A few weeks ago I was at the Cars By The Lake Car Show near me and it was a wonderfully warm day. During that show I wandered around and spotted a newish car club called ‘Classic Car Club Bury St Edmunds’. I was speaking to the guys there where I asked about the events they hold. They told me that they were having a little ‘display’ more than show as such of a dozen cars or so on the Saturday (yesterday) and the Sunday at the local very popular shopping centre called the ‘Arc’ in the middle of Bury St Edmunds. This intrigued me and said I was interested, but I wasn’t a member of the club. I gave them my details if they wanted an extra car if they were short for any reason.
It turned out that last week I got a couple of very nice emails asking if I wanted to attend on the Saturday, of course I said yes. The display was to also raise funds for a charity MDF which is for mental health. This was funded by agreeing to have photo’s taken in the cars and a ride for thirty minutes in a car from the selection being offered for minimum donation, any profits from the day also going to the good cause.
The agreement was to arrive at the Shopping Centre at quarter to eight in the morning where we would be escorted through to the centre of the centre two cars at a time. We got parked up and had a few adjustments of cars to make it all look good. I took this photo from the building opposite the club gazebo which had an upstairs and balcony.
There was a great variation of cars that turned up as expected. No sooner had the cars been parked up when the very early birds and workers passed through while looking at the cars.
We had a Studebaker and a Westfield.
Then there was my Mustang, a rare Hurtu and a Dodge Fluid Drive.
There was a BMW, Daimler Dart a popular car with the Police in the day,
An Ambulance that was being converted into a camper van, Bugatti ‘Teal’ and one of only two remaining 1914 Humber in the world, the other is on New Zealand.
A lotus 11 and a TVR
The Arc shopping centre had some rather large lettering that said ‘Love Cars’ which is being brought out for this event that happens one weekend a year in the centre.
At around lunch time we were asked if we wanted to start our cars up for a little rev up session so people could eat their food with a nice smell of spent petrol. Each of us was asked to start-up in turn, when my turn came the event was filmed by the Arc media team who posted it on the Facebook page straight away along with the other v8 Daimler Dart. The best bit is to watch the little kiddies in the background having their ears covered!
Turn up the volume.
The video didn’t do the noise justice as the sound echoed brilliantly around the courtyard, and I think that I filled Monsoon shop behind me with some freshly burnt fumes. 🙂
The day was so busy I did not even get to sit down at all, apart from starting my car up. That’s eight till five thirty when we were then escorted out again, three at a time now.
My car had a constant stream of people around it and lots and lots of questions too. I had a sore throat at the end of the day from talking to much. The last time I had that was when I exhibited at the Birmingham NEC Car show.
I think the men loved it while the wives and girlfriends went and done what they needed to do.
Perhaps the star of the show was Candy, a lovely little girl who sat in the car and took all the attention she could get until she went home early afternoon just around the corner.
The weather was not great but a few spots of rain made me nervous for the downpour that didn’t happen. But I still cleaned the car again when I got home.
All in all a great day and something very different and I enjoyed it immensely. Well done to the club for organising it, oh I’m now also a member. 😉
Last weekend was a double car show, firstly there was an all weekend event at the Ipswich Festival of Wheels, and the other was at Helmingham Hall on the Sunday. Saturday was no problem as I would be at the Festival of Wheels and the Sunday could be FoW again or Helmingham. So I was going to choose at the end of the day. The Bury Retro Car Club had a stand for both days at the FoW, well it was more like a marked out bit of land to be exact. I was unsure of the exact time it started so I decided to get there earlier rather than later. I rocked up to the main gates at about eight thirty in the morning and it was pretty quiet.
I was directed to the area and parked up.
A little while later I was joined by some more of the club members and I felt relieved that I was not the only one. The guys were camping there over the weekend and nice atmosphere throughout the, I even managed to sit by the side of the camper van with a pretty awesome awning to stay out of the sun.
We were in the allotted area next to a Mustang club as well, which was quite nice, although it wasn’t filled to capacity either.
This was the first show of this type and it was obviously aimed more at the family rather than the out-and-out enthusiasts from what I could see. There was plenty for the younger ones and the event was nowhere full. Perhaps everybody was waiting for the Sunday as seems to be case for these all weekend shows. By about ten in the morning the place was as busy as it was going to get so I set of for some pics.
There was racing influence as well from the Speedway and stock Cars which Ipswich is well known for.
There was a nice selection of trucks and vans from the UK and the USA, the Transit with hundreds of glowing and pulsing LEDs took my eye.
OK there was a huge USA rig that was transporting a great idea of motorised small version trucks for the little ones to ride in as well as the dads to accompany their kids.
There were a few fast UK Fords to be seen, many of which are starting to command some serious money to buy one.
A promise of some ‘Super Cars’ and ‘Film Cars’ were to be on show as well, I only spotted one of each, perhaps there was more on the Sunday.
One car that was getting a lot of attention was this Ford Popular, all chrome and was allegedly driven there from a Kent to Suffolk and “not trailored here”, a distance of around one hundred miles or so. There was not a spec of dirt on it anywhere, not even in the tyre grooves, let alone how he managed to carry all the mirrors and equipment with him as well. Maybe a convoy down to the show but he seemed to be on his own. What do you think?
There was a few stalls there and a few stalls that belonged in a craft fair more so than a car show.
Back to my main story, during the day I had a guy talking to me who had just bought his red ’68 Mustang Coupe and he explained that it needed a little bit of work doing to it. We chatted away for about thirty minutes or so before he had a look around the show. About an hour or two later he came back to me with a couple of guys with him and he looked worried. He asked me to borrow my key to open his trunk as he had locked his keys in there. The car was open luckily and I explained that my ’66 key was a different design. He was now starting to stress a little and I said don’t worry we can get into the trunk. I took out my travel tool kit and we walked to his car, where I explained to take the seats out and the card backing behind the seat back he should be able to reach in and get the keys. His friend helped him take the out seats and used my tools for the nuts and bolts that needed to be undone. A few minutes later the keys were located and all was good in the world again.
keys handed back
The decision was simple and the end of the day, I was going to Helmingham Hall on the Sunday where I took more yet more photos. I will post those pictures later in the week.
This is the third and final post of the three from the Classic Car Show Sunday the 18th February 2018 at the London Excel Centre. At the show as per my other posts there was lots of gleaming cars, motor sports was well represented and a VIP was also there for the day collecting his “Icon Award”.
“Should you ever meet your heroes?”
That question has been asked many times and I suspect that there is a lot of various and wide responses, some good and some shattered dreams I expect. Whether it’s a TV star, music star, sportsman, author, radio personality or any celebrity, people will always dream of meeting somebody who inspires them, some of them may be historical figures and some present day. My answer to that question is answered below and a massive tick on my bucket list, which happens to be quite a small list. I’m not actually a lover of the term “Hero” as it sounds like a bit of a obessesion, so the term for me should be “Icon”, but for now we will stick with hero as that is the question.
The 1992 Formula 1 World Champion and Indy Car World Champion 1993, Grand Prix Masters Champion 1995:
Nigel Mansell
I mentioned in the other posts a couple of clues to this post; apart from him sitting in the F1 car in the motor sport post, there was the “5” at the end of the post. Nigel’s Racing number over the years has been 5 where possible and it’s always been a red 5, in fact Nigel now tags his signature with “Red 5“. I started following Formula 1 in the mid eighties during my late teens and early twenties as Mansell arrived on the scene properly. There is so much that has been written about Nigel and his career too much to list here. So take a look on Wikipedia would answer a lot of questions and give you good insight to the man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Mansell
My own top 15 Nigel Mansell Facts:
Nigel is the only man in history to hold both the Formula 1 World title ’92 and the Indy Car Title ’93 with the Newman Haas team, at the SAME time.
Enzo Ferrari personally picked Nigel to drive for the Ferrari team in 1989/90 seasons. Nigel was the last driver to be given that honour before Enzo died.
Mansell and his two sons Leo & Greg took part in the 2010 Le Mans race, the first time a Father and two sons had raced together.
1985 French GP Nigel broke the record for the highest speed crash at 200mph, giving himself concussion at the same time.
Nigel has had a OBE & CBE titles from the Queen.
Nigel’s first F1 race for Lotus was in 1980, he started the race with fuel leak that filled his cockpit. He later retired with 1st & 2nd degree burns to his buttocks.
Last race of the season Melbourne Australia in 1986 Nigel suffered a tyre explosion that ended his chances of being the 1986 World Champion.
Nigel won the 1992 F1 championship with five races to go, such was his dominance of that season.
Nigel won his first ever race for Ferrari. It’s a known fact that the car was not expected to last more than a handful of laps, Nigel even booked a flight home before the end of the race. He managed to keep it going and bring the car home. The Italians nick named him “Il Leone” – The Lion, as a result of his determination.
Nigel is the only man to put a hole in the Phoenix Raceway oval track after a collision at 174mph.
Nigel has broken many bones including his back and his neck in 1977 during a race qualifying session. Doctors told him that he was perilously close to quadriplegia, he still discharged himself from hospital and started racing again a few weeks later. In fact he still races with the same neck brace he used after that crash where he was lucky to be alive.
Nigel was a Special Constable on the Isle of Man for 11 years all through his racing career while he lived there until 1995.
Nigel’s golf handicap was scratch and almost +1, his aim to play in the British Open.
Nigel sold his Woodbury Park Hotel and Golf Club that he built up in Devon for approx £11m.
Nigel’s son Greg was named after his God Father; Greg Norman the golfer and best friends with Nigel.
Enough of the facts on with the photos. On the entrance to the show Mansell’s 1986 car FW11 was on display. Mansell failed to win the Championship by just two points with only 19 laps to go. I remember that I was up at stupid o’clock in the morning to watch the race live from Australia, and was in shock and mortified when I saw that rear tyre explode.
Probably nothing like the pain Nigel felt losing the championship. This is that very car and same chassis from that very race.
The show was to have Nigel drive a car down the roadway. His first drive was a beautiful black open top E-type Jaguar. I was a little late getting to the barriers, but being 6’4″ does have its advantages sometimes.
A little later in the day Nigel was to again drive down the road, but this time in a Formula 1 car which just happened to be Michael Schumacher’s old car during the time he was at the Benetton team, which was also on tmy previous motor sport post.
Nigel was allowed to “burn some rubber” and was the only person that day allowed to do so.
On his return trip back he did a donut or two and parked up where he was besieged by media to receive the 2018 Icon award. At this time I was on the bridge over the road and had to zoom in to try to get a picture, so they are little grainy, sorry.
I borrowed this picture from the Excel Centre’s own web page.
Mansell’s career started with Formula Ford where he won the championship in 1977 in this car, he won 33 of the 42 races that season. To fund his racing and dreams of getting his break into Formula 1, he sold his house and all his personal possessions to fund that dream. Once Nigel was in Formula 1 it eventually took him twelve years to realise that dream.
Mansell was snatched up by the late great Colin Chapman in 1980 as a test driver for his Lotus team to start with. Nigel got his break in 1980 in the Lotus 81B here. See also point six of my facts above.
The other famous car that was there for the Nigel Mansell Tribute was the FW14B. This was the car that won the World Championship in 1992. I was at two races that season; British Grand Prix where he won and the German Grand Prix two weeks later where he won again with Ayrton Senna second and Michael Schumacher third. That was my dream podium right there.
A previous revision of this car was also featured in one of the most famous F1 photo opportunities taken. In 1991 Mansell gave a lift the legendary Ayrton Senna a lift back to the pits after his car broke down during the British Grand Prix. Much to the disgust of the marshalls who tried to pull Ayrton from the car. I was at that at that race.
After I had drooled over these cars again Nigel was scheduled to give a couple of question and answer sessions. I got to the stage area a little later than I anticipated due to the amount of people heading in that direction, as a result I had to stand at the back of the crowds. I had to zoom in to the max so a little grainy, but I think you get the idea.
There was a great atmosphere during the talk and Nigel had the audience in fits of laughter with some of his stories. After the allotted time had over ran he sat at a table in order to do an autograph session. The queue for the table was long, as I was standing at the back my plan of action was the direct route to the line. My wife on the other hand-made a tactical dash around people and got their way before I did and was standing in the middle of the line with a daft grin on her face, what a great result. perhaps we may get there before he has to go. Very well-played that girl for getting the spot. 🙂
During the wait for our turn I watched as Nigel shook hands with everybody in front of him and signed everything they gave to him. He took selfies with the children and his older fans. Never once did he complain or refuse having to keep getting out of his chair walk around the table for a picture and back again. I had taken my 1992 Grand Prix race programme with me and my Special Edition Auto Sport magazine dedicated to Nigel Mansell the F1 World Champion 1992.
Now it was my turn, my throat was getting dry and I was determined not to make a fool of myself. I gave my ever patient wife the phone to take pictures. Instructions were simple, just keep taking the pictures. I walked to the table and handed my 1992 race programme to Nigel and he shook my hand and thanked me for coming!
I proceeded to explain that I was at that race. “That was an amazing day, but I have to apologise to you; I was one of the mad nutters that invaded the track after you had won, I’m sorry.” Nigel replied with a chuckle and “So you was one of those were you!” “Yes, but I’m glad I did!” We laughed. Nigel had refered to the track invasion of the fans in a later press interview after the race, it wasn’t good to be honest and a bit dangerous, but “Mansell Mania” had taken over.
I thanked Nigel for his time and we shook hands again. My wonderful wife then gave Nigel my other magazine and he signed that for her (well me actually) too. I took over the phone camera and took lots of pics of their meeting. We both said our thanks again to Nigel and we left the table for the next fans. Unfortunately my wife has vetoed the photo’s of her at the table with Nigel. That decision I have to respect, but this was one of the only pics without her in it that I could post.
I walked away with some serious stupid grin and some disbelief; I had just met my sporting Icon (hero) at long last and it had not sunk in yet.
These were the items Nigel signed for me, he even thought about where to sign the covers.
1992 British Grap Prix Official Programme.Autosport Special Edition Souvenir Magazine.
Now I feel that I can answer the question I raised above; “Should you meet your hero?”
If it’s Nigel Mansell, then that is big “Yes“.
He was gracious and polite all the time which was everything and a lot more than I had hoped for. That was a huge tick completed of my bucket list. It was all down to the wife who found out that Nigel would be there and could be signing autographs, so it was worth a shot for me. We had a sit down and a drink to get over what had just happened. I still can’t get used to the fact he no longer has his famous moustache. We wandered around for the rest of the afternoon and took the photos for the other posts. I managed to catch up with Adam from Mustang Maniac who was around by the Mustang Owners Club stand ready to take his car back home again after the show. The last part of the As things were running late there was no autograph session. The queue had already formed in anticipation, unfortunately Nigel was ushered away even when he stopped to try to sign some more items his fans had brought in for him. None of that rushing away was his doing and he looked a little sad he couldn’t be there for his fans.
Nigel has always been an inspiration to me for his never give up attitude and sheer determination to get to his ultimate goal. He has and still remains one of the nicest guys in Formula 1.
What an amazing day, one that I will never forget.
As for that track invasion in 1992 that I apologised for; well I was on my way to join these fellow nutters and lucky guys who got there a little before me, but at least I was there on that famous day.
Thank you Nigel “Red 5” Mansell.
Have meet your hero or Icon? what were they like? I have meet a few other “Celebrities” and the odd one was a real idiot and so up himself, I wished that I never bothered to ask for his autograph at the time.
Sunday just gone I visited one of my favourite car shows at Helmingham Hall in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. Once a year for one day the hall opens its vast grounds to us petrol (gear) heads to show of our pride and joys. I managed to take lots of photos but I managed to break it down to under two hundred photos, including the ones of the hall which I am quite pleased with.
A little about the hall which is a moated manor house in Helmingham, Suffolk, England. It was begun by John Tollemache in 1480 and has been owned by the family ever since. The house is built around a courtyard in typical late medieval/Tudor style. The house is listed Grade 1 on the National Heritage List for England, and its park and formal gardens are also Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The present Helmingham Hall may have been initially constructed in 1510 on the site of an earlier house called Creke Hall. The exterior was altered between 1745–1760, again in 1800 by John Nash, and in 1840. The original half-timbered walls have been concealed by brick and tiles. The house is surrounded by a moat 60 feet wide, over which it is reached only by two working drawbridges, which have been pulled up every night since 1510. These were originally operated with a windlass but in recent years this has been replaced by an electric motor. The house is not open to the public and Helmingham is best known for its fine garden, which is open on a regular basis. It is a semi-formal mixed garden with extensive borders, a rose garden, a knot garden, a parterre and an orchard. Beyond the garden there is a 400-acre (1.6 km2) park with herds of red and Fallow Deer.
This year I was able to park on the Nissan 200sx owners club stand, so a big thanks to those guys. We arrived early at just gone nine, the gates to the public were opened at ten just as the sun started to shine. We had plenty of space and managed to spread out, I was almost on the end and in a prime location. My friend Craig was in his Honda Integra Type R parked alongside me.
Once everybody had turned up who was going to be there we could shuffle around again, so now I was on the outside and Craig moved to the inside of me. Due to the extra space we could park diagonally which was pretty cool as nobody else could. I even managed to use my new home-made show board stand too.
Once everything had settled down it was time for a dust down and quick spruce up, which took over an hour before I even started to have a look around. I got to use my new Chemical Guys quick detailer which I was very impressed with. I will be reviewing that product soon as it’s not widely available just yet.
There was so many cars at the show again I am having to split the posts, otherwise there will just be photo overload and take for ever to load. There is no real logic to the order of the photos, it’s just a batch at a time.
As a young boy I had posters of this car on my bedroom wall, it still remains one of my favourite super cars to date. This is the update 25th anniversary edition. The unmistakable Lamborghini Countach which means ‘Heavens’.
I will post ‘part two’ in a day or so. There is so much more and unusual cars to show you, everything from more super cars to some timeless classic cars. There was even some birds of prey on show too.
After the last car show shambles it was time for my local Car Show as it were, Cars On the Green at Bury St. Edmunds. This is usually a well run event with a bursting to capacity show. This year they had to restrict the number of entries via pre-booking as exit time last year cause complete gridlock in the town itself. The local plod (police) were not amused and decided to clamp down for the 2017’s show. However, the best part last year was that people were lining the roads to watch the cars leaving – in effect they got to see the cars and hear them too just like a cruise, that’s a bonus I would have said. This year ironically there was no plod to be seen to direct “the traffic” and everything was a smooth departure. I did find them lurking in the same places as last year, sitting on the main roads (eating doughnuts I expect) waiting to catch somebody as an easy target.
Anyway, I arrived in what I thought was good time in the morning, a little before nine when the show was due to start at ten, to find myself sitting in a queue to get in, but at least it was moving. Being as the weather was already scorching hot, the cars were just ticking over there were a couple of cars that had over heating problems and had pulled over to cool down. The queue died down quickly enough when a few more people were brought out to direct the cars in. From what I could see the minor problem was entrants and visitors were using the same queue at the main gate. But, it all sorted itself out and I got in within ten minutes at the most. The show was already busy with visitors looking as the cars were parking and setting up. I even had somebody video me reversing into my parking spot. This show was indeed well organised throughout the whole day, just so much better than the two and a half hours carnage at Duxford! The sun was out and it was getting hotter by the hour, then I (stupidly) started to clean my car. I needed to cool down quickly and sat in the shade for a while and downed a litre bottle of cold water I took with me.
I even decided to put my show board up, I had two people during the day asking if I wanted to sell my pride and joy, the answer was obviously “no”, in fact one bloke looked decidedly annoyed when I said no! Then on the other side of the coin, there was a lovely family who spent ages looking at my car in lots of detail and reading my show board. I went over to say “Hi” to them, the dad explained that his son (I would take a guess his age to be around seven or eight years old), was “Mustang Mad”. Apparently his bedroom was plastered with the Classic Mustangs posters, pictures and models etc. So I did what I don’t normally do; I asked him if he wanted to sit in my car? He little chap turned straight to his dad looking for approval, whose face was now also a picture. The little guy gently climbed in and sat in the seat and held the wheel, the smile he gave to his dad made my day in fact, you can’t buy those sorts of smiles. The dad was taking lots of pictures as the little guy pretended to drive the car, leaning from side to side as if to go around corners. He would have stayed there all day I think unless his dad said it was time to go and “let the man have his car back.” The dad was so grateful and made a huge thank you with the best hand shake of the day. What a fantastic moment that will stay with me for a long, long time. I think it was the nasty “hay fever” that bought a lump to my throat. I just wished I had something to give him to remember it by.
There was a diverse array of cars, but not as many American cars as thought there would be like last year. In fact I only spotted one other Classic Mustang also in a dark blue.
There were some nice old UK Fords on show from the sixties up to the eighties.
Some great looking trucks.
There was lots of cars that were three or four years old on display, Which I didn’t quite understand to be honest. If I wanted to see those sorts of cars I could wait a set of traffic lights to see them go by!
There were some great stalls there selling their goods and some unusual stuff too. Did I mention it was busy and that there were lots of people!
I’m pleased to say that my faith in car show organisation has been fully restored, just like my car in fact! 🙂
It’s been a while since my last post, but I have something a little different this time for you. I have posted a video of my car running up and down a sleepy reservoir road with a pal of mine filming the show. We initially went there for somewhere scenic as a back drop for the car on a quick photo shoot. But as it was so peaceful and a nice quiet area, we decided to have a couple of quick videos of the car going up the road and back down again. The video can be found on my YouTube channel click herefor the link to all the videos, or click the image below to watch the videos or cut and paste the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJddSktoMqA
Turn up the volume for a short minute and enjoy. 😉
Between Craig & I we took quite a few photo’s, with Craig obviously taking the video, he did kindly offer to drive my car for me though! By the time it takes you to read my response “No”, it was about double the amount of time it took me to think about and still give the answer “No”. Maybe next time Craig!
Here are some of pics from that photo session:
When I was editing the pictures I decided to play around with a couple of filters on my favourite photos.
As it’s getting near the end of the show season I need to take my car down to Mustang Maniac to get a once over with a spanner, and general health check. I have almost done 1,100 miles so far in the car, can you believe it?
During the car shows I attend I give the car a little polish up or quick detail while she is there. Yes, although I try and avoid all photo’s this was sent to me to show how “sad” I had become to clean and polish the tyres. I could tell you my response was but this is an all ages blog. 😀
According to some regular car show enthusiasts I had progressed from “cleaning” the car to “waxing”, now I have moved up another level to “detailing” the car. This now gets super serious and to make the paint look as good as it ever will and different products give different results. To most people there is no difference except the odd “it looks very clean” or “it shiny”. I have reviewed a product called “Poorboy’s World Quick Detailer Plus” which is supposed to give that waxed look after a quick “wipe on” and “wipe off”.
Click here for the review link or go to my new menu “Car Detailing Products”. To see what I think of the product take a look at the review. There will be a number of these detailing reviews soon, from quick detailers, waxing, metal polish, micro fibre towels, drying towels, glass cleaners, tyre dressing from such makers as Meguair’s, DoDo Juice, Poorboy’s, Chemical Guys, Autoglym etc etc. all of which are aimed at the serious car cleaner (sorry) detailer!
Please let me know what you think of filtered photo’s, I’m interested to see if I ruined them or they look good compared to the original colour versions. Perhaps you don’t like any of them and could suggest some better places to take some pics in the Suffolk area.
The weekend just gone was host to a car show called “Cars On The Green” in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. I suppose I could say it’s my most local show. I haven’t visited this show before and it was all new to me taking my own car there this time. The early planned start was not to bad as you had to be there between seven and ten in the morning. First things first – is it raining? Nope. Check the forecast, will it rain? Nope. All systems are go then. I had everything already packed in the trunk the night before, the mandatory fold up seat, jacket, jump-start mini battery pack (seeherefor the review), can of oil top up, cleaning items, detail products , bag of microfiber cloths, business cards for my blog. That only left the food and drink to go in the thermos bag when I got up.
The journey there was fantastic and the sun was warm the window was open, but the main road out of the village was resurfaced the night before and the stones were dragged down the road. When I say resurfaced, I use that word with the very loosest of connections possible, the lazy articles had just dumped a load of stones on the surface, spread it about a bit and wait for the cars to squash it down. There was no way that I was going to pick up stones in my tyres get on a motorway and flick them up to damage my paintwork. So I just had to turn around and go out the longer way round the village. A real shame as the small roads echoed the rasp of the exhaust note; it was an early morning wakeup to everybody who wasn’t now going to be getting a lay in, but what a start to the day. After twenty minutes or so I arrived at the venue and was eventually directed into the fields. My car was an individual entry so it was parked under a lovely bank of trees. The setting was pretty awesome, although I wasn‘t too impressed with the trees as a canopy overhead. There was a good possibility of bird’s wanting to relieve the contents of the bowls all over my motor, and on top of that it would be mixed in with the falling tree sap. I parked up reluctantly and wandered around to look at the other cars. I was the only classic Mustang there that day, it was nice to be different among the maximum of one thousand cars allowed.
I meet with a mate of mine Craig who was there in his Honda Integra which is becoming a little more of a collectible item now being a Jap spec import. I spotted to young lads cleaning their dads truck and enjoying it, they even demonstrated how well it revved up. I did promise these two little guys I would put a picture up for them. Promise kept.
We had a good wander round and had the phones tuned into the Le Mans race. Ford had four of their Chip Ganassi GT40’s in the running. One of those cars was leading with two hours to go. We had a look in all the fields and designated parking areas, we found a fantastic array of cars. There was old next to new, rat rods next to highly polished new cars, club stands and rare cars.
We eventually made our way round the whole lot of cars and I went to pick out the chair from my trunk. I was pounced upon by a real nice bunch of guys who were asking some great questions about my car. How long did it take? What did I do to it? How much did it take to do? etc. I even let one of the guys sit it. They wanted to hear it run, so I just had to start it up, such a poor excuse I know, but it is a car show after all.
I noticed that the paint work was not silky smooth to the touch now as it usually is; it was getting tiny sticky sap particles on the surface of the paint. It was going to have to be cleaned off which was going to be a real pain as it was now getting backed on by the sun. With the chair and food I headed back to Craig’s car where he was setting up the laptop to live stream the Eurosport coverage of Le Mans. We settled down to watch the end of the exciting race to see a few more gather round his boot (trunk) and watch it with us. We saw the Porsche win the overall race with the Fords coming in 1st, 3rd and 4th in their GTE class. Exactly fifty years later they almost replicated their legendary 1,2,3 finish. What a result, well done to Ford. Craig packed away after the results and decided to check his battery as we had been running a few bits of the car for a while, nothing. The remaining power was just not enough to start it, so I wandered back to my car which was only in the next field and got my jump starter. We connect up and fired her up straight away and let her run for a few minutes, all was good again in the Honda camp.
The end of the day was a great drive back, even with the UK Police force doing what they do best, hide in the laybys and side roads and wait for a speeding car while they eat their doughnuts, checking their speed guns. I’m sorry, but there are much more important things to do other than trying to catch people coming out of a car show doing thirty three miles an hour in thirty mile an hour zone. Pathetic people and quick way to make cash. Rant over, but it really gives me the hump to waste resources like that. Anyway great drive home with plenty of horns hooting to everybody, great atmosphere. I parked up back home it was time to get the tree sap off. Water wasn’t going to touch it, the car was still clean and I was spared the contents of the local bird population I was pleased to say. I wasn’t too sure what to use as I didn’t want to take previous wax layers off, as some cleaners will do. So I tried the Meguiar’s Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere (I will be reviewing it at some point), a waterless wash option. The spray was used on a small part of the roof to see if it worked on. The first application with the normal amount of spray removed most of the sap. I tried it again with a good soak all over and a gentle wipe this time. I was pleased to see that the sap came of no problem. The down side was I used a lot of the product to clean the car this time. Once I had cleaned the car I put her back into the garage and covered her up.
Last weekend I went to a show at Stonham Barns in Suffolk for their “Spring Break” car show the first of the season for me. This was going also going to be my first show I had done on my own without the support of Mustang Maniac. The show was over three days, Friday, Saturday and the Sunday that I went too. I have no preconceived notion that I would win anything and I didn’t enter any groups before hand, although a little silverware never hurt anybody. I had been to many shows on my own as a visitor and not as an exhibitor in the past except for the Birmingham NEC during November last year and the Enfield Pageant where the car was very much a work in progress. The alarm went off at seven o’clock but the gates didn’t open until nine on the dot. I couldn’t sleep anyway and had lots to do; like checking the water, tyre pressures putting the cleaning materials in the trunk and most importantly checking the weather, the sky was almost as blue as my car. I had already made my mind up that I wouldn’t being if there was a good chance of rain. Weather forecast promised lots of sun with cloudy spells at times. Perfect, I got in the car and started her up and I was on my way. Google Maps on my phone directed me to the direction of the show nearly thirty miles away. As I got closer I could see other great looking cars heading in the same direction. Pulling into the gates there was another Mustang that pulled up behind me. I gave the thumbs up and got one back too. I smiled – a lot. Common sense was in full play as there were marshalls directing all us early birds into the fields half hour before they were due to open. The owner of the car behind me got out and introduced himself to me as speaking to me at the NEC show. The penny then dropped and placed the face as being one of the many people who I had spoken too. We parked up next to each other, followed by a Galaxy 500 and a cracking looking Burgundy Camaro SS.
There was cars arriving at a steady pace as we talked about our cars and the LED lights we both had with the variations in them. We eventually decided to go look at some more cars, that gave me a chance to take even more pics of my car. For a valid reason that I will get to later.
I decided that i was going to lift the hood again and let people have a look.
I wasn’t sure how to play it so secured the car and walked away and watched from a distance to see how things played out. I was pleasantly surprised to see the respect of the visitors looking holding their clothing away from the paint work. After half hour or so, I was confident to walk way and look at some other fantastic cars that was now pouring into the fields.
This blue and white Thunderbird had a spectacular paint job.
One of the prize winners here was a real nice Caddy with a Dodge Viper v10 wedged in it. This bike just seemed to go on and take over the whole car park, it was massive with Beetle flat four in the back of it.
Under the hood of the cars were some strange sights a water bottle made out of a Jack Daniels bottle, some poor chap had a leaking radiator.
At one o’clock the judges were on their way round and made virtually no stops at the “standard” road cars. Their time was spent around the Hot Rod / Rat Rod sections. Some of those cars were absolutely amazing, I knew right at that point no prizes were going my way. Shortly after the judging there was a lot of cars leaving around two o’clock, so much so that the bloke on the mic announced that he hoped none of those cars leaving were trophy winners, he didn’t have to worry. I wanted to stay and see the result of judging, so I spent my time aimlessly wandering around looking at the time and effort owners had put into their cars. The stalls were mainly selling items and not really any old car parts as such, nothing that you wouldn’t see at a local car boot sale to be fair. At three o’clock the winners were announced, not a single standard car got an award of the ten trophies that were up for grabs, the hot rod guys and the latest trend of, huge camber angles on a VW Beetle, “slammed” trucks and cars sitting on the floor took the prizes. Never mind, better luck next time. I think I got how this show worked, the emphasis was a Hot Rod based entries for the show, their webpage advertising the event was showing a selection of the previous attending cars that were all hot rods. There was some fantastic cars there that day, but I thought other cars deserved the prizes so much more, like the Thunderbird, the Camaro SS, a beautiful Chevy Bel Air, Caddy Coupe de Ville etc. But, as I am not a judge it was irrelevant what I thought, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and of course some will say the cars that got the awards deserved them. Regardless of the results, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and meeting a few faces that I had previously seen at the NEC at the end of last year, speaking to total strangers who wanted to look at my car, along with other wonderful cars that were on show. Would I go again? Yep. Did I enjoy it? Yep. The weather was spot on all day, and yes I did get a bit of sunburn on my head! I enjoyed the trip home so much as the main road had a convoy of Classic Cars going back to their homes. I was now officially part of the Show Car scene driving there and back in my own car. Thumbs up to every body going past, or those that went past us. Horns were going, people waving to everybody, what a great day all round and perfect way to end the day. I was shattered when I got home. 🙂
This weekend, I had a good friend of mine Mike turned up to take a look at the car. Mike has a Mark two escort and just restored that to its original golden glory. Last time he had seen my car was about a year into the restoration where I had managed to start it up after the re-wiring it. I pulled the covers back and he was surprised to see the difference. I started her up in the garage to get the feel of the engine note, and breath in that unmistakable odour of fresh burning fuel. The roads were damp and the air was pretty damp. He was looking out to the sky as I had previously promised him a ride in it if the weather was OK. As it wasn’t raining I asked did he want to go out in it? At which he thought about it for zero seconds and said “Yes, if you’re sure”. I was, I shut the hood and started to back her out the garage and he got in. It was slightly amusing to see him looking for the shoulder belt, I told him that this was a proper car and only had lap belts. We set off down the road and I said that we would drive to the next village. As we got to the next village it started to spit with rain, I still had the window open. No, this can’t be happening, rain on my car! The car was now getting wet, so much so that I had to put the wipers on for the very first time. I was quite surprised at how well they actually worked. We done our circuit of about half an hour and headed back home. We pulled up to junction for a right turn and in my enthusiasm the rear wheels scrambled for grip untill I let of the gas. I gave this car respect in the rain and gave no sudden acceleration, obviously not enough respect was given to standing start in the rain. Me BAD! A mile or so from home the rain stopped and the wind had pretty much dried the beads of water from the car. The car was put straight into the garage, and Mike was met by my wife and made him a cup of tea. I of course was out there in the garage drying my little lady. I joined them a short while later satisfied that the car totally dry, not that there was much to dry by the time we got back. I didn’t cover her up at this point, as the warmth of the engine in the garage along with the boiler would dry it out thoroughly over night.
Reviews:
As I had to clean my car the previous week with a bubble bath as it had got dusty, I have now completed my first review for car detailing products; the Meguiar’s Ultimate Wax Paste, click here for the hyper link to go straight to it. Or, go to the top menu “Car Detailing Products” where the link can also be found. I intend to add more reviews soon for the likes of; Meguiar’s, Poorboys World, Chemical Guys, Autoglym etc. etc. Why did I take more pics of my car as I mentioned at the beginning? 1) Just because I could, and 2) The shine on the car was from the Meguiar’s Ultimate Wax Paste that I could now finish the review off with.
How did the rain react to the paint? It was blown immediately off the car with the wind rush from driving. There was hardly any water on the car at all. I had not seen that level of beading before to be honest, impressive.
