Stonham Barns Classic Car Show 2023 (part 3)

The start of this post was the walk back towards my car which will take in the centre arena which only had a dozen or so cars in it. I was now at the far end of the field and there was a few military vehicles on show.

The cars in the centre ring were ‘movie cars’ and a couple of other random things. Not many cars look good in pink, but I expect a big Caddy to be pink!

This is a replica Bullitt car with the resident keeping a watching brief on the big bad Charger. These pair get around together and I have seen them at the Enfield Pageant. The Bullitt car was a 390ci big block, unfortunately this replica is only a 302ci.

This replica GT40 is a CAV GTR made in 2009 is an awesome looking lady that’s for sure. The trumpet intakes just scream classic car and I’m a bit partial to that look, I would like to think that the 390ci under this hood sounds as good as it looks.

This 6.2lt Rally Fighter looked a lot of fun.

Eleanor was there, but it wasn’t the best replica I have seen to be honest.

There was few traders and auto jumble there, but nothing that exciting, it was more of a car boot sale and my money stayed firmly in my wallet.

Marts Car of the Show

My favourite there was this Lamborghini Espada Series 3 from 1975. A rare car with a total of 1217 Espadas made between 1968 – 1978. The styling of this car still holds up today, yes it’s a super car and really liked the Peerless, it’s the first Lambo Espada I have seen and I wanted to go home in it. After I had taken my Mustang home of course.

I eventually got back to my car as the lunch time sunshine was beating down. I took a couple more picks of the club cars, a couple didn’t make it as they broke down sitting in the stupid traffic jam.

The best part of the afternoon? The big white tent was still empty apart from a few bales of hay. So I got my chair out and put it in the tent where I could still see my car. I sat down with a well earned drink as it was getting warm, no need for the sun creme. About an hour or so after I sat down the rest of the club returned and we all sat in the tent for chat. So the selfish traders were standing in the beating sun while we were nice and cool in the shade.

The corruption I eluded to in the first post was something I have come to expect from this show, and all the shows held at this venue come to that. The prizes were announced at just past 3pm. The compare said and I quote; “The car of the show goes to my ol’ mate…”. Yeah yeah, yeah – what ever! I didn’t need to hear anymore and switched off at that point. Some might say it’s jealousy or sour grapes. Nope, I have mentioned this happens before from this show, so I was expecting it. In fact I didn’t even give my car a wipe over as I usually do when I get to a show as I knew it wouldn’t matter. There were some beautiful cars that deserved to win and I feel sorry for those guys. I had a great day talking to the guys in the tent.

At around three fifteen I started to see a few cars leaving before the 4pm closing time. I said my goodbyes and packed up to come home making sure I missed the rush to get out. The organisation of the show this year was bad, traffic jams to get in, spaces not marked out correctly, and cars parked in weird lines. It wasn’t all bad like I say, I spoke to few people and enjoyed my day, the sun was out mostly and I sat in a cool tent. I was spotted by Matthew Filby and Emily Silkstone who kindly took the ‘Culford Car Show Pro Shoot’ photos a couple of posts back. Great to see you guys again. 🙂

I got home and made sure I cleaned the car this time and covered her up in the garage. That show could be the last one of the year for me, depending on weather there might be another. I was thinking about posting what I do when I lay my car up for the winter, would anybody be interested?

I have come across a some documentation for fasteners used by Ford between 1955 and 1973. Not the most riveting of reading for most people, but all those little symbols mean something on the top of the fasters – bolts and screws etc. I will do a little post on that soon. If your into concours car shows, have a classic Ford, then this document could be the difference of winning and losing!

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Stonham Barns Classic Car Show 2023 (part 2)

Carrying on from my post part one of the show, I moved down the line of cars and came across a true iconic cars ever made, the classic Model T tourer. The only thing I didn’t like was the ‘slow vehicle’ slapped across the back of it, but I could see why they did it. This little gem almost got my vote!

Another poster of cars I had on wall was of the white Lotus Esprit from the James Bond movie, The spy who loved me. So this one is in black, but who cares? It’s still a stunning looking car to this day.

This car is a Jaguar kit car and was a popular vehicle, I did like the hood ornament as it was rather unique!

A little group of Mustangs, the blue ’65 coupe here has gone all out for chrome. I know I clean my car to death, but all that chrome must be a nightmare.

It was here in the field that I eventually made my mind up for the runner up spot for ‘Mart’s Car of the Show’. I came back to this car a couple of times. This Peerless Grand Tourismo. It’s the first time I had seen one which isn’t surprising as only 325 examples were produced from 1957-1960, beautiful car and also now a very rare car.

The next post will be the third and final post of this car show. Hopefully I have shown some different cars rather than the usual ones you tend to see. Next post will feature my car of the show which is another rare car and still a head turner even by todays standards.

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Stonham Barns Classic Car Show 2023 (part 1)

The last two car shows I hadn’t attended as the weather was supposed to be raining. My app said rain, my wife said rain so therefore it will rain and I wouldn’t go. The show in particular I was most hacked of about not going to was the Helmingham Hall show which is always a good show and I even pre-paid the £10 entrance fee, but as it’s for charity I didn’t mind. It threatened rain at our house but it didn’t and was a nice day and I ended up painting. I did hear from a friend who braved the day that there was rain for about half an hour at Helmingham. Not that I was glad it rained, but just because I could sort of justify it to myself that I didn’t go. Anyway the weather was due to be nice for the Sunday show, I got the bag packed on the Saturday night, I even tempted fate and put some sun creme in the bag!

The sun came up and stirred me awake as I forgot to pull the blinds down, then what seemed like five minutes later the alarm went of. I was greeted by broken clouds, the nice white ones and not the ominous really dark grey jobs. I got the car out and had a nice steady cruise up until I got to some speed restrictions of 50mph, where I slowed a little to abide by the restrictions. Low and behold some dick head lorry driver tried to push me along as I obviously was going much to slow for the inpatient idiot. At one point I couldn’t even see the lorry’s number plate due to his tailgating, which is a offence now in the UK. Nearing a turn right the traffic was busy to cross the junction and there was a queue, unfortunately the lorry driver had to wait, just like me which did make me smile.

The minor country roads are OK once you crossed the busy junction, but this time there was a traffic jam to get to the show about a mile away from the entrance, I sat in traffic for about forty minutes. Not ideal, and a couple of cars turned around in front of me and obviously decided not to attend. I eventually arrived at the venue and followed the other cars in. Bury Retro Car Club usually has a nice tarmac hard standing pitch every year which is great. This time there was the first cock up, although the barriers had the Bury Car Club sign hanging on it, the traders had seen the marked up on the floor and pitched up already by the time myself and the rest of the club turned up, about fifteen minutes after me. I asked where to park and the marshal had no idea and said to park up in front of one car also from the club waiting for some information. We decided to park in front of the stalls as they didn’t want to move.

The organiser found us about thirty minutes later and came up with a compromise to park by the white marque tent, it wasn’t ideal, but we agreed and parked up.

After we parked up and had another chat I decided to go of and take some photos. Throughout the day I took just over three hundred and seventy photos, of which I will use around three hundred and forty, so I will split this show into three posts. I have the Mart’s Car of the show in part three, and a runner up this time which I will share in part two’s post, it was a close run thing to choose. As usual this event had the official cars of the show which is totally corrupt, I will explain in part three.

This little field was in front of us and few cars hadn’t turned up at the time I wandered over.

The main field was the second cock up; they had arranged the cars in a couple of rows where they were parked bonnet to boot (hood to trunk) and the lines were a bit all over the place. So in no particular order as I was zig zagging the lines taking the photos. So in this show there is a number of rear end of car photos as you couldn’t get a good one from the front.

This volks wagon had a 2.5lt Subaru engine bolted in the back of it and sounded rather awesome as it pulled in.

One of favourite super cars was the Ferrari 308 and this was a great example. I could have picked this as my car of the show, but it’s just a bought Ferrari and they made thousands of them. Still a very pretty car to look at. The paint was badly swirled and could do with a really good detail and paint correction.

A few cars up was this Audi 1000 Saxomat which has two clutches, I had never seen one of these before, and very VW Beetle-esq for styling. The radiator was at the back of the engine bay.

This guy had a second Saab that he turned into a trailer during lock down for Covid! The guy had done a good job even matching the wheels.

The weather was playing games one minute it sunny then it cloudy, but at least it wasn’t raining. The cars were still coming in and the show was getting quite busy.

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Bridge Classic Car Show (part 2)

With the sun making an occasional appearance towards lunchtime the show was in full swing with many cars parking up expanding the car show area. I wandered towards the main hanger where some swing music was the background throughout the day and was rather nice.

The main hanger has storage carcoons which are atmosphere controlled.

Within the hanger were some projects that could be purchased in various states of ‘project’.

Back to the cars that were around this side of the show area.

Here I hound Marts car of the show, this really nice Lancia Fulvia.

The rest of the cars seemed to be parked up, with a couple of cars being pushed into place as they seemed to have broken down. 🙁

I left at around three as I spotted some dark clouds looming the car show’s way. This photo was taken by Bridge Classics. The car’s colour looks a bit teal coloured, I sort of like it!

About ten minutes after I left the dreaded spots of rain hit the windscreen, I decided to go the longer route home, but would be faster as it was all dual carriageway. The rain stopped as I headed in a Westerly direction, but when the road twisted and turned it was as if I drove back into the rain again. I started to speed up in order to outrun the rain, it was sort of working with the wind buffeting which was drying the car going along. The roads were still dry so there was no spray to deal with. It wasn’t until I was a couple of miles away from home that the rain finally caught up with me. I drove straight into the garage where I dried the car and made sure the dehumidifier was on full pelt to take the moisture out of the air. The warm engine would help keep the garage moisture levels down too. I turned it back to normal a few hours later in the evening. I had almost gotten away with it, if I had of left quarter of an hour earlier I would have maybe missed it. But, then I would have gone the scenic route home and then I would have got rained on regardless. Lets just say that my journey was rather enthusiastic on the way home and a trip to the petrol station is certainly required for the next car show, that’s all I’m saying.

To finish up the rest of my ‘runway’ shoot!

A great show and I would go again for sure. Such a variety of cars without the pop and banging exhaust boys there. I spoke to some amazing people again and I even had an old friend from my old place of work come to say hello too.

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Culford Car Show – Pro Shoot

Going back a few weeks I was at the Culford Car Show which is one of the biggest in the area which I always enjoy. I took plenty of pictures and spread them across two posts. My photo’s come out pretty much OK on my trusty Samsung S23 Ultra, but they are not perfect like a proper digital camera and quality lenses.

At the show I got talking to a couple of photographers; Matthew Filby and Emily Silkstone who stopped by my car. They showed an interest in my car we had a really nice chat and they took a number of photos and offered to send them to me. True to their word they have done just that and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. I have only just gotten round to making this post of great their work. In return for their kindness and photos, I said I would be more than happy to give them a shout out to their social medias.

Matthew Filby: His Instagram account can be found here, @matthewfilby

Emily Silkstone: Her Instagram account can be found here, @stoneandlightmedia

Her Facebook account can be found here, @stoneandlightmedia

Please pop over and see some more of their great work and give them a like and follow.

Thanks to Matthew for allowing me to use the these photos he had taken below.

Thanks also go out to Emily for allowing me to use the photos she had taken below.

Again a really big ‘Thank You‘ to Matthew and Emily who have both taken some great shots of my car which I don’t post up that often. I really do appreciate you sending them over.

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Bridge Classic Car Show (part 1)

Last weekend was a new car show for me which was on the other side of the county at RAF Bentwaters. A little history about Royal Air Force Bentwaters or more simply RAF Bentwaters, now known as Bentwaters Parks, is a former Royal Air Force station about 80 miles (130 km) northeast of London and 10 miles (16 km) east-northeast of Ipswich, near Woodbridge, Suffolk in England. Its name was taken from two cottages (‘Bentwaters Cottages’) that had stood on the site of the main runway during its construction in 1943.The station was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War, and by the United States Air Force (USAF) during the Cold War, being the primary home for the 81st Fighter Wing under various designations from 1951 to 1993. For many years the 81st Fighter Wing also operated from RAF Woodbridge, with Bentwaters and Woodbridge airfields being known by the Americans as the “Twin Bases”. RAF Bentwaters was the location of an 13–14 August 1956 night time radar and visual sighting of multiple UFOs (the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident); it is also near the location of the alleged December 1980 UFO incident in Rendlesham Forest. The site is now known as Bentwaters Parks with the Bentwaters Cold War Museum which is located on the site, there are various offices and warehouses on site, and has even been used for television and film making.

Day of the show I checked the weather and there was a chance of rain late afternoon which shouldn’t be a problem as the show closed at three thirty. I was going to risk it and go for the forty minute drive there through some back roads and quite a scenic route. The show was to start at eleven but I didn’t find anywhere that said what time the cars were to be there. With that in mind I arrived shortly after ten and was directed to where the show was to be held. I was asked pretty much where I wanted to park. Bridge Classics has a few old hangers where cars were stored and worked on in their workshops.

The best bit of the show was that I had to drive past the end of a runway which was coned off, I was a little bit naughty maybe as I went through them for a quick ad hoc photoshoot. It’s not as though the runway was in use. The clouds and lighting were all natural and literally changed by the minute, there was no photoshop trickery involved, the only changes to this set of photos was some standard cropping work.

I was only there for a few minutes to take a few shots and then left, I think I started a trend as another car or two replaced me as I drove to the show itself, just round the corner!

At the show I took the best part of two hundred and fifty photos throughout the day, so I will split them up over two posts, with my ‘car of the show’ in the second post. The picture below was taken just after midday where I tried a panoramic view, I think you sort of get the idea, although the runway looks like it turns ninety degrees.

There were cars turning up and going throughout the show so some of the photos are out of sequence.

More photos of the how can be found here: Bridge classic car show

The show started out slowly and as soon as I parked up the very light misty rain started to fall. But the breeze soon dried out. I will just post a batch of photos as I walked around in no particular order.

This really nice Packard that parked up next to me was a close contender for ‘Marts Car of the Show’, it made such a statement when it pulled up. Perhaps the biggest car there.