The Goodwood Breakfast Club may have gathered much of the publicity for a regular Sunday morning assembly of interesting cars, but a bit of research turns up the fact that there are now q large number of smaller scale meetings all over the country, confirming that there are plenty of people who are only too keen to show off their interesting vehicle to a group of like minded enthusiasts. I’ve been aware of the fact that the nearest such meeting to me takes place on the second Sunday of the month in the historic Queen’s Square in the centre of Bristol, and finally found a clear space in my diary to go down and see for myself what previously I had vicariously enjoyed by looking at pictures taken by others. As luck would have it, the day – Remembrance Sunday – dawned sunny and cloudless, and by the time I arrived around 9:45am, all four sides of the centre of the square were almost full. There were plenty of comings and goings for the next 90 minutes or so, and then most headed off for other weekend pursuits. Among the highlights of the event were these:

ABARTH

Including my car, there were three Abarth 500s present.

AC

A couple of Cobra were joined by this splendid replica Shelby Daytona Coupe model.

ALFA ROMEO

This 75 was a late arrival, joining a 147GTA and a 916 series GTV along with a 105 series Giulia

David Roots had brought along his Alfa Special.

ALVIS

A 12/70 was joined by this very rare Graber bodied model

ASTON-MARTIN

V8 Vantage

AUSTIN

Ten Ripley.

BMW

Almost inevitably, there were a number of rather modified BMWs, which were far from my taste. This fabulous E30 model M3 more than made amends. It is just lovely. It even has my initials on the registration plate!

BRISTOL

A duo of 403 models.

CHEVROLET

A real star of the day was this 1948 Fleetmaster Sedan.

There was also a C4 model Corvette

CITROEN

Once a common sight, the BX is now something of a rarity. This BX 19GTi was immaculate. Far nicer, to my mind, than the Double Chevron’s current products

FERRARI

A couple of Ferraris, with a 328 and 348 in attendance, and elsewhere around the square was this F430 which made quite a sound when the owner fired up the engine at departure time..

FIAT

This nicely presented Nuova 500 was attracting a lot of interest.

FORD

If you were asked to suggest which Ford model would be best represented at almost any event, I doubt many would suggest Corsair, but there were two of these upper medium sized saloons from the 1960s present.

Other Fords included a 1930s Model Y, the later 1950s E93A Popular, a Mark 1 Zephyr,  a Mark 2 Escort RS2000 and a replica GT40

LANCIA

Perhaps my favourite car of the whole lot was this, a fabulous Appia Coupe.

LAND-ROVER

Although we now assume that almost any recent European registered Land Rover product will be diesel engined, in the 1980s only a few Range Rovers were sold with a rather puny, noisy and rough VM powerplant. This is one of them.

LOTUS

Europa

Rarer still was this Series 4 Seven. This rather square bodied machine is the least well regarded of the original Chapman design, produced from 1970 until 1973, at which point the rights to the model were sold to Caterham.

MG

A nice MGB GT

MORRIS

I last saw this historic 1800 at the Bristol Classic Car Show. Restoration is still proceeding.

NISSAN

A pair of the 300ZX models from the early 90s.

PORSCHE

There were plenty of 911s, with examples from each generation of this model, ranging from classic 911 through the 993, to 996 and 997 cars.

There was also a well presented 944

SUNBEAM

I have a soft spot for the Tiger and this would have been a fun car to enjoy on such a sunny day

TALBOT

A rather nice Sunbeam Lotus.

TVR

Chimaera, Griffith, Cerbera and Tuscan  were all on show.

VOLVO

An early P1800, as featured in The Saint in the 1960s.

… AND FINALLY

There were no model identifications on this, with just various signs inside the vehicle in Polish. Probably the slowest machine at the event, but a really interesting thing to see.

There is no doubting that the splendid sunny weather encouraged more people to bring along the cars than you might expect for an early Sunday morning, but as it only takes 15 minutes to get from Chateau Colin to Queen’s Square, I will pop down again to see what is on show at subsequent meetings.