A Double Spring Break

Today was a promised to be a nice day according to my weather app. I was awoken by two little dogs whom decided they wanted to wander round the garden before the alarm went off. Fortunately it was only five minutes before I was due to get up anyway and saved me from the torturous alarm sound. I could of done without the furry foot on my face though.

I packed the cool bag with plenty of drinks as it was going to be a hot one. I loaded the trunk, got in the car and set of down the road. There was plenty of classics on the road, some going the opposite direction to me, I’m not sure what event that was, perhaps I should have gone to that one if i knew where it was of course. About twenty minutes later, no road works and no hold ups I arrived at Stonham Barns in Suffolk which was advertised as their “Spring Break”. Every Sunday at this location there is a huge car boot sale which is held in a field to the left of the main entrance. A marshal started to direct me into the car boot area, (I’ve experienced this once before at this location). I kept trying to point past her to say I wanted to get into the car show. She eventually let me past and I continued on my way. I was directed to drive into the main arena to park up. To my left was a more modern Mustang and to my right was a General Lee also just parking up next to me.

The gates open to the public at ten o’clock which was in about forty minutes time. I got my detailing products out to wipe of the road dust along with virtually every insect that decided they wanted to splatter themselves on the windscreen, the grill, front valance and number plate. One of the headlights looked like a checker board with the black bugs all over it, the other side was fine with none on it. A good tip to get rid of bugs is to a spray quick detailer on the bugs, allowed it to soak into the bugs in order to soften them up. By the time I had wiped over the upper surfaces of the car. It only took a couple of minutes to wipe them off. In no time, all was soon sparkly clean again.

I had a long cool drink before I set of to take some photos of the cars. There was quite a few cars that I hadn’t seen before, thus quite a few picture on this post like the last post. I wandered around the outside of the main arena before working my way inside to the arena and eventually back to my car.

There was some amazing paint jobs on display and this was the first of them, these black skulls appeared as you walked around the car in the sunlight.

I just loved this Plymouth, no idea what model it is apart from its a ’56. If somebody could let me know it would be great. I couldn’t find the owner as I would have asked them.

Another General Lee was at the show, wit ha closer colour to the TV series cars.

Another great paintjob, nothing fancy simply a beautiful colour such a deep gloss.

Inside the main arena there was an area for motorbikes and trikes.

This bike was simply stunning, the more I looked at it the more fine details I spotted. Just an awesome bit of kit and I loved the shotgun detail. The fuel tank artwork was amazing.

The Chevy Nomad from the last show was here again.

This was my car of the show.

I got talking to the owner of this Buick who told me about the story behind it, where it had been bought by a father for his daughter to go to and from college in it. The flag on the roof was painted free hand with spray cans by a street graffiti artist. The owner treats this car as his daily driver and isn’t afraid to get it wet and drive it. This is a rare rare example as they only made these for one year.

This Ford had a bold paint job perhaps the best in the show for artistic flare.

This van had a black paint job with coloured flames which were so subtle you had to catch the light just right to see them. I think this was the best paint job overall.

There was a few Mustangs at the show, some modern and some classics. I’ve grouped them all together here.

It was a bright sunny day and my Galaxy S24 Ultra coped fairly well with the bright conditions. Some images are bit washed out and some had glare, but I think they looked better for it.

There was a diverse range of cars with a very heavy emphasis on the USA models. The Trucks were really well represented with newer models alongside the old school classics.

I left the show a little early just before three before the Birds of Prey exhibition started as they don’t like you moving cars around at that point, which is understandable. The trip home was good apart from some a-hole in a lorry that pulled across the front of me last minute, only indicating as he was making the manoeuvre, like that was going to help. perhaps I should I mention the lorry was on foreign reg plates. As I overtook him I gave a little wave to show just how displeased I was with his lack of road craft and general lack of situational awareness.

I got home some ten minutes later and gave my car its mandatory quick detailer wipe over before putting it away in the garage. Not only had I been on a Spring break car show, my wife was spring cleaning when I walked in from the garage. Seeing the destruction that the tornado had left in the kitchen, I played it safe and kept well and truly out the way. I usually post a week later after a car show that I had attended, after taking time to edit the stock of photos from the day. This week it’s a rare posting on the same evening of the actual car show. Due to the afore mentioned destruction, I powered up the PC so that could edit my photos for this post.

It was a gloriously hot and sunny day, lots of great cars. Let’s hope the good weather continues.

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Carrot Town Car Show ’24

The weekend of 24^th July 2024 at Stonham barns was the Carrot Town Car show. This is usually aimed at the American classic and is usually a pretty good show. The night before the weather app(s) were consulted with no rain forecast but with one hundred percent cloud coverage. I don’t mind cloud as it makes it easier to take photo’s and you don’t sit in an open field with no shade. The journey there would require a fuel stop which was on the way with the Shell V-Power being my primary fuel. After the open wallet surgery was performed from an almost empty tank to full I restarted the journey to the event. The Stonham events always clashes with the car boot sale every Sunday in the field to the left of the show ground. The entrance is always a pain to get into, but this time I sailed straight in and paid my £5 to get in. I was directed to park up near a couple of other Mustangs which were by the main entrance, but in order to get there you have to drive down a gravel track to the other end of the field and then back to almost where I had came from. I parked up and within a space of about twenty minutes there was a whole line of Mustangs. The cars kept coming and a second line was created for those, a total of twenty four ponies in one area, it was almost like being back at the Mustang Owners Club Nationals a few weeks ago. I took over two hundred and fifty photos, but condensed it down to just under two hundred on this post.

I was pleased as a couple of friends parked up on the other side of the fence in the main arena and we had a good catchup. With the cars I decided to group them, Mustangs, Corvettes, trucks, bikes and the rest.

There was a one of kind wide body kitted out ‘Ghost’ as it was called. Not to every bodies taste, but it was certainly unique.

There was a Corvette owners club

Plenty of trucks and vans.

There was a section of movie and TV cars. The Knight rider car had the sweeping red light at the front with the sound it made. The interior was pretty cool as well.

Motorbikes scare the living daylights out of me but there was this ‘Boss’ bike which had a 430CiD V8 with 430BHP and 440 torque all put down on the road with the biggest rear tyre I had seen.

Then there is the rest of some stunning cars.

This stunning Charger RT with a rebuilt 528 Hemi won car of the show.

There were some trade stands around the show ground, and the first time I have seen some Bull horns for sale. I bought myself a replacement Chemical Guys P40 quick detailer as I had almost run out. It worked out cheaper than Amazon and eBay even with their ‘free’ postage.

Throughout the day there was a band that was playing some pretty good sounds it has to be said. The singer of the band also did a solo set.

I got back to the car ready for a sit down and a some refreshments.

A good day and I spent most of my time talking to lots of people. What I didn’t realise was that when the sun came out it was stronger than I expected. I hadn’t put my baseball cap on as well as not apply the factor fifty. I’m the sort of guy that burns easily and much to the wife’s amusement once I got home; ‘you like as red as a Budweiser label’. With that I went to fridge and twisted the cap off a cool beer and sat at my PC to write this post. I couldn’t admit it, but she was right, the top of my head does look the colour of a Budweiser beer label!

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Ringshall Car Show ’24

Last weekend was going to be a new show for me that I had seen on a few fliers at a previous show. The weather apps all said there would be no rain but there would be one hundred percent cloud coverage. I had no reason to doubt the apps as they had been correct for the last few shows. The show was due to start at nine thirty and finish at one in the afternoon.

I walked out the house and the air was damp, but not raining. I waited a while whilst I uncovered the car and put the cool bag in the trunk. I backed the car out and started my thirty minute journey to the show. As I got onto the main road the air thickened and a few misty drops of rain hit the care. Do I turn round or go back home? I had a couple of miles to travel before I reached a round about to make the decision. The dampness stopped and I decided to carry on.

Just before the village I came round a corner, there it was; PC plod with a camera at a quarter to nine on Sunday morning. The car was hidden down the side out of the way and he was standing by a tree. Honestly there are murderers, terrorists, muggers and weirdos out there which get away scot-free, but a motorist is easy pickings to raise money easily, every time. Nothing better to do than stand in a sleepy village looking for somebody doing the terrible crime of 31mph in a 30mph. It just annoys me, when you get yobs speeding around the towns and doing donuts causing a disturbance, they do nothing. Anyway, ten minutes later I arrived at a village hall and was directed onto a field.

The field itself was a couple of football pitches side by side, yet they parked as on the very left hand side and right at the back of the field. I couldn’t see any reason to park us around the edges to be honest. It would have been better to have us lined up nearer the village hall to save walking across a desolate field.

I parked up and got out spoke to the guys next to me and we had a good chat about the rain forecast, there wasn’t going to be any according to our apps. Yeah right, almost on que the dampness turned into a very light misty light dampness more so than rain. Instead of breaking out the factor fifty, I got the fleece from the trunk. Throughout the next few hours it was the same, the misty rain and then a dry spell. I found a couple of friends and we caught up for a chat. I told them I needed counselling as I was stressing over the rain or potential rain about to come. The sky showed some brighter clouds were moving our way. I decided to stay as the dry spells were warm and the light breeze was drying the rain of the car. The down side was that the rain was leaving little spots on the chrome. The Woolly Mammoth was out and used for drying a couple of times.

There was about fifty or so cars that turned up and left over the morning’s few hours. There were some nice cars and a few three of four year old Jaguars or Mercedes as well, I ignored those as they can be seen at every supermarket car park.

There was an old Gypsy caravan this was the first time I had seen inside one. I don’t know if it was original or not, but it was quite cool.

There was a nice Trans Am in gold, which wasn’t the common black and ‘Smokey & The Bandit’ livery. This for me was my favourite car of the day.

After a wander around I sat down at the rear of the car and got to speaking with a number of nice people.

There was a young guy who’s twelfth birthday was on the show day. His family asked him what he wanted to do for the day and he chose to go to the car show. As a treat I let him sit in the car for a few pictures. A couple of stalls on the field and a few inside the village hall were aimed at the general public and not car people of petrol heads. The turn out would have been better I’m sure with a better weather for sure. I had to finish up with this picture of an adoring dog waiting for its owner to move on and explore more of the hedgerows.

I left the show just before twelve thirty as the rain had stopped, which gave me a window to drive home in the dry. Once I got back to the house the quick detailer was out and I removed the rain spots from the car before I put her away in the garage. The dehumidifier was checked and on to remove any hidden moisture on the car.

Potential for a good show, and I would attend again next year, as long as it don’t rain.

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A New Venue

I know this post is a bit late from the day but I just haven’t had time to get round to it all. So apologies and I have reprimanded myself quite severely. Anyway, the new venue was a generously sized field at Barnham Common in the lovely area of Thetford Forest. The best of which is the drive through that beautiful forest area to get there. Considering the previous shows have been a wash out with rain, this was Father’s Day and the weather apps said only a few percent chance of rain. Awesome I was going. I arrived fairly early and was expecting the Bury Retro Car Club to be there so I could park up with the guys, considering I missed out at the previous show in Elveden. Pullin’ into the field there was not many people there, in fact some of the stall traders also turning up to get ready. I was directed to park pretty much where I liked near the other lines of cars. I found a nice Ford Orion and parked next to him and I was pleased to say that a Ford Granada parked the other side of me. A Ford sandwich with USA muscle for the filler.

Checked app – no rain forcast. I started a wander around before it got to busy.

About twenty minutes later the car club turned up and parked a line down form me.

A good mixture of cars on the day.

UK Fords

USA Muscle

Later on the sky clouded and thought felt it, surely not. A few drops to start with then it stopped, not enough to bead on the car. However, half hour later, nowhere to hide except to sit in the car – it happened.

It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was enough. once it stopped it had to dry the car, the first of a few times that day. then the sun came out as quickly the rain feel. that was the pattern for the day. A rain shower for a couple of minutes then sun. I still manged to get sunburn on my face, don’t know how. But I was pleased with the beading though from my new quick detailer from Chemical Guys which I reviewed here.

Around the field spirits were high still and nobody seemed upset about the rain. The entertainment for the kids was great with bird handling and few live shows even.

But an hour after the start of the show to the public this old lady came in. Next year this traction engine will be a century old. I think this was the favourite of the show for me.