An association of drivers
The cars are the excuse. The society is the point.
Monthly meets, canyon drives and one very serious track day - vetted members, named guests, and nobody queueing at the gate.
Joining
How it works
Step one
Apply with your car
Who you are, how to reach you, where you are, the car and why you want to join, plus a photo of you and a photo of the car. About ten minutes. Both photographs stay private to the society.
Step two
The society decides together
The committee reads every application first. If they are happy with yours it goes to the whole membership, who vote on it. You will hear back either way.
Step three
Dues, then drive
The society settles your monthly dues with you directly, and you can book the next meet as soon as they are arranged.
Discretion
What we don’t publish
Nothing about the membership is published. Not who they are, not what they drive, not the places the society meets, and not when. The register, the garage, the calendar and the boards exist behind the login and nowhere else. Guests attend as the named guest of a member, and hold no account here.
This is not secrecy for its own sake. It is the ordinary courtesy of not putting somebody’s car, their address and their movements on the open internet - and it is the first thing every member is owed.
Admission
Meets and events are private
The society meets once a month and runs other events through the year. All of them are private. Admission is limited to members and to guests a member has named in advance, names are settled before the day, and nobody is added at the gate.
Law enforcement officers are present at our events. Anyone at a society meet, event or activity who is not a member or a named guest will be asked to leave, removed, and served a trespass notice.
The name
Why eighteen eighty-six
On 29 January 1886, Carl Benz filed patent no. 37435 with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin - Fahrzeug mit Gasmotorenbetrieb, a vehicle with gas engine operation. It was granted that November and backdated to the day he filed.
Three wheels, a tubular steel frame, one horizontal cylinder making well under a horsepower. What made it the first motor car was not the engine but the intent: it was designed from the frame up around one, rather than being a carriage with an engine bolted on.
Everything parked on the grass at our meets descends from that one document - the restorations, the track cars, the estate nobody can justify. We took the year as our name because it is the only thing every member has in common.
Deutsches Reichspatent No. 37435 · Kaiserliches Patentamt, Berlin · Inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register, 2011