Classic Car Show Culford 2026 (part 1)

The heatwave is still continuing here in the UK and we can’t cope. There are roads melting with long diversions to avoid the stick tarmac swamps, trains running at reduced speeds due to the track conditions, hose pipe bans, grass that is brown and a wife that is bending my ear as the flowers are struggling in the heat. The heat itself peaked at 37^oC a couple of weeks ago, but recently it been early 30^oC and UK moans about a bit of sun for a few weeks, but if it rains we moan, winter nights are long we moan, snow we moan. Britain is obsessed with the weather, I on the other hand like a bit of sun even though I start to melt and burn easily. The photo’s I took this year 12^th July 2026 don’t look great due to the Culford School’s grounds brown grass and dustiness which is shame. This is probably the second biggest car show in region that I attend. The night before I packed a new bottle of SPF50 which was going to be needed for sure, plenty of drinks, chilled water and extra ice in the cool bag. I left earlier than usual to make sure I didn’t have to sit in traffic trying to get into the show.

I arrived at the venue with a queue at five hundred yards at eight in the morning, but at least it was moving all be it slowly. When in traffic I tend to sit back a fair way from the car in front so I don’t blow their hot exhaust gases onto my engine making the situation worse. This gap does tend to annoy a few people that I don’t move up the twenty foot or so, like it will get them there quicker. Sitting in your car waving your hands about doesn’t make me move. I’m waiting for somebody to actually say something to me at the car’s window and we will be having a short discussion about why they’re being a silly sausage! Inside the show grounds I then took advantage of the tree shade while waiting, to fair quite a few other did the same.

I took a lot of photos again this year as the place was packed, so I split this show over a couple of posts to make it easier to digest and save scrolling across lots of photos thinking when will it end! The grounds of the school are stunning normally, but a little sun parched this year.

I found the Bury Retro Car Club stand and parked up on the end.

I took a while to wipe the car over as it was dusty, had a drink and started to wander around before it got too busy to take photos. The first batch of photos are from the club itself.

I started to walk up and down in a sort of clockwise direction to work my way round the field.

At the end of this line there was two old cars, one of which was my car of the show, but I will post that in tomorrow’s post. Here is the other one, a 1906 Brasier with a 3054cc with a 15hp engine. I thought I had a mission to clean my car, but the brass on this car was beautifully polished, stunning.

The sun was getting hotter and and the public were starting to join the show.

A beautiful 60’s classic Jaguar E-Type, a super car of the times, with looks that still look as good now as they did then.

Then we have a short sixty years later and Mclaren is now firmly in that crowded super car league. Given the choice, I would still have the E-type!

Another car that caught my eye was this 1974 Alfa Romeo Montreal whic was a contender for the car of the show.

When you speak of hyper cars this must surely be there in the top five. The Gordon Murrey Automotive T.50 with a custom made 3.9 litre V12 engine revving to an ear splitting 12,100RPM in a car that weighs less than a tonne, that is Formula 1 territory – on the road! The cost? Just a mere £2,360,000. I doubt I will ever see another one so I stood there for a while just day dreaming. Not many cars would make me want to swap my Mustang out, but this I could be tempted, just a little bit tempted.

What a way to end a post. I heard many people saying that it was their favourite car of the show. The value and rarity of the car would make it an easy decision for my car of the show. But that’s not my overall criteria, there is no doubt that this is a hand built master piece of design and engineering and would destroy everything on display at this show. Did I want it, without a doubt.

Part 2 tomorrow.

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Festival Of Wheels

Last weekend was a full on couple of days with a show on both days. Saturday was a two day event so I decided that I would go on the Saturday as the much better show would be on the Sunday at Helmingham Hall, where a mate of mine would be joining me. That post will be split into two posts as I took a lot of pics!

I got up on the Saturday and the weather was little overcast and was supposed to be a dry day. The thirty minute drive to Ipswich or the Suffolk Show ground was a nice run where a Mk 1 Ford Capri sat beside me on the dual carridgeway as we gave each other thumbs up and nods of approval.

The Bury Retro Car Club had a stand for both days and I was directed to the marked out part of the field. Being the considerate club member i parked on the end leaving space for the others.

I didn’t need to worry as I was the only there on the day. The rest were going to show up on the Sunday. So for the day, I was ‘Billy no mates!’

After a quick wipe over that lasted an hour or so, I decided to go for a wander and look at the other cars, to be honest there wasn’t a huge amount there. To put a two year old Ford Focus in the show is not my idea of a car show, sorry. If I exclude a lot of those types of car then there was even less on show.

I walk around clockwise which took me to the traders where there was nothing there for any real petrol head. Wicker baskets, flowers, womens clothing, home made jewellery, kids toys, were all avoided like the plague. No car parts, but there was a cheap and nasty tools stall.

There was an original Charger from the TV series Dukes of Hazard on show. The cast had signed the inside and drew a lot of attention.

There was some exhibition stuff, displays and some fairground rides, which I didn’t see run all day.

There was some nice trucks and vans on in their own little area, which was quite nice to see.

A little further round there was BMX team doing their thing and the bloke on the microphone was really into it, much more than the little crowd watching.

There was a a monster truck fitted out to take a passenger payload at the back, this got a constant stream of visitors for the ride, where it would drive over some cars on a little track.

There were a few cars which I think I should the ‘WTF section’. I mustn’t be cruel, somebody loves these cars and they may think that about my car. Look behind the top picture and there is a fairly new Audi SUV. I can see them all day long in a Supermarket car park!

The dying of trend of ‘slammed’ cars was out in force. That does exclude the rather flattened cars that the monster truck rolled over a few times.

A few bikes of various styles were dotted around.

Perhaps my favourite of the day the Hummer; I never realised just how big these vehicles were.

A selection of Mustangs of course.

More American Muscle

Some nice trucks were at the show and there seems to be more each year. I do like a nice truck.

Outside the main arena was another park area where some motorbikes were doing stunts and the low riders were parked up. There was a Porsche low rider that had problems and decided to dump a good deal of what ever fluid they use onto the floor. They didn’t look to impressed and a few naughty words could be heard.

The rest of the cars that took my fancy

As I eventually got back to my car for a well sit down there was a few people around my car who were drifting their way to the centre ring.

I spent a nice hour or so talking to many people about wanting to ‘Do one up’ or restoration for our USA friends.

The main arena had a a little show of ‘Who has the loudest exhaust’. There was a bout ten or so who took it in turns to rev the nuts (mechanical ones – not the men’s dangly bits) out of their cold engines. Just behind where I was parked up on my own was the Subaru owners. Who decided to rev the nuts out of their engines at the same time. Obviously miffed that that they didn’t get picked to go in the ring. There was a tractor unit in the ring with massive air horns. That idiot thought it would be great to do his parade around the ring sounding it for about five seconds and of for about two seconds. It drove me insane.

I got so hacked of with being mostly on my own in my own little bit of field I decided to go home early.

I wish I hadn’t as the wife tried to give me a few jobs to do in the garden. Unfortunately I had to explain to her that the car need a wipe over. For some reason she didn’t look impressed.

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Culford Car Show 2021 (part 2)

This is the second part of the Culford Car Show from 18^th July this year. As I left the show I managed to take this picture without any photobombing of other cars or people wandering into shot as a lot of the cars had already left for home and I found a little open space.

But, my best efforts are not as good as some. I mentioned at the end of the last post that I met an interesting guy and we had a quick chat. It turns out that Steve Armon is a photographer who wants to take some pictures of my car for his ever growing portfolio. He has posted three pictures of my car along with some others on his Instagram account ‘trigpointpictures’. Stop by and say I sent you. Here are those pics he kindly sent to me and I just love them. Thanks Steve for the permission to use them.

Back to the show where I was wandering around still, and a reminder of the beautiful location first;

The cars, again in no particular order;

There was a hot rod section that i spent a little time hanging around for some obvious reasons. That Plymouth Super Bee was something else!

There was a Ferrari club there with some rather unusual examples there.

The award to the biggest set of rear wheels goes to;

At the front of the school;

Back up the other side of the grounds on my way back to the car.

Then I spotted this little animal, these rare MG Metro 6R4’s were in the Group B rally class. They were banned as they and cars like them at the time were often classed as ‘to fast to race’ in the 1980’s.

It was really hot to say the least and to eventually sit back under the trees and chat to the guys next to me was a very welcome relief along with the litre of water that I downed almost in one! The trip home had the manual air conditioning on full. The windows wound right down! Another wonderful trip through the country side with nothing but a v8 for company and have it barking at me when I occasionally pressed the loud pedal!

I hope you liked the pics as much as I liked the show itself.

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Cars On The Green

Over the weekend I attended perhaps my favourite car show, Cars on the Green in Bury St Edmunds. Sunday morning I looked out the window and there was a tiny few specs of rain. Now I don’t take the car out in the wet in case it shrinks in the water. So I waited for a while before I made the decision to go. I arrived some twenty minutes later and I almost had to put the wipers on and was uttering the odd colourful blue words at the rain. It must have done the trick as the sun showed itself as I pulled in to the show.

There was some great cars there and it’s always a nice atmosphere at this show. I was on the Bury Retro Car Club stand (patch of grass) shared with some great people from the club too. I took up station under a tree unfortunately, which was leaking sap like water through a cheese grater. So much so, that as I was sending a message to my wife I could feel the sap on the phone screen.

I always give the car a quick spray with some ‘quick detailer’ to take off the dust from the road just so the car looks her best while on show. With the sap falling like it was, I decided not to touch the paint in case I damaged it. Yes, I always carry (a lot) cleaning products, but in the location where I was it would have pointless to try to keep clean. So with a heavy heart I let the car get dirty, well what I call dirty anyway. 🙁

The public was allowed into the show from ten in the morning onwards, it was great to see lots of Dads on Father’s Day with their little ones for the day. I think I may have spotted the odd spouse or two who was, erm – not into cars should we say! I started my slow stroll around the massive venue and took some pictures of the cars that caught my eye. I tried to limit myself for the number of pictures otherwise it’s just picture overload. I will start with some UK cars which are starting to command some quite serious money now.

Then some good old American Muscle.

The Cars on the Green show is classed show for all cars, classics, modern, vans, trucks, modified and new, all of which were well represented. On a side note I have spotted over the last few shows that I have attended, there are a few almost new cars creeping into the classic car events. Now I am petrol head and love cars, so if somebody wants to show their car then fine with me. But, what is the point of taking a two-year old Volvo (example car), that is plain standard stock and parking it next to a genuine classic car. Perhaps that is such a controversial thing to say, and I certainly don’t want to offend anybody. I can sort of understand it, the car show scene is full of great people who always seem to help each other out when another car is in trouble.

Perhaps when the organisers of the events say “classic car show” the cars should be at least fifteen years old? What do you think? That way I can get to see more of the old cars that I personally go to see. I really hope that I haven’t upset anybody with that statement, it wasn’t my intention to do so. Perhaps I need to wind my neck in?

Back to this show, there was a couple of live bands and singers, fairground rides for the children, plenty of food stands and stalls for all things cars and couple of random ones as well nothing to do with cars. Lots of people turned up for the day along with a number of seriously well-behaved dogs too.

Perhaps my favourite pic? This one, where the Land Rover stand had an electric toy version of their vehicles for sale. This little lady just loved it and the guys all to their credit let her stay in it for a while. Well done guys, I think they made that little girl’s day.

After my walk around I sat back in the comfy chair and watched the world go by and had some great conversations with people I have been talking to via email; hi Simon!