Sweet & Sour (part 1)

Over the weekend of 8th to the 10th of November 2019 I was asked to join the other twenty finalists for the Pride Of Ownership awards in the centre of hall three. I was thrilled to be a part of the show. This show certainly hit the sweet spot for me – Part 1.

During my time there I had a great time and spoke to many fantastic people and lost my voice as a result. Some might say that is good thing though! I even let a could of people sit in my car.

The show attracted over 3000 cars, some on show & some for sale, all of which made for a spectacular show. I took around 400 photos way to many to put on my little ol’ blog so I decided to split the weekend event into two sections. As the title suggests a fantastic time was had by all and i totally enjoyed my time there and a wonderful experience I doubt could be bettered. However – it was badly tainted with a nasty twist and sting in the tail, I will explain all of that in part two in greater detail.

I will start with the events up to the opening. All entrants for the show needed to arrive on Thursday 7th from 10am onwards up until 8pm when the building was secured for the night. I set off from home just after 7am in the rain. Yep I got the car out and it rained. I didn’t stop raining ALL the way to Birmingham all be it in various intensities I should say. I eventually arrived at ten past ten a little over three hours later. There was a couple of us early birds, promptly followed by a few more a short while later. The organisers directed us to the parking positions on the stand, well a bit of carpet actually. This is view of the hall before it started to take shape, a few behind the scenes as it were. There was a long que to get us into the correct area locations.

I started cleaning from 10:15am until 7:45pm when the place was being shut down and us stragglers who were there got turfed out for the night – I was still cleaning at that point.

The car was the dirtiest it has ever been. Chrome looked like faded aluminium and the paint a shade of grey dirtier.

Some other cars arriving as I was cleaning, these guys took it super serious with ramps and all sorts with mirrors under the car, some even trailered in with plastic wraps on the wheels.

I decided to waterless wash the car twice very carefully, then i wanted to strip the old wax off and start again. That was done by 70/30% mix of isopropyl alcohol and water. With that done I could then start to add a couple of layers of clean wax to build it up again. I took my pre packed case that I thought I would need- I needed it all.

With the car pretty much where I wanted it to be I could cover it for the night and start early in the morning for the interior and finish the wheels.

Early on in the morning there was out info sheet that was to be put into the stand next to the cars, this was mine.

 Here was the stand ready for the press and some public at 9am on the Friday morning. The Ferrari wasn’t completed as it turned up, but a few guys worked wonders on it ready for the show. then carried on with the work after the show, each day the parts boxes getting less and less.

At 7.45 we were not allowed in even a few minutes early as exhibitors, mainly down to ‘jobs worth’ security guards. So a few of us sat here looking at this for quarter of an hour.

Early and late evening I could wander around and take a few pictures without people in the way. So in no particular order because I can’t remember here are a number of pics.

So real nice old timers.

 

Something different, not everyday you get run over by a tank!

Once the day got busy I hardly left the stand. The other exhibitors were great looking after each others cars (except for a couple of owners).

The car got plenty of attention throught the day and weekend and was non stop.

So what got me so fired up? Read the next post and find out, it’s not pretty reading!

Part two will be at 2pm tomorrow!