Great Day Not So Great Cars

For a change I attended a car show on a Saturday and not a Sunday, which was quite a novel change. The show was called ‘Fast & Loud’ to be held in the West Suffolk College car parks, located within the town of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

I had been to this show once before a few years ago and it was damp and drizzling with rain on and off throughout the day. This time at the same venue, the sun was out and all was good to go, except that my alarm didn’t go off. The only reason I woke up was because my little dog decided that he wanted to go out, so he pawed my face to wake up. I checked the time and although I was late, it was only half hour or so behind my normal leaving time schedule. I skipped breakfast to save some time and got the car out the garage as quick as possible, jumped in the car for the short nine mile drive.

The show officially started at ten and I had thirty minutes to get there. Fearing the worst, I got a bit of pace on, opened the four barrel carb to chew my way through more fuel than I normally do. I needn’t have worried as everybody was pretty much in the show and parked up for the public to view. I just drove up to the barriers and drove in, not having to wait in the usual queue carnage for this show. (It was a bad queue again so I was told a couple of hours earlier.)

The Bury Retro Car Club was near the entrance as I drove in. But for the second show in a row they didn’t get all the spaces they were allocated, so a few of us were scattered around the car park a bit. I got lucky and managed to park opposite the club line up where there was a single space next to a GT40. Unfortunately the GT40 wasn’t a real one, this one was constructed in 1973 and the owner has raced it quite a few times. He even crashed it quite heavily a couple of years on a track and needed the front and rear rebuilding.

I worked my way round the car park taking pictures of the cars that interested me in amongst the two or three year old daily run around cars.

There was a rare new gen Mustang Mach1 in the UK on show owned by a good friend of mine.

Then almost next to it was a car that I had on my bedroom wall as kid, It’s still one of my favourite super cars, the Lambo Diablo.

As I was wandering around at the far end of the car park a car arrived a bit late which was very similar to mine. The father and son spent some time with me a little later asking some great questions. The colour was a very similar colour to mine, but a little darker than mine I think. It would have been good to have seen them side by side for a comparison.

There was a motorsport department within the college and they had their projects out on show for us.

One of my favourite modern cars was also on show which was not so subtle, but it’s quick and more than able to back up the looks.

There was a distinct split in this show, there was the usual classic cars and interesting cars which I naturally gravitate towards. Then there’s my idea of hell, it was the Ford Focus, Vauxhall Corsa and BMW brigade who had big exhausts and even louder sound systems. The sort of cars that you can see in any Tesco’s or Walmart car parks. to be honest. There was nothing particularly special about them in my mind, but I could see some had money spent on them. However, they are somebody’s pride and joy and not for me to judge their taste in cars. The event was called ‘Fast & Loud’ so pretty much all types of vehicles was welcome. Some were loud, some are indeed fast, but most this side were neither. The show had a few people starting up their cars and trying to see if they could push pistons out of the hood from a cold start, or pumping out some bass lines. Not my bag to be honest and I doubt I will attend this show again. I think I must be getting old and should be a little more tolerant I guess.

To finish up a couple more of my entry to the show, the first one was taken by somebody else who tagged me on the dreaded F**ebook.

What will the next show have in store for me? All I can hope for is that the sun holds out for the next show too. But, it’s been a great start to the show season so far with two sunny days.

What do you think of the very standard modern cars at these shows? Controversial comment: in my opinion, if I wanted to see those sort of cars I could hang out superstore car park.