Having enjoyed an excellent start to my classic year at Brooklands just a few days prior, I followed it up with a visit to another of my favourite venues, and one comparable with Brooklands in its evocation of motoring and aviation history – Bicester Heritage. Last Sunday saw their year-opening event, probably the last at the old-style site. Such has been the success of Bicester Heritage as a technical and engineering centre for heritage engineering, that almost inevitably, it was going to have to expand, and the first phase of that expansion – eight new buildings effectively doubling the size of the technical site – is expected to be ready in time possibly for the first Sunday Scramble of the Spring, scheduled for Drive It Day on April 26th, though based on the status of the building work I saw when driving past the construction site on the way, I’m not sure that will be the case.
Not everyone considers this a good thing, as it will undoubtedly bring extra traffic to the area – “this” will also include a 344-room hotel, conference and leisure centre due for completion at the end of this year – probably unsurprising in an industry that is effectively dedicated to resisting change, but in my view anything that contributes to the growth of the classic car industry (believed to contribute c.£6bn to the UK economy) at a time when the mainstream motor industry is both flagging and moving further and further away from producing the kind of cars we classic enthusiasts love, such investment and belief in our hobby is surely a good thing. As always, only time will tell, and I look forward to seeing how the forthcoming changes impact the site, it’s particular atmosphere, and their events.
To get to Bicester for an 8.30 start in early January means setting off in semi-darkness, and I drove off into the gloom following the faint glow created by the candlelight-power generated by die Zitrone’s headlights. Just under an hour later I joined the already lengthy queue at the gates. As has been the case for the past few Scrambles, this one was sold out in advance, meaning some 1500 cars and 6000 visitors were going to be descending on the site. It gets very busy – the events are almost a victim of their own success – but the site is just about large enough to absorb the numbers.
I decided not to park with the BMW club this time, thinking it might be interesting to park randomly in the Pre-1990 section for a change. As it turned out, I found myself alongside a lovely Chamonix White 2002 Baur cabriolet – no getting away from the Roundel! Once parked up, I started off on a circuit of the site to see what I could find, and there was plenty.
One of the appealing aspects about Bicester Heritage is that many of the workshops open up for visitors to take a look at cars being worked on, chat to the proprietors, and generally get a feel for what the site is principally for. The planned new buildings will hopefully be a part of this tradition in the future.
In among the various workshops and garages is a courtyard, and it was in this courtyard that one – or three – of the absolute highlights of the day could be found.
Porsche built the 959 first to compete in Group B rallying, then as a road legal version of that car when the FIA stipulated that 200 examples had to be built for homologation purposes. Introduced in 1986, the Porsche 959, while sharing overall appearance elements with the 911, was an entirely different car, and at the absolute cutting edge of motor car technology at that time. It was a twin-turbo, all-wheel-drive, 450bhp, 200mph rocket, and caused a sensation. I’ve only ever seen one, at Porsche’s own excellent museum, but here was a road-registered example! Porsche built 337 in total, selling them for half what they cost to build – a halo car if ever there was one, but what a machine!
Keeping it company were two other exceptional Porsches – indeed, there were a good number of properly classic Porsches at Bicester this day, besides all the newer ones – a 1955 550 Spyder, beautiful in blue, and an absolutely immaculate metallic green 1973 911S – mine for just £175k…if only…
Unsurprisingly, this superb trio attracted a great deal of attention, but they weren’t the only cars to have an almost constant group of admirers around them.
The 959’s biggest rival in the mid-to-late 1980’s supercar stakes was probably the Ferrari F40 – indeed, it was initially intended to compete directly with the 959 in Group B rallying (a Ferrari in rallying!), though Ferrari claimed the F40 was a natural evolution of the 288GTO. The last time I saw one, it was stranded by the side of the M40, very undignified. Well, a couple of hundred metres away from the 959, there stood an F40, in red as they all seem to be. To see two such legendary cars in one morning was quite big deal.
Parked all by itself – oddly, considering how crowded other parts of the venue were – was a car that a small group of us spent some time discussing, as none of us recognised it and it carried no badges. Obviously it was American, was somewhat too patinated, but looking through the passenger window gave us our clue – a Haynes manual for a Ford Maverick, and a quick internet search confirmed this car’s identity. These were built as both a 2-door and 4-door in the US from 1969 to ’77, but also in Brazil, Venezuela, Canada and Mexico, and the model was a success, with over 2 million sold in North America alone. Besides being intended to compete with compact imports from Europe and Japan, it was also meant to be an alternative to the Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Nova, a station wagon example of which was just a few yards away.
Another highlight was to be crossing one of the parking areas just as a glorious red Alfa Romeo 6C parked up. This beautiful car was pretty local – the owners had only driven from Oxford, but with such a fabulous car, every drive is surely an adventure. For some reason, besides sharing this area with a slightly worn AC Ace, a lightweight E-Type and a Peugeot 205 GTi Turbo, other “classics” in this zone included an Audi Q7, a Mini Pulsar and a 2003 BMW3-series cabrio. This leads me to my one gripe about Bicester Scrambles – there seem to be more and more modern cars being let in – indeed, the Hagerty-sponsored hangar was dominated by 21st century Porsches, Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s…making the sighting of something like an MG 1300 a bit of a shock. A large number of Porsches, Aston Martins and Lotuses on the day were less than twenty years old, many less than ten, and I’m not sure why they are allowed in – other than for the money. For me, so many modern cars detract from the event, and if they must be there, allocate an entirely separate area of the site to them.
Other individual highlights? A smart red BMW E3 2500 and a spectacular Golf Yellow BMW 3.0 CSL – both parked away from the club area – shone out in the gloom -as did a bright red Jensen Interceptor; the colour really suits the car, and is pretty much my second favourite on anything except a Ferrari. This was confirmed by the sighting of a very tidy AC 3000ME in the same colour.
From the East, a pair of early and very purposeful looking Nissan GT-R Skyliners, from 1970 and 1972 in purple and metallic green respectively, gathered a lot of photographers, especially as there was a superb Lancia Integrale HF 16V in the same area. Even though these are far less obviously muscular than big American V8’s they nonetheless exude athleticism and speed.
For our International Editor Mr. Bilidt was a reminder of a car he used to own – a 1986 Toyota Trueno Sprinter; a later model than his, but still not a regular sight on our roads.
Lastly on the Japanese front, a sole survivor – in the UK, anyway – in the form of a 1972 Datsun 240C Automatic (there are apparently a couple of manual versions knocking around) was an interesting spot, another one of those cars that you forget ever existed since there are so few around.
Events on the scale of the Bicester Scramble or Brooklands NYD gathering often throw up something that bit different, and this weekend it came in the form of a car I had never heard of. Dating from 1957 (an excellent year, obviously), a low-slung two-seater sports car in dark green stood by itself and was virtually ignored while I was in that part of the site. Closer inspection revealed it to be a Kellison, and further digging uncovered an intriguing history of an American kit-car manufacturer. Started by Jim Kellison back in 1957, he built a series of fibreglass-bodied cars using Chevrolet mechanicals until 1970, re-starting his car business in the early ‘80’s with Cobra replicas – today, his sons continue to keep their father’s flame alive via Kellison Classic Cars in California. This particular car was a pretty special example, being the very first prototype Jim Kellison built under his own name, and was recently restored by Dr. Robin Tuluie, who himself has an illustrious history in motor sport. A genuine piece of American motoring history found in a corner of Oxfordshire.
A gleaming white Studebaker Golden Hawk was another attention-getter, as was the stunning black Mercedes-Benz 190SL parked next to a silver Ferrari 250GT…sadly, the latter proved to be a “tribute”.
Car of the day is usually a difficult one from an event like this, and on another day it could have been any one of that wonderful Alfa Romeo 6C, the Porsche 550 Spyder, the Ferrari F40, that stunning CSL or even the Kellison, but on this occasion, it’s easy – the Porsche 959 – just amazing to see one. A Bicester Scramble is always worth a few hours of any classic car enthusiast’s time, and I’m particularly looking forward to this summer’s Super Scramble – meanwhile, here are a few photos of just some of the rest of what was on display!
