Bill Coburn cobbling together the next newsletter

Some years ago I bought a Silver Shadow, it was I thought, a good one and it came from a respectable dealer accompanied by an enormous folder full of "service history", all of it from main agents or accredited specialists. I had taken the advice of the experts and picked a car with the right credentials and should be safe. I wasn't, it proved incredibly expensive to run and had a succession of faults that no one except our local (and excellent) dealers were able to help with. The workshop manual was £300 and was written 20 years before any of my problems occurred and a visit to the "experts" meant a bill for over £1000 a time! I spent days with the manual and a test meter tracing out the wiring, tracking down faulty relays and electrical problems. I learnt the hard way how to fix my hydraulics and when I was stuck I went back to my main agents, paid another thousand and had something else fixed that I could have done myself if only someone somewhere knew something about the car and could have helped me. They couldn't, even the RREC tool-lending scheme finishes at 1939!

Showing his other cheek! - Covered thank God

Everyone knows that those who attend seminars at the Hunt House (RREC HQ in the UK and one of the best facilities in the World) will learn a great deal but it isn't practical for most of us to do that.

I considered this bizarre situation for some time, I found out that 5000 of the RREC's 10,000 + Members had Shadows and guessed that they would be in the same position as me. This is an enormous number of people who might sell their cars and give up on the clubs if they couldn't get help, yet anyone remotely official that I spoke too simply looked bemused. It wasn't until I was moaning to Pat Freeman in the States one day that he suggested I contact Bill Coburn. I did and a few months after I'd sold the Shadow I received a CD with forty something Tee One Newsletters on it - I couldn't believe it, here was everyone of my faults and many more in colour with an appropriate explanation of how to resolve them! I could have kept the bloody thing!

I have no hesitation in saying that in producing these Newsletters at his own expense, Bill Coburn has single handedly not only provided us all with an amazing resource but he's done it before any of the R-R Clubs. And needless to say, only recently is it dawning on some of them just how much of a contribution it is.

Rolls-Royces and Bentleys have evolved over decades, rarely have there been radical changes to the basic design, thus the owner of a 20HP can reasonably adapt to a Cloud if he chooses, but give him a Shadow and he won't have a hope. They are a totally different and infinitely more complex car, they are far more fussy and there are far more of them - something needed to be done and Bill did it. He is an International treasure!