Enfield Pageant Of Motoring ’24 (part 3)

This is the last of the three posts for the Pageant. I will start this post with the all the random Mustangs that were around the field. There was even a ’67 fastback in Acapulco blue as well.

The guy that owns this fastback has the UK reg plate ‘JJZ109’ which of course is the Bullitt number plate (or reg plate). This car is often seen with a black charger at the same in car shows. The owner has decided that he wants this car to look even more like the movie ‘hero’ car and has started to rough it up a bit. The damage here is intentional. We must remember that it’s the guys car and we shouldn’t judge, I’m not sure it’s something I would personally have done to such a nice car.

In the main tent there was a selection of cars from movie sets, the guide in the tent was telling me that one of these cars is said to have come from “Downton Abby” TV series here in the UK. It’s a series that I never watched, as it’s not my thing. So I tried to Google the cars, but my searches haven’t found the car(s), again I’m happy to be corrected on this.

Leaving the tent to go onto the other side of the field there was the main club stands. I mingled around them to get most of them in shot.

I mentioned there was an unusual engine at the show. This is it, a Merlin engine from a WWII Spitfire plane.

The engine fired up a few times throughout the day and it drowned all the noise out from the field. I couldn’t get near the engine as it was constantly busy. The sound, just deafening and mesmerising at the same time.

I was back at the Mustang Maniac stand and there was a steady flow of people wanting to speak to Adam and ask about the cars, especially the ’73 red convertible that he had up for sale. I got my chilled drink and set up my camping chair for a well earned sit down.

The sun cream was slapped on and I enjoyed sitting down people watching f or the rest of the day. Before I left for home I had a secret weapon – a can of Red Bull sugar free. I finished the can and got into the car around half four in the afternoon and set of for home. I wanted to be fully alert as I suspected I might be tired on the way home. The slogan that ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ wasn’t quite true as I had to endure the lunatics driving on the M25 back home again. To fly home would have been nice, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed my car. Once I got back onto the main dual carriageways again getting away from the London area things start to calm down and I could relax a little on the way home. I even got the odd wave from kids in cars and the odd motor cyclist too. As I drove into my road I could open the garage door ready to drive the car straight into the garage. I didn’t cover the car as I would have to clean the car on the Sunday. Why the rush and not clean it as I always do before garaging? It started to rain. I managed to get the car in the garage with just a few spots of water on the car. By the time I got the trunk unloaded, closed the garage door behind me and got into the house, the rain came down like a tap. Literally a minute later on the road and the car would have got soaked. As far as I was concerned it was a great day out at a very busy and popular car show, great company, and I spoke to many really nice people about my car too. I couldn’t of asked for more, apart from my bed as the Red Bull had worn of and I was pretty tired to say the least. On Sunday the sun was out for a couple of hours where I managed to clean the car, cover it up and plug in the trickle charger back in ready for the next adventure.

Driving a classic car can be tiring for long distances, just ask any owner. We are constantly looking out for people who want to wreck our cars through their stupidity or their inconsiderate actions. We are looking for pot holes, lose gravel in the road for stone chips, debris in the road, keeping a good distance from the car in front etc. the concentration can be intense!

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Enfield Pageant Of Motoring ’24 (part 2)

As I finished my last post I mentioned that part 2 will show my favourite car of the show and here it is; the mighty DE Tomaso Pantera. I had a long chat with the owner who was telling me about the 351 Windsor engine in the middle which tends to set the neighbours car alarms off when he starts it up in the morning. Not many of these cars around now and this was a fine example, just beautiful. Another poster car for many teenage kids.

Moving on down the lines of cars I was working way towards the stalls on the right hand side of the field as you drive in.

There was a an old School bus (I think), which had been converted to a motorhome. I would loved to have had a look inside, but it was all closed up unfortunately. I would love to be enlightened what these vehicles are under the yellow exterior and can you even buy them?

I was at the end of the individual entries of cars and at the main tent and funfair. The was a display of radio controlled models that were on an oval track which were just smashing into each other demolition derby style.

I spotted this dog who was totally at home on this tyre and was getting lots of attention.

There was plenty of stalls for auto parts as well as the usual car boot or yard sale items. There was a live band playing regular sets throughout the day, but we didn’t get much chance to hear them from where I was with Mustang Maniac.

After this section as the for sale stalls it was time to move over to the other side of the filed which I will bring in ‘part 3’. There will be an unusual engine and the block of Mustangs collated from various parts of the field.

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Enfield Pageant Of Motoring ’24 (part 1)

On the 25^th of May I attended the Enfield Pageant of Motoring as a guest of Mustang Maniac. The weather looked promising and was going to be a very welcome change from the usual rain over the weekend. The Saturday was going to be the better day with some showers on the Sunday. So the Saturday I got rudely awoken by the alarm at five in the morning, or should I say middle of the night? I sort of stumbled out of bed, woke the wife and then the very short process of waking the dogs from their deep sleep to then being ‘off on one’ wanting to go out right there and then. I eventually got ready and and loaded up the cool bag with lunch, snacks and drinks. I had previously uncovered the car in the garage, disconnected the trickle charger and already put in the the postcode into the SatNav, I just needed to plug it in and turn on from ‘sleep mode’ to resume the directions. The dash cam also sprung into life as the engine fired into life. I sent a text to Adam to say that I was now leaving just a little before six.

The journey there was interrupted by a obligatory stop at the Shell VPower station for a little top up of five gallons. I didn’t fancy having to pay London prices on top of the already premium cost of the VPower fuel. I got back on the road and thoroughly enjoyed my drive, that is until I got to the outer London car park also known as the M25. Then within a space of two miles it seemed as though it was the film set of Mad Max Fury Road where everybody was trying to kill each other. I did my best to avoid the carnage as best as I could, I was traumatised by the time I got off the motorway. There was speed cameras what seemed like on every gantry and the lamp posts when I got the motorway some short ten minutes later. I got to the Pageant at around seven forty and drove up to the Mustang Maniac plot. A total of seventy seventy three miles to get there.

Adam and Lance were there unloading the Falcon and the electric (road worthy) buggy he had there for the weekend.

We had a quick discussion on how we were going to park and I took the corner spot. I then had a little drive of the Falcon to park that up too.

I think Adam felt sorry for me as he kindly bought me and Lance an all you can eat full English breakfast at the carvery just before you enter the show ground. You can trust me when I say that they didn’t make any profit from us as we certainly die honour the ‘all we could eat’ offer. In fact I was so full after the breakfast and ‘free refills’ of soda that I didn’t eat for the rest of the day. I think my veins were pumping pure cholesterol rather than blood, but it was very nice I must say.

On the day I took just over three hundred photos. Some of those photos I have shared with Mustang Maniac for their blog. I try to keep my posts to around a hundred or so photos to keep the loading times down and not make it a scroll fest and getting bored. So I aim to post these three posts in fairly quick succession.

The walk back was welcome to stretch of the legs and helped walk some of the breakfast down. There was some more cars turning up on the stand and we even had a Pontiac ‘ringer’ park with us.

Adam relaxing after the breakfast and sitting with his much loved vintage flat bed.

Directly behind the the Mustang Maniac pitch was the Afro Classic Register who were providing us with entertaining music throughout the day via some more than capable in-car sound systems.

To take the pics I started in their direction heading towards the back of the field. This part of the field where individual entry cars were lined up in rows. I wandered up and down the rows taking pics of the interesting cars, rather than the six year old everyday cars that were parking up.

This is the end of the batch of rows and is an ideal time to stop ready for the ‘part 2’ of the show. I came across my car of the show at the start of the next post.