I Went To A Normal Car Show For Normal People And It Was One Of The Best Events I’ve Been To This Year

I’m increasingly finding that the big car shows in the UK are all getting a bit… fashionable. I’m not talking about the high falutin’ stuff like Goodwood or Salon Privé which exist primarily for our betters to air kiss and show off their expensive lawn ornaments to each other, while grudgingly allowing us riff raff to gawp from the other side of the velvet rope. I’m talking about the supposedly more accessible events that all seem to take place at bloody Bicester Motion and result in the usual big name media yahoos and car culture influencers engaging in a big social media circle jerk.

These events usually sell out in minutes, are insanely crowded making it difficult to get good pictures and it all feels a bit like something you attend to say you were there, rather than being about the cars. What’s on show invariably ends up being what’s currently in vogue along whatever the British cottage manufacturers have coughed up in the last six months.

Because I’m an outsider who operates on the fringes this is all a load of bollocks to me. I much prefer local car shows. No pretention. No bullshit. No curation. No velvet ropes. Just owners and their cars parked up in a field. And so it was while visiting my uncle that I found myself at the Classic and Sports Cars by the Bridge’ near Ipswich in Suffolk this past Bank Holiday weekend. The infrastructure in question is the aesthetically unremarkable but architecturally interesting Orwell Bridge. It wasn’t named after the author of 1984 but the river which it crosses and when completed in 1982 it was the longest pre-stressed concrete span bridge in the UK. Is there a better way to spend a sunny  afternoon than walking around with a cup of middling coffee in a paper cup looking at classics? I don’t think so, so join me as I show you some of the more interesting cars on display.

1971 Triumph 2000

Now I’m not saying any of our readers have ahem, criminal tendencies. But I’m not not saying that either. Either way if you were up to no good in the early seventies this would have been seen prowling the country lanes and dual carriageways of Devon and Cornwall, two counties down in the southwest foot of the UK. This jam sandwich is a MkII 2000, which was introduced in 1969. Powered by straight six with twin carburetors, these big rear wheel drive Trumpets were aimed at the executive class. A sort of British BMW without the build quality. Designed by the peerless Michelotti the MKII would preview the visual themes that would appear on the forthcoming Stag sports car. This example was purchased from the Ministry of Defence in 2017 and has been subject to a 2 year restoration.

Compared to a modern police car it’s incredible how little additional equipment there is for nicking criminals. Inside there’s a radio with telephone style handset, controls for the additional lights and not a lot else. If you look closely you can see there’s an overdrive button on the top of the gear knob. I bet those velour seats make long patrols a bit easier though. I used to have a toy version of one of these when I was very little that had an electronic voice box so it could say various police type things. Maybe Mother Dearest was trying to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.

1961 Morris Minor Million

This was a fun one I knew nothing about. In December 1960 the venerable Morris Minor, already Britain’s best selling car, passed one million in sales. The Minor had been introduced in 1948 as one of Britain’s first post-war modern cars. Designed by Alec Issigonis, it was with this car that he began exploring the space saving ideas he would develop further for the Mini.

The wheels were pushed into the corners, something made possible at the front by the introduction of independent suspension. Issigonis specified 14” wheels to improve interior space. By the time the series III Minor rolled around in 1956, improvements to the gearbox, one piece glazing at the front and arrival of the A series engine meant the Minor was selling better than ever. To commemorate one million Minors. BLMC pulled 350 off the line, painted them a special lilac color and gave them 1000000 badges instead of the usual 1000 for engine capacity.

1980 MKII Ford Escort RS2000

Because I’m from East London I’m a sucker for a seventies or eighties fast Ford and what a corker this is. The MKII Escort was released in late 1974 and in keeping with Fords methodology for developing cars at that time, was a very heavy reskin of the successful RWD MkI. The Escort’s built in toughness meant it was a formidable rally weapon winning the driver’s title as late as 1981, the same year the Audi Quattro appeared. To capitalize on their motorsport successes Ford had long offered retail customers hot road going Escorts. Designed by Tom Scott who came up with the MKII RS2000’s iconic polyurethane nose cone, it used the 2.0 liter OHC cam ‘Pinto’ engine for 110 bhp for a top speed of 110 mph and a 0-60 of less than nine seconds.

This color, which I’ve never seen before is Nordic Blue. Inside the Recaro fishnet head rests tell us this is a higher spec Custom model, which seats aside came equipped with luxuries such as a clock and a glove compartment. I owned one of these in red back in 2000 when they were worthless. I think I paid £1000 for it. The fuel gauge was a length of string with a wheel nut on the end hanging in the tank. I sold it because the inner fenders resembled a box of Bran Flakes and they were unobtanium. Now a good example will fetch nearly fifty thousand pounds and sometimes more.

1990 MKIII Ford Fiesta RS Turbo

Suffolk is the county adjacent to Essex so it’s not surprising Ford was well represented at the show. The MKIII Fiesta was the Blue Oval’s attempt to do a Peugeot 205, then the best regarded car in the Euro supermini class. The development of the MKIII was protracted and delayed because the previous MKII was very heavy reskin of the MKI car. Class standards had leapt forwards and the MKII Fiesta had become woefully out of date – it wasn’t even available as a five door. An all new car was needed.

By the late eighties the hot hatch market was on fire so a year or so after the MKIII Fiesta was launched a hot version, the XR2i was launched. To put it charitably this car was a bit of a dog, leading to Car magazine’s infamous “XR2i: Another Duff Fast Ford” cover on their January 1990 issue. With only 105bhp from its rattly CVH 1.6 engine, Dagenham’s answer was to bolt on a turbo so it rattled more powerfully, up to 133bhp. They swapped the blue pinstriping for green, bolted on some a la mode factory tri-spokes and voilà, the Fiesta RS Turbo was born. Like all hot Fords of the time, they were not the best to drive but at least this one went well and looked terrific – I always thought the quad auxiliary lights in the front bumper were particularly natty.

1951 Tatra T600 Tatraplan

Let’s go a little further east now for this darling Tatra T600. Designed in 1947 to replace the 97, the Tatraplan continued the rear engined, aero-led design philosophy of the earlier cars. Starting to look slightly more conventional with two headlights as opposed to three and a vestigial front grille, the T600 was powered by an air-cooled flat four 2.0 liter engine making 52bhp. Although acceleration was best described as glacial, the good aero meant the T600 would eventually top over 80mph. 6342 were built.

Our communist Beetle here was built in June 1951 and sold to the Prerov Machinery Company, amazingly still a going concern. Yay capitalism, I guess. I imagine back in the fifties the original owner must have had some close connections to some high-up party officials to be allowed to purchase such a large decadent car.

2000 TVR Tuscan

Remember the Y2K aesthetic? Consumer products from phones to computers suddenly became translucent and organic. It was a bio-mechanical riot of soft forms, unintelligible graphic design and throwing off the warm glow shackles of cassette futurism. A colorful, playful vision that too soon gave way to touchscreen minimalism. Unless you were TVR who in the late nineties took the whole Y2K thing to heart.

Purchased by chemical engineer Peter Wheeler in 1981, by the nineties TVR had thrown away its previous wedges and started doing a lot more in house. A range of raucous straight six motors powered a range of curvy sports cars with frankly baffling controls, reaching their zenith in this, the Tuscan. With their flip paint, fire breathing engines and light weight these cars were viciously fast and equally as vicious to drive. They were still decidedly hand-built which led to some reliability issues but they had British bulldog personality out the wazoo. I always thought TVRs were a bit much, like being forced to listen to The Prodigy on repeat at full volume, but I was pleased to see this one not in a ditch and the boldness and novelty of the interior detailing (purple seat belts!) show us just what we’ve lost in terms of car companies willing to show a bit of individuality.

1987 MKII Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible

Despite our crummy and changeable weather, the UK buys more convertibles than anywhere else in Europe. Probably because on those rare occasions when the sun does come out we like to take advantage. How else to explain this drop-top oddball? The Cavalier (and it’s Opel Ascona sibling) were Europe’s version of the infamous GM J-car, although as I’ve mentioned before the European version was much better developed than the American versions. Nonetheless, what train of thought led to this getting approved? A convertible version of the quintessential British sales rep car? Normally seen in either four door sedan or five door hatch form, the Cavalier convertible was built in Germany by Hammond & Thiede using the unavailable-to-the-UK two door sedan version.

It probably seemed normal at the time but now it seems crackers – like making a drop top out of a Chevrolet Corsica. It was aimed at the man who was ordering his next company car after a long afternoon on the Cinzano and wanted everyone to enjoy his latest Phil Collins cassette. According to the website How Many Left, there’s only 36 of these remaining on UK roads. For me it’s the definition of one of those bonkers cars mainstream OEMs occasionally knock out and then you forget they existed. Only to be reminded 35 years later that bloody hell, they really sold those didn’t they?

The Best of of the Rest

Right, let’s have a little photo dump of some other highlights.

Cars by the Bridge wasn’t a particularly big show, but I like that because it’s cheaper to get in and you see everything. At bigger events it’s too easy to end up not seeing everything and then when everybody on social media is talking about That One Car you missed you get major FOMO. So do yourself a favor and support your local smaller events. There’s more variety and far fewer wankers.

Best of all, you might get to see something  really different.