On the first of August this year I had one of my favourite shows and never disappoints is the Helmingham Hall car show. Always fully booked, and awesome settings. Thisyear as there have been quite a few car shows I am seeing the regulars on the scene. So I’m aiming to get different cars to show.

This show I managed to take over three hundred photos. As an extra I had my good friend Craig come with me. He arrived at my house nice and early as I was packing my stuff ready for the day. We loaded up the car and set off for the thirty minute drive to the show. Craig is a member of the SXOC so he managed to us a club stand pass. The club has diversified quite a lot from the initial Nissan SX Owners Club. There are now, Porsche, Jaguar, Mustang, BMW all were welcome etc. The club stand side is always the nicer side of the park. Private entrants on the right hand side of the field, clubs stands on the left.

Always a queue to get in. The best of it was that the side road we needed to emerge from was not getting much sympathy in letting us out. As a massive coincidence one of Craig’s friends in his Porsche flashed us out – what a result as the timing was just perfect. The prediction for the weather was for a nice day, the clouds were looking to say otherwise.

We found the stand half way up the slightly slopped field and parked up nicely.

Craig is avid amateur photographer and took lots of photos of the day too. I have been given permission to use some of his photo’s like this one below. A great moody shot, also the same featured picture at the top which I darkened right down, just because I liked the look of it.

There was a little reorganisation of the stand once everybody who was expected turned up. In the mean time we got out the cloths and gave the cars a quick wipe over. The reorganisation was for the cars to point into the corners of the allotted space and some in the middle to spread it out a bit, instead of a boring straight line.

After a energetic spurt of cleaning we got the chairs out and had a break for a few minutes. As the time got nearer ten o’clock for opening the general car parking fields started to get very busy.

We decided to have a walk round and look at the cars. We decided to look at the private cars first and on the way we passed a couple of club stands and we would do the rest later. Without any order of preference on with the pics;

Along the main entrance path either side were some super cars. Aston’s Ferraris, McLaren, BMW, Porsche, GTR’s etc.

On the private entries i think this was my favourite and amphibious car.

Back to walking around the lines we were back to more familiar vehicles.

After an hour or so we felt it, yep the first drops of rain! This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Due to sheer number of pictures that I took and some of Craig’s along with the loading times, I think this will be best split into three posts. A hundred or so photo’s in each.

Watch this space for parts 2 then part 3!

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The weekend just gone was a busy one with one of my favourite car shows of the year, stunning cars and beautiful surroundings. The weather for Sunday was a sunny start with the promise of a nice day, all day. Helmingham Hall was built in 1510 and can boast Grade 1 listed gardens, in other words; significant historical importance, the same sort of historical status as Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge or The Houses of Parliament etc. Only 2.5% of all the listed buildings in the UK are Grade 1 listed in fact. Anyway, I met up with my mate David who has a S197 Mustang at a truck stop for a little breakfast before we set of with the few other Mustangs that had arrived. We were to depart in convoy and arrive at the halls around twenty minutes later, or so we thought.

Through the villages, we cruised through and the locals were out to give all the classic cars a wave as they passed by. Half a mile out we hit this little lot, with a complete standstill and the temperature rising there were a number of upset people, me included.

The temperature was rising in the car as well, not so much the water, but the fuel was being evaporated from the carb. The result was a car that was starting to run a bit rough on idle. I turned the engine off, as did many of the cars behind me. to stop boiling over and save fuel allowing them cool off a little. Many opened their bonnets (hood) to allow it cool quicker.

After forty-five minutes to an hour or so we eventually got in, starting the cars up and moving a few car lengths at a time. Repeating until we got in the main gates. Cars were boiling over and there really should be a better system. So sort it out Helmingham Hall – myself and fellow classic car owners were not impressed at all.

I parked up with the Simply Mustangs UK Facebook group who had a spare ticket for me to get in, so I was lucky I was on a stand.

Getting the car clean was a long job as the general public were being allowed in as we set up the club stand. I was almost on the end until a new Bullitt parked up next to me. Once we were all buffed and cleaned, I took a few pics of the cars from Simply Mustang UK stand proudly on display.

It was interesting to see the comparison of the old and new Mustangs in respect of the engineering.

As it was such a nice day the car parks got full pretty quickly and can be seen on the fields in the background of some of the pics. The venue was busy, very busy.

There was a variety of food tents cooking all day not more than twenty-five meters away from us that made me hungry all day. There was a dance floor surrounded by hay bales with dancers and even a bird show with owls and an old timer vulture.

But enough of all that, the cars, lots of cars! In no particular order, I just wandered around and took a few pics of what caught my eye.

Super cars were there as well.

Then onto more club stands.

The odd car was for sale!

At the front of the Halls there is a reserved area for some cars, I’m not sure how they get there each year, but they have a beautiful backdrop to their cars.