Yorkshire Military Vehicle Trust Crank Up - April 16th

It was a big day and an early start for "Jessie" and I this morning. April 16th was the Yorkshire MVT Crank Up event and also an anniversary drive for "Jessie the Jeep". It was 18 years ago today that Lynne and I drove to Scotland to collect an ex-French Army Hotchkiss M201, that would go on to become known as "Jessie the Jeep". My alarm went off at 7am and I was on the road just before 8am for the long drive south to the Tadcaster/A64 sliproad. This was the meeting location for the vehicles that would then convoy in to the centre of York. If I was running late, I was going to head straight into the city, but I got to the York ring road with enough time to make it to the convoy start. The first few pictures are from my trip and the gathering for the start of the convoy.
We left Tadcaster just after 10:30, although the convoy was split into a few smaller groups as we tried to get out of the sliproad. It was a ten mile run in to the city centre and upon arrival, we were directed onto the green, to park up in front of the castle.
There were around 46 vehicles that attended the Crank Up. There was a good variety of WW2 and Post War, large and small, with Jeeps probably being most numerable, followed by Land Rovers.
Around noon, I took the long steep climb up the steps to the castle to get  photo of the gathering from above. Apart from a couple of motorbikes, I think pretty much all the vehicles can be seen in this photo.
There were a few guys from the North East, who are based about 20 miles south of me, who also made the trip to York in their own convoy. They had come down on the much faster A19 dual carriageway route. They were heading home the same way, but for the first 23 miles north out of York, it was a slower two lane road, so I followed them until they turned off to the dual carriageway. From there, I followed my original route, via the slower roads and country lanes. It ended up being a 166 mile round trip, using about 3/4 of a tank of fuel.

Home