With all the excitement of recent weeks focused on the Olympics and Paralympics, it is hard perhaps to remember that just a few short weeks ago, the nation was celebrating something else, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Although the main events in Her honour were focused around early June there have been others timed for the rest of the year, and the special one with a motoring theme has only just taken place in early September. Called the Windsor Castle Concours, this proved to be a splendid addition to an already rather congested calendar for the motoring enthusiast. Taking place over three days, the highlight was a special assembly of 60 particularly lovely cars, many of which had were shipped in specially for the event and several of which had not been seen before in the UK. These cars were housed in the Upper Ward Quadrangle, the first time that cars and indeed the public had been given access to this area. This was just the start, though, with displays then coming out of the castle and along the Long Mile, there was lots to see. Tickets were £35, which is a lot by the standards of most events even these days, but trust me, it was well worth the money as there were some truly awesome machines on show.

THE CONCOURS

Although there had been an idea that 60 special machines would be chosen, each from a different year of the Queen’s reign, in the end, I think an even more stunning display was achieved by simply coming up with a list of cars and getting them to the venue. Not all the cars were in Concours condition, which seemed to puzzle a few of the visitors, but many were and quite a few were making their first appearance after lengthy and costly restoration work. In the true spirit of a Concours, there was an overall winner. Study these cars and see if you can decide which it might be.

1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Coupé ‘Gullwing’

1958 Bentley Continental S Type H J Mulliner 1959 Maserati Tipo 60 ‘Birdcage’

 

Approaching the Upper Ward Quadrangle, there was a splendid assembly of British cars from the beginnings of motoring, to a few recent models,, with several really rare machines included among the collection.

ALVIS

The owner of this lovely 4.3 litre car said that he bought it for £5. It was quite a long time ago, but even so, the prescience of his purchase now must look rather good as these cars are worth around £200,000. It was joined by a Speed 20.

Several Astons including the recent Vanquish and one of its antecedents, the V8 Vantage

No display of significant British cars would be complete without an Austin Seven or two, and sure enough, they were represented.

Among the display were a Derby model from the 1930s, an R Type, a “chinese eye” Silver Cloud 3 Convertible, and a Brooklands.

This is a one off 406S Zagato which was used by Tony Crook for many years, during which time he exceeded 100,000 miles.

The Sovereign was Daimler’s version of the Jaguar 420, and lived on until the replacement car with the same name based on the XJ6 was launched. This is one of the last cars made. .

FORD

An original GT40

Looking like a BMW 319, this was the UK importer, Frazer Nash’s version of the car.

There were examples of the current range on show, with the bright blue XKR-S attracting particular attention.

 

An early 110 model, this one was the property of Her Majesty.

A couple of Elan and an early Elise accompanied an early Seven.

A duo of the latest MP4-12C cars were joined by a Formula 1 machine.

 

Luckily, there was an information plaque to enlighten as to what this car is. Called the Transformable, it was built in 1949 on a Riley 2.5 litre chassis by Walter Koeng, who had ideas of making a small series of these cars. This is the only one produced and it has been in Switzerland all its life until very recently. If you spot a link to the styling of the first Corvette, with the curves on the front wings and doors, then this is no accident and the same stylist was engaged on both designs.

The modern Phantom Drophead really is a massive machine indeed. It dwarfed pretty much everything else in this display.

TR3

A duo of early cars

This is a very rare example of the last car badged Wolseley, the short lived version of the 18-22 Series that had no model name in Wolseley guise, and which morphed into the Princess just 6 months after launch. This is believed to be the youngest Wolseley in the world.

Parked up along both sides of the Long Mile were an array of other interesting vehicles, thanks for the sterling efforts of a number of Owners Clubs. These could be browsed for free, as they were outside the ticket and security point, and indeed were a welcome diversion when the gates opened and a long queue formed of people waiting to get into the main event.

ASTON MARTIN

The Aston Martin display started with a 2012 V12 Zagato model, and then had one car for each year dating all the way back to the 1960s, before accepting that there were more cars to show than years to represent, so towards the end of the line, many years were more than duplicated.

Pre-war cars

 

SS100

275 GTB

Not affiliated with a large car club gathering as such were also these lovely machines

A 3.0CSL and a lovely 3.0Si E3 car were the highlights from this Bavarian marque.

A duo of Cortina (Mark 1 and 2) were joined by a small selection of Capri models.

There were only a couple of Lamborghinis, including this Diablo.

This MP4-12C was parked up among the Ferraris.

An example of the slightly gawky Scimitar SST

Surprisingly few Royces at the event, though there were a couple of Silver Shadows.

1800ES