It appears that the proactive moves of the TRR forum supporters/activists has resulted in a TRR vote to maintain the TRR forum being open to all and the moderators taking up a greater role.    the question of the near 50% increase in membership fees was withdrawn  to have a stand alone vote at a later date once the club has shared - properly the reasoning and implications- that was presented to those able to attend the meeting.    very much a happy result. 

Bath?

We have changed our Golf to latest Golf 8.5 GTE Hybrid, This is our third GTE, the first did about 15 miles on battery, the second about 20~30 depending on the weather and this one will do 60 miles, which cover 80% of the journey we do. This one has  a 1.5L engine instead of the previous 1.4L. Its has 268bhp + the battery and motor and ~6.5 second 0-60mph, wish I could get that from my Triumph 1500 engine...  Had it for a about 10 days, not a happy experience picking it up as it took over 2 hours to hand the car to us. Arranged to pick up the car at 4pm, salesman not ready, his portable PC battery was flat, plugged in and started  a Windows update, hadn't got the paperwork sorted and then finally  one of the keys was faulty. Over 2 hours to pickup a car, terrible main dealer service...... But I did  enjoy filling in the VW customer experience feedback form...   The car is very very nice, very very fast, comfortable and refined, sunroof, leather and memory seats, good battery range (which is what we wanted) and everything is all slightly better than the previous version. But tax is horrendous as its new price was over 40k so you pay an extra charge for the first 4 years...... BTW if you have a large engine old car the yearly car tax has changed from April and will become very expensive   Lots of software changes, a bit like MS Windows update stuff moves around for no obvious reasons.... For some reason they have removed the facility to set the time when it is  charging so at the moment I cant charge it on cheap overnight electricity. Very very stupid. But last week the alarm went off at 11PM and the the car was dead not responding to the key or anything. Contacted VW warranty and the got a man out the next day. He said "have you had it plugged in to recharge", "Yes", "ok thats the problem". If you plug the car in and its not charging, then the car does not go to sleep and drains the very small 12V battery until its flat and then you cant use the car......   A known problem that the dealer or VW  does not tell you about when you buy it! Hoping for a software update that has been promised for Q1, but I think this is the way of modern cars, so much software and complex systems. Interesting to compare it to my Herald made in 1968 and still very useable, no way  will this car still be around in 60 year, the hardware will not be supported and most of the LCD displays will have failed and the software will not be supported.... mike.

Mike , I certainly will tell DVLA of change of engine from 1600 to 2000 . I will also tell my insurance about engine change and other general mods . interesting that you might well have been caught out . Hamish , of course you are right but does not stop it being tempting . 

£3800 is cheap but a bit much for a “what if” project 

just treat them as fairly good ordinary Chinese cars and try not to think of them as MG's. Friend has a electric MG and its very good...

I recently  realised that I had not changed my documents to reflect that I had changed the engine from 1300 to 1500 in my Herald (about 6 years ago). I had told the insurance but not updated the DVLA V5 docs. Ok if you didn't know you could not tell from the look of the engine.... I just send the DLVA V5 docs  with a revised  engine size (1300 to 1500) and got the new paperwork back in a couple of weeks with the new engine size recorded. With the DVLA its always best not to give too much info..... BTW I also realised I had recorded the Herald and our campervan in my name as  Mike Barrett, but my real name as on my passport and driving licence is Michael Barrett. I hadn't realised until talking to someone who had problems with the police and names so I am now careful to make sure everything is in my real name (Michael) not the nickname that I always use (Mike). cheers Mike (or Michael..).  

Could be a car , could be a hydrofoil , could be a plane ?

Very tempting new Formula Renault carbon monocoque going very cheap on EBay . One has to think about future projects .  RIGHT ???

Can believe that, I read each update two or three times to understand what's going on! Keep at it Colin, we're all watching with bated breath. Incredibly impressive work