Two men, Philip Scott and Rory Stokes, run a garage in Beaulieu. Nothing special about that, you say. True but they sell exotic classic cars and have been doing so for many years. There aren't many garages where you will find Jaguars, Triumphs, MGs, Rolls Royces, Aston Martins and Ferraris rubbing shoulders for instance. Still, that doesn't set them apart, I think. What does is their great sense of humor!
Beaulieu is a popular place with holiday makers who also love classic cars, courtesy of the nearby Beaulieu Motoring Museum. Undoubtedly quite a few visit Beaulieu Garage as well. From a business point of view that is all good of course. Until you find out of control kids running around in your showroom housing priceless classics, or dangling cameras hitting carefully preserved original paintwork. As you can imagine quite a few of those people are time-wasters rather than potential clients.
Having no doubt suffered a serious amount of damage they put up the sign you see on the left. Reading between the lines, these two must have had a lot of damage over the years. Click on the photo to enlarge. Unlike what they wrote on the sign, they aren't grumpy old men. They have a sense of humour! A great sense of humour. They just can't be bothered anymore with people that don't appreciate the cars they have anyway. Fair enough too.
They noticed our license plates and came out for a chat. Genuinely interested in our trip and keen motorists themselves they showed us some photos of where they have been in Morocco (which was quite different than what I've seen about Morocco so far!) We talked bikes and cars of course and not before long the subject came to Sammy Miller and the Beaulieu Motor Museum. Before we knew it they presented us with free entries for the Beaulieu Motor Museum! So guess what the next post is about :-) All in all we spend more than an hour looking at cars I had until then only seen in magazines. We left the cameras and bulky bike gear at the door of course :-)
Beaulieu garage can also be found on the web: http://www.beaulieugarage.co.uk
