DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Mark and Ian at Arnage, Classic Le Mans 2008.

Sad news, life is short, try to enjoy it while you can. RIP Ian.

Great pic Brendan. Thanks for sharing that.

Yes a great pic Brendan.

I first met Ian around 2008 when I drove home from work and a jeep followed me and parked up behind me. Oh shite i thought - must have miffed this guy off. Anyway he got out and said “Ive got one of those”. I’d seen his car knocking around but didn’t know who he was or where he lived. Within 5 minutes of talking he’d agreed to come along to CLM that year. We really hit it off at CLM and Ian’s culinary skills brought others to our tent for epic breakfasts. That started a long and happy friendship with us sharing tents, rooms, and ferries, (initially just with Ian and later with Ian’s son Jack as well) going to CLM many times, and multiple DDK trips both in the UK and all across Europe - Spa Classic, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Alps, the Dolomites and the Pyrenees. After that initial meeting we later found out that we lived in the next street to each other, had gone to the same school, that our birthdays were a week apart and we’d married our wives within a week of each other. Weird.

We’ve had some epic drives over that time - some of the most memorable being on the way back to CLM - usually ending up in a convoy of 3 and taking the windy back-roads. We’d obviously slow down through the villages and floor it as we left them. I was always amazed how well he kept up when we hit the countryside and he later confirmed that he’d been driving through the villages in 1st at about 4K revs so he was ready to floor it as quickly as he needed to.

One one trip back we were going at quite a speed down a straight road and he suddenly pulled in a stopped, saying it was running funny. Opening the engine lid he found the air filters swimming in petrol! Turns out he’d shoved his phone into the ashtray and hit a self-installed enrichment device (for cold starts) - lucky escape that day.

Also fond memories of ‘borrrowing’ about 30m of CLM bunting as the show was ending. It was Ian who came up with the idea of taking folding bikes to CLM so we could get around more easily. Typical of Ian’s stylish way of doing things he bought a Bickerton folding bikes - a classic English made 1970s death-trap. Jack, Ian and me had a great time bombing around on the bikes at CLM. I’ll really miss that this year.

I can honestly say we never had a cross world between us - even when I drove into the back of his car on one of the euro trips (We both got a re-spray out of that which is when his car changed from yellow to ivory). he was such a gent though I can’t remember him having a cross word with anyone.

I’ll stick some pictures up in a bit - if you’ve got memories of Ian then this would be a nice place to share them

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Lovely words and memories Mark

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sladey wrote: ↑Sat Jun 14, 2025 9:04 pm


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This made me chuckle, Adam grafting, Ian reading his paper

And bumping into Ian, Jack and Jason innRock City. Priceless

Our trips won’t be the same without Ian blasting along with his decklid not closed again

So sad
So many good memories of Ian.
So many trips chasing Ian and Sladey.
Such a nice guy
I sat next to him at breakfast at the Ddk meet last summer
Pleased to have had the time together.
I’ll miss him.

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Very sad. Taken far too soon. MND is a cruel disease. RIP Ian, you were always good to chat with. My thoughts go out to your family.

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- followed some hours later by this discovery :

That was funny… went down to the cars the next morning and Ian couldn’t remember Darren parking that close when we all got on the ferry