Thank You Trevor

 

Not living in the UK anymore I didn’t get to see Trevor as often as I may have wanted. We had lunch last summer and it was wonderful to see him, my expectation was for many more lunches for the coming years. At 72 he was far too young to go and I will miss him tremendously.

Trevor was chairman of the U.K. Chapter of NCRS for the past 26 years. He was so proud of what we achieved over those years, including the 1st Chapter outside of North America, along with the 1st Flight Judging in 1998. Many told us at the time, our 1st judging event was on the scale of a regional. 

Our 1st event in August 1998 at Danesfield House, just outside of London, was attended by many of our U.S. Corvette Friends : Chuck Berge, Janet and Jimmy Blakely, Beverly and Jimmy McCutcheon Jack Humphrey, Jim and Lori Lennartz, Fred and Tara Oliva, Vinnie Peters, Eckhard and Teri Pobuda, Ralph and Sharon Ridge, Mike and Toni Sams, Gary Steffens, 

From Canada : Gary and Nancy Bishop

From Europe : Helmut Veidt, Robert Denyft

I first met Trevor while judging his beautiful 1965 Corvette at the C.C.C.U.K (Classic Corvette Club UK), back in the early 90’s. The chairman at the time, Steve Palmer, knew I had an interest in NCRS so asked if I would help judge at their event. It was more of a superficial judging rather than the specific details outlined in the NCRS Judging Manual. Trevor had restored the car himself, at home, in his garage, except for the paint and the soft-top I think he had his hands on everything else. Trevor’s car scored 200 out of a possible 200 points. It was the start of a friendship that would last 30 years. A few years later the idea to start an overseas Chapter of NCRS came to light and in 1997 the dream came together.

I would like to say at this point that the members of the Rocky Mountain Chapter, specifically Jack Humphrey, have been incredibly supportive since before the Chapter began. The support, help and advice they gave us was incredible.

For our first judging event we shot for the stars, a country house just outside of London, our NCRS friends coming from many different countries. Trevor decided to tear down his beautiful car and do it over again. He took the body off the frame, for a 2nd time and focused on numbers and dates, he re-painted his flawless paint back to the correct shade of blue.

That was Trevor, great attention to detail.

In subsequent years we dialed down our Flight Judging, just a little. We still had an International contingent attend, I’m not sure how many air miles Chuck Berge has earned over the years but it’s a lot. Thank-you Chuck for all your support. We also had Noland Adams and Jim Schefter (All Corvettes are Red) come over in 2000.

In June of 2006 Trevor took us to France, specifically Le Mans for the first time.

In his professional life Trevor was a photographer and film maker. He would tell me of the times he would be hanging out the side of a helicopter over London to get the shot he was looking for. A great creative individual, which showed in everything he did for the UK Chapter.  

Trevor was also the editor for the Chapter newsletter. In the first 15 years, like other Chapters we printed and mailed our newsletter. The biggest expense as a Chapter was the printing and mailing costs of the newsletter. In 1998 our newsletter was 24 pages, which would be considered large today, currently it is 174 pages. Yes, one hundred and seventy four, full color pages. Trevor went digital which set him free. For the moment you can see his last creation on the Chapter website. www.ncrsuk.com, don’t wait, take a look while you still can.