The British summer is a strange beast, a few weeks ago it was lovely and hot, then it started raining.  It chose this weekend just gone to do both.  Which is a little vexing as it is what could be described as the first big weekend of the summer in terms of shows.  The three headline events are the Classic Ford Show, NSRA Billing Fun Run and the Stonor Park VW show.  As well as those three there was at least one Mini event in Bristol and Mersea Motor Madness.  Further afield the motor sports season has well and truly kicked off, any weekend from now until the end of September could see you checking out some cool racing at nearby circuits.  If you weren't out and about this weekend then make sure you stick some dates in your diary and get to some shows or motor sports this year, there is nothing like a great day out at an event to encourage you to get on with your car!

By way of encouragement have a little slice of what went on the UK this weekend.  If you are reading from across the sea (in any direction), make sure you get a UK show in your calendar for next year, they are worth the trip.

Stonor Park

http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c353/ultraflybry/Stonor%20Park%202008/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveo50/sets/72157605381302637/


Classic Ford

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10184672@N06/sets/72157605390126524/

http://s239.photobucket.com/albums/ff319/mighty_mk1/classic%20ford/


NSRA Billing 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42436717@N00/sets/72157605385927906/

http://usera.imagecave.com/johntravell/BILLING2008/



What were you up to?  Did you get to any of these shows?  Whats next on your list?

Some shows and car events will always be shows and events, great though they may be, some become institutions, Bonneville speed week, Bug Jam, Goodwood Festival Of Speed.  You can add to that list if you haven't already Wörthersee.  Or more properly Auto News Wörthersee Treffen.

Worthersee is a lake in Austria, which has three main towns around it Krumpendorf, Pörtschach and Velden.  For one week each year the area around the lake is taken over by the biggest gathering of VWs in Europe.  Literally taken over.



This year is the 27th running of the event and since its first years the number of attendees has grown to 100,000 people, think about that for a second, that is the population of a reasonably sized town, all turning up to one place to talk and show off cars.  People travel from all over Europe, in fact they travel from all over the world, to get a slice of the Wörthersee spirit.  The show is now so big that it effectively spreads all the way around the lake.  It is possible to go for the week and not see the same car twice, such is the volume of cars there.

Luckily for you, if you've missed the chance to got his year, we have DarrenW on hand to record, by way of many many photographs, the whole event.  However we are impatient sorts and want to see some pictures now.  The internet being the instant medium it is a quick search on Flickr already brings up a handful of pictures.  The ever reliable vw-pages.at gallery also serves up an early taster of the event (click on galerie -> events to see the pictures).

We'll have to wait until at least next week for Darren's return, but in the mean time we can trawl websites and google for information and start picking out our favourite cars.  We can also start looking into how we're going to get to the event next year, this is a must visit for all car fans, weather you are a VW fan or not.

All the photos used here are taken from this flickr user

 

Its easy to imagine that everyone loves old cars when you swim in a sea of blogs and forums devoted to them.  The reality is that more modern machinery has a much larger following.  I found this out first hand when I went to my first show of the year, JapFest at Castle Combe.

The show was vast, 2,500 cars were on show, of which only a small percentage were there to represent the more retro side of the Japanese scene.  What was there made up for what they lacked in numbers, in style and quality.  First stop was the stand of eight-six.co.uk, for a selection of Toyotas, not just AE86, but earlier Corollas and Racer86's fantastic KP30 startlet


















Moving back to the Paddock area saw a fantastic selection of traders and great line up of esoteric cars from Redline Magazine [link], including a bright pink VIP import;






It was good to see that people’s tastes in imports are moving beyond the latest hot Japanese car and onto some of the more unusual stuff.




By the time I'd worked my way through a sea of more modern Japanese machinery to Quarry I'd seen literally hundreds of cars.  Getting to the corner at Quarry I spotted an RX-4 standing out and being much photographed.






The 'flip' paint is a really unusual choice, but seemed to work very well.  It was certainly attracting a lot of attention.

I made my way into the final club area, another vast field, to go and hunt out some more cool retro machinery.  It was a treasure trove of cars, including probably the finest AE86 I saw all day.






Elsewhere in the field I found a gathering of cool Daihatsu' and standing out like a sore thumb a matt black Honda Prelude on TSW Venoms.












I ended the afternoon talking to the owners of a fantastic 240Z hillclimb car, a conversation which has lead me to sorting out the future of my particular vehicle and hopefully realising my own motorsports aims.




On top of the cars I met up with some good friends, which is what all this is about I guess, which made a good day into a great day.  I think I'll definitely be going back next year, maybe we'll see if we can get a bit more retro stuff there next year.  Bring on the J-tin army!

It is easy to be jaded or take the Festival of Speed for granted, its been going for 15 years now and in this time it has become a fixture on the calendar.  If you take a step back from this familiarity with the event and take a look at it with fresh eyes it almost seems too good to be true.  Racing cars from all over the world, rare and unique ones at that, running up a hill climb, being driven by some of the greatest racing drivers ever, fantastic.  I guess it is pretty busy a lot of the time, however you are still able to get much closer to these cars than you can at pretty much any other time and there are only really hay bales between you and the action.  The ticket price can be a bit off putting, personally I'd head down for the Friday for a slightly reduced entry and get my fill of the cars on display, that having been said with the cost of other events like Autosport and Race Retro being comparable it offers a whole lot more than both events currently, in my opinion.  Or you can make a weekend of it, camping over, which still works out a lot more economical than a long weekend away, plus you get to see a bunch of amazing cars.

The launch event for this years Festival Of Speed happened on the 9th of April and we were lucky enough to be there, being wined and dined* , we'll be bringing you a report of what went down soon.  In the mean time check out the details of this event and make sure you fee up some space in your calendar :

The event is on 11th, 12th and 13th July 2008 

This years theme is Hawthorn to Hamilton - Britain's Love Affair With The Worlds Motorsport, so expect a wide range of championship winning cars and significant vehicles and drivers to be present.  Handily it is also the 50th anniversary for the British Touring Car Championship and a full range of cars from across those 50 years will be present, this is of course right up our street and something we're excited to see, I know that the BTCC has been trawling around to find as many of the older race cars as possible, so hopefully some great stuff will be out.

There is also 50 years of Cosworth to celebrate, I'm guessing we'll see a bunch of DFV powered beauties out and about as well as the obvious, but always entertaining, Sierras.  With Andy Rouse on hand they should provide some entertaining runs up the hill.

The Festival of Speed isn't just the track stuff, there is the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’, a rally stage, a bunch of super cars, things to entertain the kids, music, oooh yes and dragsters too, lovely lovely dragsters.

As I said before it is easy to take this event for granted, but it really is something pretty darn special.  Taking another look at it all has given me the push to get back after a five year gap.  If you've not been before make sure you do, if only to tick it off a list of 'must do' events.  See you there..

Tickets are available on the Festival Of Speed website : http://www.goodwood.co.uk/fos/ : ticket link is on the top right of the central panel.

Oh and have a random video of last years event in order to get a flavour of it from a punters perspective, rather than some professional video crew.

 

* technically I was neither wined nor dined, as I don't drink and left just before lunch to avoid traffic!

 

Its about time to start checking ferry prices, flights and hotels to get out and about to some European and world wide events.

In no particular order we have these to look forwards to :

Vallakra, Sweden - 16th and 17th August, home to some of the finest modified cars in Europe.

Various Berg Cup Meetings throughout Europe (click on Rennen for dates).  One of the most interesting hillclimb series in the world, some really wild machinery turns out.

Bonneville speed week, USA 17th to 20th September 2008, a salt lake and some crazy petrol heads make this a must visit at least once in a life time, make sure its this year!

European Bug In, Belgium 4th and 5th July, shaping up as the premier Aircooled VW event in Europe.

Worthersee, Austria 21st to 25th May, a week of wild days and nights in the heart of the European VW scene.  Only for the hardcore.

We'll make sure we get coverage of these events, but there is nothing like being their for yourself to soak up the atmosphere and check out whats shaking in the world wide scene.

 

Show season gets going again here in Europe pretty soon, in just over a month the early shows will be on.

The Volkswagen guys seem to always be first out of the box, in the UK we have Ultimate Dubs on 9th March at Telford International Centre, Shropshire and Volksworld show at Sandown Park, Esher on 29th and 30th March.

In Europe I always consider the Cult Society Car Parade to be a season opener but can't find a date for 2008.  In Germany we have VW-Pfingsttreffen on 9th to 12th of May.

For non-VW focussed events in the UK the real big season opener this year seems to be Wheels Day on Good Friday, 21st March in Aldershot.

We hope the weather is good for all these events and some great cars turn out.

See you out and about in 2008.