bar for them on club nights and in return Andy redecorated the pavilion from top to bottom free of charge!

Over the next year or so the membership grew, Colin Stretton, Alf Wagner and Trevor Burrows had joined by this time and Trevor being a postman gained the use of the Post Office Club for their meetings, as the Cricket Pavilion was less than ideal at times.  The P.O. Club proved to be an ideal venue for meetings with plenty of room for the growing membership.  Big Trev counted over 70 people at one meeting there!  The club continued to meet there for about 8–9 years until due to circumstances beyond the club’s control we had to find alternative accommodation.

A temporary home was found in the skittle alley of the White Heart at Sherfield-on-Loddon. This was not ideal but beggars can’t be choosers and we were there for a few months.  Our next move was to the newly opened Milestones Museum where we used the café area overlooking the museum, a fascinating meeting place for 1-2 years.

Next we moved to Sainsbury’s Griffin Social Club for a few months but this too was not ideal because we had to share with Sainsbury’s employees as we had no designated room.  From here we moved to the Moose Hall courtesy of Ted where we remain to this day.

The Club has helped out with the marshalling of cars for many years at the Basingstoke Festival of Transport where Bob Topliss was legendary for his informative commentaries.

The Club also organises the Classic Vehicle involvement at the Popham Aero/Autojumble & Classic Vehicle Rally & Fly-in and The Hartley Wintney Show each year.