In the last decade, if you’ve affixed a sticker to your rear window for a beloved car club, or witnessed a liveried rally car on the stages, chances are (in Northern Ireland at least), that the vinyl was cut and supplied by Blackwater Graphics.
Clearly very close to the motoring and motorsport community, Andrew Johnston and his team held a barbeque meet at their freshly purpose built premises just outside Comber, in support of suicide awareness charity, Aware NI. Needless to say support for the event reached far and wide, with local competition cars and race cars making an appearance, some to be taken straight to Parc Fermé, along with the car enthusiast community at large.
Blackwater Graphics have come a long way from their spare room roots back in 2007, now with a purpose built workshop and offices with everything from large format printers to embroidery machines, the firm’s nine staff always busy fulfilling orders. Except for this particular evening where we were being served burgers, back tracked by a band and being entertained by the flying club or spectacular magician Rodd Hogg.
Despite the company’s larger site, it was packed out with interesting machinery, Gary McCaroll’s ’86 Fiat Panda (above) on Ravern Hydraulics certainly one of the more unusual highlights along with this olive Green XK.
A total of £1028 was raised for Aware NI. Lets hope we see another event at Blackwater soon.
