NEC Classic Car Show and MPH07 – November 2007

Here’s just a small subset of the things that I saw yesterday in an excellent day at the NEC, enjoying the combination of the Classic Car Show, and MPH07, and the pleasure of the company of 4 other fine forummers, Messrs Piers, Dan Duke (Stuntman), Michael and Bryan. We started off in the Classic Car Show. The very first stand we came to had one of the largest crowds around it, and it was not hard to see why. This was the Bugatti Owners’ Club, and pride of place was given over to the Veyron.

There was some advance publicity material on this stand for “La Vie en Bleu 2”, which will take place at Prescott at the end of May 2008………….. it’s already in my diary, and I am appeasing the weather gods in the hope it is a nice and sunny experience. Will create a Diary Thread for this one soon! Right next door was the Ferrari stand, with a variety of cars from the 50s to the 90s. When we were there, even the F40 was looking lonely, as everyone was crowded around the Bugattis………… anyway, here are a few of the Red Cars

At this point, I was distracted to see not 1, but 2 Fiat Stradas on the Fiat Owners Club stand. Come on, when did you last see 2 of these cars? The red one, a first gen 105TC had done a mere 18,000 miles, none of them, I suspect, in the rain, as it was immaculate, and looked unused. The black 130TC looked quite subtle for what was actually the most potent hot hatch of its day.

Right behind these was one of those really elegant early 70s Coupes, and one of my favourites, the 130:

Change of nationality, next, to BMW. Several of the cars here looked familiar from shows earlier in the year, but we started with a real “HSS” spec E30 BMW 318i, again with a very low mileage, which looked like it had barely been used.

The 325i Sport next to it was almost as pristine, and here was the first time we saw the mirror strategically placed behind the car to reveal the extent of polishing of the undersides. Forummers have a long way to go in their car cleaning standards, yet, it would seem!

An Alpina 6 series, looked familiar from Gaydon.

A couple of CSLs, and a couple of convertible 2002s, completed the pictorial record from this stand.

Next stop was VW. Here we were surprised to discover that the cost a 1.1L Golf (another “HSS” spec car!) when new in March 1979 was over £3000. Shame the owner never used his car!

Alongside it was a late model first gen GTi in Lhasa Green metallic (?)

One side of the Audi stand revealed the rarely seen 100 Coupe and a Quattro

By this time, we decided we needed to head to the MPH Hall for the Live Theatre, but we got distracted by some fabulous cars on the Maserati stand, and decided to make amends for failing to photograph the 250F at Frankfurt, much to the chagrin of Pugwash senior. So here it is:

There were some other glorious Maseratis there, too…….

This one has been abandoned in Latin America for over 40 years and only recently exhumed and restored. Thank goodness it was!

Then it really was time for MPH………. and truly excellent it was. If Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May were as hungover as they deserved to be, from Andy’s encounter with them the night before, they did not show it….. and this was not the sort of show where you want to be hungover, with explosions and fireworks among many other spectacles in a 90 minute extravaganza. No pictures, but I am sure someone will have Youtube-d it all by now! On emerging, we decided we were thirsty, so needed to find the TR Register and Dave’s kind offer of coffee….. meandering through several halls, I managed to purloin a Show Guide, which actually had a map in it …… ad we realised we were about as far away as you could get. Anyway, we were reasonably focused and did not stop much to admire other displays and were successful in meeting Dave, who quickly rustled up a welcome shot of caffeine for us, and we enjoyed the pleasure of his company for a good chat. Thanks, Dave! Coffee seemed to generate a hunger, and it was by now nearly 2pm, so we started our quest for calories.. umimpressed by the rip off prices of a burger at £5, with a slice of cheese an extra £1 (!!) and chips a further £2, eventually we found some delicious (and scorching hot!) pasties for a much more reasonable price………. don’t think they claimed to be genuine Cornish, but they were good! With the Classic Car show closing at 5:30, this meant we now had virtually all the show to see, and not a lot of time………. and the place was packed. Sadly, this made photography very difficult, so many of the things that caught our eye were too crowded out to photo, and my idea of returning later simply timed out.

After looking at the Borgward, above, we ended up on the “Unloved Soviet” stand………… oh my……….. The Barkas van, the Ford Transit of East Germany for many years:

The Zaphrozets, a blatant copy of the NSU Prinz:

And the Yugo…….. who can forget this dumbed-down Fiat 128?

There were a couple of Wartburgs, a Lada Samara (probably the only one left in the UK?) and a rather nice but tatty Tatra 603. For an improvement in standards, next into the Ford area……….. lots of cars that were once familiar including a Fiesta Popular Plus, with the extravagant options of a heated rear window (!), a 1300L Mark 3 Cortina, and these rather fine Z cars:

By this stage, it was clear we were not going to be able to see everything, so we meandered around stands and halls, pausing to look at things which caught our eye, and here are just some that caught my camera, too: Merc W123 Coupe:

Merc 220S Cabrio from the 50s……….. glorious!

One of the ill-fated Jensen GTs from 1976 just before Jensen went bust for the first time

An early Hillman Imp

The Hillman Avenger:

Sunbeam Alpine and Tiger

An early Range Rover

The oh-so British attempt at Americana from the 50s, the Metropolitan, powered initially by a 1200 engine and finally upgraded to the 1489cc B Series…….

A 1958 Bedford Camper van……… luxurious it was not!

A once familiar sight….. in the days when there were real police patrol cars!

A display of Panthers………. starting with the Lima:

And with 2 x De Ville. A very rare Convertible and also a 4 door limo…….. real pastciche, these things. About 60 were built, based on Jag V12 components

Back to the more prosaic stuff, we got to the Morris Marina and Ital Owners Club!

And the “Land Crabs”…..

And the Austin Maxi…..

and from an earlier age, an A40 Van

Good variety of Rovers, too……….. and a reminder of Avocado, a colour also beloved of bathroom makers at the same time!

Tucked in amongst that lot was a Marauder

By this stage, it was now 5:30pm, and the organiser kept telling everyone the show was closed, and asking them to leave. We decided to push our luck and see how much more we could see before they evicted us, and we found another whole hall. Volvo had a huge stand, with some particularly rare cars from their heritage collection on display, some of which were 1-offs and prototypes:

After this one, we managed to get to the equally large Jaguar stand, where several very famous cars were on show, including “77RW” and “NUB120”

Time for a quick peek at the Saab stand, with a 96, a Sonnett and this 90

Then, we got to the glorious Lancia’s………. who can remember the last time they saw one of these, complete with its “Swiss cheese” dash…….. a Trevi

The glorious (and, in its day, very expensive) Appia:

By now, we were nearly back at the TR Stand, and I realised we had not taken any pictures…………. this is the first rhd TR2, and Dave told us about driving it in the great floods of July 2007!

At this point, the lights started to dim, so we took the hint and left………………. and decided now to go and explore the MPH Hall. Initially this did not look like a good idea, as it was packed, and as a show had just ended people were thronging in both directions. However, once the audience started to head in for the last show, the hall emptied out nicely, and were able to enjoy the exhibits much more easily. The MPH Hall had a mix of stands selling “things”, some awful “enhanced” vehicles and some cars we wanted to see……….. not surprisingly, the camera concetrated on this last category. Started with the Jag XF: