ART DECO SHOWROOM LAUNCH SEPTEMBER 2016

The year 2016 marked a very special time in the Rutter history book; the 40 year anniversary of the business. Quite an occasion to mark when you think it all started in Melvyn’s late mother’s home in Wanstead, with Morgan parts and spares stacked up high in the hallway with his office in the family dining room.

As part of the ever growing building programme here in February 2016 an extension started on the front of the premises to turn the current 3 car showroom into a luxurious, Art Deco inspired, 8 car showroom. The party coincided nicely and became a double celebration for the anniversary and to launch the new building.

On Saturday 10th September 2016 the ribbon was in place and ready to be cut with over 220 of our loyal customers and great friends we’ve met along the way of being in the Morgan world. Inspired by the Art Deco showroom, we had an optional dress code of period dress and it was fantastic to see the outfits people arrived in. There were 1920’s flapper dresses and gangsters, army pilots, partygoers in Morgan overalls and many more. To add a little fun to the fancy dress theme we had a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prize for ‘best dressed’ with the prizes being 1 night in the PitStop, to hire a Morgan for the day and two tickets for a tour at the Morgan Motor company.

Once you’ve traded for 40 years and decide to have a party one band isn’t enough, so we had live music from two fantastic bands; ‘Around the block’ – who are quite literally just around the block from us, only 3 miles away in the town of Sawbridgeworth. And ‘The Heritage Boys’ who are Morgan owners from Harrogate. There was even a solo from Melvyn of his favourite Rolling Stones song ‘Start Me up’.

The building was officially opened by Steve Morris the managing director of the Morgan Motor Company. He started out at the Morgan factory at just 16 years old as an apprentice in the sheet metal shop. Melvyn and him have been friends for 36 years so we couldn’t have anybody else do the honours. After the ribbon cutting ceremony and a few speeches we moved on to the auction of 3 framed Morgan paintings. Proceeds of the auction went to the Essex Air Ambulance and we had collection buckets dotted around the showroom for the party. We were excited to write a cheque for just over £1100 and have continued to work with this charity since donating what we can.

It was a fantastic day had by all and even the very English weather couldn’t dampen our spirits for such a monumental occasion.

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