Helmingham Hall Car Show 2026 (part 2)

Part two of the Festival of Classic and Sports Cars at Helmingham Hall, takes us into the privateer field on the other side of the hall. After taking in some liquid refreshments and a few calories Craig and I set off to find some more nice cars. This was the view that greeted us as we emerged from the tea and cake. It was reported that there was 1,200 cars and 8,000

The cars that parked up on the Tollemache area are here, it was a relentless sea of people swarming around the cars.

There is a red Lamborghini Countach here which is in fact a replica or tribute car as they tend to be known as now days. It was interesting to hear the people saying that it’s a real one, a simple look under the mid engined hood would see a v8 and not the glorious V12. Don’t get me wrong it’s a beautiful looking car, but the real thing wasn’t allowed on the Tollemache, more on that a little later in this post.

As the privateer field was not a club stand field, it was divided up into into various decades. Sixties, seventies, eighties etc. Although looking at the mixture of cars, it looked to be good intentions for organisation, but it didn’t work flawlessly. The field was full, but as we got out around two thirty some of the cars were leaving early, so we missed a few of them, nothing spectacular was missed.

Each of these little galleries was supposed to be the decade, but I have just left them in the order of walking up and lines of cars which was a little chaotic at times it has to be said.

This poor chap was having issues with his car, but what was nice to see is a number of people that gathered around him to help out. It was refreshing to see regardless of the make of the vehicle, people were helping out. I did hear some dubious suggestions for the potential problem not used to old school carburettors, but also some very valid next steps for trouble shooting.

In the previous post I mentioned that there was an issue with the Tollemache entrants area. As we pulled into the event’s main gate there was a car in front of us who was clearly trying to blag his way into the Tollemache. It was quite obvious that he hadn’t booked so wasn’t allowed to park up which was a good thing, but that left a problem the marshals who couldn’t turn him back down the drive. They had to work out where to send him as he wasn’t on a club stand either. Due to this person’s attempts to get somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, it caused a queue of traffic behind him, that’s me included and load of others who were getting a bit frustrated. This guy had clearly paid to get on the Tollemache and had his ticket in the windscreen, but wasn’t allowed to park at the Tollemache for what ever reason, these privileged tickets ain’t cheap and I hope he got his money back. This Lambo is the real deal.

With the field completed it was time to head back to the car, but via some of the gardens. The gardens were busy and we decided not to go all round them. Such a shame that the heat has ruined the lush greenery and vibrant colours of the flowers.

There was some stalls, but no autojumble which was a bit shocking to be honest, after all this is a car show. There was home made jewellery, cakes and some artworks you could buy should you need to. I had taken some cash with me as I wanted to buy some detailing products and a few microfibre cloths, but no I couldn’t which was typical. There was no car oil stalls, car parts for the rest of us petrol heads, such a prestigious event like this I was expecting more car related stalls. However there was one car stall, but it was the Hot Wheels type. Outside one stall there was this lovely ol’ thing, I have no idea what it is and would genuinely love for somebody to tell me what it is, apart from stating the obvious of being old.

Mart’s Car Of The Show.

This is an MG Y (I think) from 1952. I don’t know why this caught my eye, it was battered and well used which was the appeal to me, a 1250cc or 76.3ci for my friends on the other side of the pond. This was in the club stand field with the MGs. A great little car with plenty of character that I bet could tell a story or two.

We took a another well earned break and done some mandatory people watching. I had one guy stop by to say hello and I couldn’t place him. We got to talking and it turned out that he was a neighbour over the road from me who had seen my car way back when as a wreck being worked on up my drive before it was stored at Mustang Maniac where I could work on it properly. Matt and I reminisced for a while and caught up on what we had been doing since we had lost touch. I said that I would mention on my post that Matt has a really good app that I do use called ‘Shaboodle’ link here and this is not a sponsored plug by the way. It’s a great (secure) app for storing all sorts of information, car details, documents, itinerary etc. all in one place online or via the app. I like it so you may want to check it out.

I mentioned that Lee is a good friend of Craig’s and I have gotten to know him as too meeting up at the car shows. He, like Craig is a keen photographer with a good eye for a shot. As I pulled into the event making my way down the drive I slowed right down as Craig had spotted Lee who appeared right on cue to take an action shot of us coming up the drive. It was now my turn to hold the traffic up as you can see behind me! The difference was I only stopped for a few seconds. Lee sent me these cracking photo’s and I said I would also give him a shout out for his Instagram: s2kathome or the link here https://www.instagram.com/s2kathome/ again this is not a sponsored mention.

I especially love this shot.

Once I had parked up Lee had taken these as well.

Thanks for letting me use the photos Lee.

Although there was 1,200 or so cars there, I was a little selective and hope I captured the spirit of the show. So, that was Helmingham Hall all done for another year, a great show as ever, well organised and it was nice to have some company with me for a change at a car show, now I’m looking forward to next year.

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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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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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Wings & Wheels

Weekend just gone I attended the Stowmarket Carnival which was held over two days with a classic car section on Sunday. The general public was let in from eleven onwards, but the cars had to be in before nine thirty, although they were still being let in at ten thirty. So, I decided to take my photos sooner than later without too many people around, and before more cars arrived. A nice mix of cars and some top quality restorations on show. It was one of the first days this year I could get my show board out without the wind and rain because the sun was out all day, I even had to apply sun cream, twice! There were stalls, a dog shows, live singing, and a fun fair too.

I follow on Instagram a group of ladies called ‘_modifiedgirls’ and they also have a website called ‘https://modifiedgirls.co.uk/’ I mentioned this because I see a FTO being lovingly cleaned by a couple of ladies. Without trying to appear anything other than a genuine car fan I got talking to Tara Ashton who confirmed that she was a member of the Modified Girls scene. We had a chat about cars and I have to say that these ladies do know their stuff. I also think it’s fantastic to see members of the fairer sex enjoying the car show scene along with the guys. Here is her FTO she rocked up in to the show. I said I would give her a shout out on my blog, consider it done.

This Mk1 Ford Escort GT was a preproduction model and was used by the media to review the car. A nice example with some serious provenance.

There was mixture of a few hot rods, kit cars, more modern cars and some restorations to wonderful standards. Did you know the Fiat 500 number was the engine size in CCs? That’s 500 cc’s or half a litre, for our US friends that’s 30.5Ci Abarth gave the engine a stage 1 modification up to 595cc (36.3Ci) which made 31bhp.

Triumph models were varied, Stag, TR6, Dolomite, Spitfire. I almost bought a Stag when I was looking for a classic car, but when I saw the Mustang, my mind was made up. But I still like the look of those stags. 🙂

Some of the other cars that took my attention, I didn’t bother with the Nissan Skylines, as for the Golf GTI’s, Jags, Vauxhall Corsa etc, I could have gone down the road to the Asda car park and seen as many as I wanted. Is that a harsh thing to say?

From the heading I mentioned wings as well as the wheels. The Saturday they had a fly by of a Spitfire (the classic WW2 plane – not the car being propelled through the air). On Sunday we were treated to a WW2 Lancaster Bomber. If I had of known I would have taken a proper camera not just a cell phone. But I tried my best to capture this incredible plane that did three low(ish) fly overs.

I turned this into a black and white picture, I think it works better than the colour pics. I took a video of he final fly over, the trouble is you just get to hear the fabulous noise.

I took this video of the last fly over, the trouble is that the video didn’t pick up the incredible sound the plane made. 🙁

To finish the post I must be going soft in the head or getting sentimental in my old age. I had a guy Andrew who loved my car and was looking all over it. He made a good presentation to me on why he should sit in my car. I let him sit in it after emptying his pockets of keys etc. so as to not to damage the upholstery, I even took a picture of him in my car, just because I said I would. Consider that done as well.

It was a hot day, but I’m not complaining about the weather for a change. 😀 I spoke to lots of people and had a great day. More of the same next time I hope.

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Social Media Reflections

I should start with my head held in shame for not posting for two months. I apologise and I know it’s a bad way to treat your followers and readers. To my own self defence though, there hasn’t really been much to do on the Mustang over the winter that I can write and tell you all about it. I would like to say a “Thank You” for the emails about the look of the new blog, they have been very positive to date and I appreciate all of your comments. In the mean time I haven’t t been sitting around doing nothing over these last couple of months, oh no. I have started to spread my wings or is it; drift my tyre smoke, into other areas of Social Media. Now I must admit I am not a great fan of Facebook and all the waste of time posts along the lines of “share this post if you have dark hair”, “share this post if you write with your right hand”, “so and so is playing ping-pong and wants you to send them the golden ball” or “I have just got up and I am eating my breakfast”, type of stuff. It drives me mad in fact so I tend to keep away from that side of it. But, I do realise that it’s an important tool to keep in contact that just can’t be ignored. My reflections on Social Media have now prompted me to jump in rather than dip my toes as it were. As a result in that thought logic I have started my Instagram account which can be found here, or cut and paste this link into your browser: https://www.instagram.com/onemanandhismustang/?hl=en. Search for “onemanandhismustang” if you want to find me that way on there.

If that wasn’t enough, I also started my Pinterest account which can be found here, or again cut and paste this link to your browser: https://uk.pinterest.com/onemanandhismus/ Search for user “onemanandhismus” if you want to find me that way on there too.

You will know the accounts are me because the Gravatar (Logo) badge I use is the Mustang Tribar on the blue background that matches my car.

The Instagram account should (in theory at least) allow me to post pics that I like from the car shows or other places that I attend, providing I have a signal of course. The Pinterest account on the other hand will be more of a save and share pics type of account, for all things Mustangs and the other female in my life, the legendary Marilyn Monroe. Please feel free to follow me on the accounts and I will follow you back, it’s only fair of course. Message me or do what you do on these platforms as I am a little new to it all at the moment.

In the mean time I have been making regular trips down to Mustang Maniac to see what has been going on down at the yard and enjoy the company of the guys while getting dirty and helping out where I can. Adam very kindly got me a surprise gift, he managed to track me down a rare almost mint condition 1966 Mustang Sales Brochure. I have scanned it as well as created a PDF document and shared it above in the menu “Articles/1966 Sales Brochure”, or click here for the hyper link. I have been after one of these brochures for a long time and this is the real deal and not a copy. I was so chuffed with it that I couldn’t speak for a while. Thinking about it – maybe that was the plan? Seriously though, it’s amazing and has now been stored away very carefully.

When the weather has been nice I have rolled out the Mustang out of the garage and given her a much needed clean to get rid of that pesky layer of dust on the paint job which is hiding under the dust cover. Why? Because I can and it’s a tenuous excuse to wax it again and see glorious reflections in my paint job. I also wanted to build up a nice few layers of wax as much as I can before the new car show season starts. Well that was my excuse and I’m sticking to it. A little while ago on the blog heading menus, I started a new section called “Car Detailing Reviews”. This is going to be used for the products that I use, or have used with my personal reviews on those products, which I have purchased with my own hard earned money. Some have been amazing while others not so. The recent additions that I have finally gotten around to writing up about are; Meguiar’s “Gold Class Carnauba Plus” wax, click here for that review. Here are a couple of pics to tease you a bit on that review.

roof wax on

roof wax some off

I also have been looking for a good quality product for my Magnum 500 chrome wheels to keep them in tip top shape without damaging the polished surfaces. I found a product called “Mint Rims Wheel Wax” by Auto Finesse, click here for that review, with a couple of pics to get you going.

The wheel wax was on a special offer at the time, so I purchased another of the Auto Finesse range “Mercury Metal Polish”, for that review click here to see what I think of that product. A pic or two from the review.

Finally a question.

I have had a couple of requests to be a guest writer on my blog. Nothing wrong with that of course, and it could be good. But, when I responded back via email they didn’t want to give me any details and just wanted to post on my blog. Is it not courtesy to let the owner of the blog know what you are going to post about or not? I appreciate this blog has a limited appeal as it’s (mostly) about Mustangs, the last thing I want to do is have a post on the there about the latest Nike shoes or the benefits of whistling with one finger in your ear! Any thoughts on how this “guest blogger” process works? I would be grateful to know.

Hopefully my next post won’t be so long a wait!