I didn’t go around seeking people’s opinions on the new format of the London Classic Car Show but, nevertheless, one man decided to give me his. It was, he said, very disappointing because the new venue was much smaller than the old one. Happily, he was wrong. Well, it was smaller but despite that it was actually the best ever LCCS and I was able to walk away feeling that I’d had a nice time, rather than been treated as a mug with a wallet to be emptied.
The change that had taken place was that the show had moved from its original home of five years at ExCeL in Canning Town to Olympia in West Kensington. Both are large exhibition spaces, but the difference lies in the fact that Olympia was built in the late Victorian age while ExCeL was constructed in recent years and exists as a purely functional building. Industrial, cavernous and artificially lit, it had a very unwelcoming atmosphere and I was always glad to leave it behind at the end of the day.
Olympia, on the other hand, and its late Victorian environs are a delight. Many of the buildings exhibit heavy Art Nouveau influences and seem generally to have been well looked after. I walked from Barons Court tube station, built in 1905 and itself a striking exemplar of the Art Nouveau with decorative lettering and fine glazed tiles. Arriving at Olympia somewhat later than intended after frequent stops to admire architectural details, and a bryologically fascinating Mk IV Cortina, I was suitably impressed by that, too. The building, dating from 1886, so perfectly captures Victorian Britain’s sense of pride in itself, its pursuit of beauty in design and its drive for ever greater achievement with its ornate ironwork and vast glass roof letting natural light illuminate the hall and creating a spacious, airy feel. Famously, of course, it was the home of the British International Motor Exhibition from 1905 until 1936.
If only some of the visitors had made as much effort with their attire as had been made with the exhibits, but I digress… I should talk about cars for a bit. Things got off to a very good start when I walked straight through the doors and laid eyes on a 1967 Triumph Vitesse convertible with Absolute Classic Cars. Other people may have been drawn to the 300SL Roadster flanking the entrance, or the continuation D-type, but Michelotti’s crisp styling never fails to please me. Graeme Hunt had an interesting mix of stock including an MGC, Bentley T-series coupé, Bristol 410 and a 1933 MG J2 with pre-war trials history. Historics at Brooklands is set to auction a 1960 Facel Vega HK500 which, tacky number plate aside, appealed greatly and must surely be a contender for the finest rear light cluster on any car.
Competition car sales were provided by Hall & Hall with a 1959 Cooper T49 raced by Jack Brabham and an Aston Martin DB3, Chassis DB3/5, which won the 1952 Goodwood Nine Hours and raced as a works entry at Monaco, Sebring, Le Mans, Silverstone and in the Mille Miglia. An exquisite Ferrari 275 GTS was also on offer, ideal for getting to and from the track. Duncan Hamilton ROFGO is also in the business of racing car sales and featured a Group 5 BMW 320, raced by Gustav Fischer against Porsche 935s and Zakspeed Capris in the 1978 Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft season, and a 1964 Lotus Elan 26R with Shapecraft fastback, a conversion unique to Lotus dealer Surbiton Motors Ltd, the proprietor of which, Barry Wood, was a keen privateer Elan racer. Of the 20 conversions completed, only three were to 26Rs. Unlike Hall & Hall, Duncan Hamilton ROFGO imagined that the gentleman racer might prefer a more sedate pace away from the track and for that reason offered a 1955 Bentley S1 Continental Park Ward drophead – only the second S1 built.
Continuing with the competition theme, the Horsepower Hangar presented a 1948 AC Two-Litre Barchetta which left the factory as a saloon before being rebodied and used for racing in Brazil in the early ’50s, while the immaculate 1966 Citroën 2CV next to it had a charm all of its own. While David Brown-era Aston Martins are somewhat commonplace at events like the London Classic Car Show, a 1961 Series III DB4 on the Coys stand stood out, having originally been used as a works demonstrator and development car. So too did a 1969 DB6 Volante, not least because of its eye-catching Amethyst paint and believed to be the only example delivered in that very ’60s colour.
Sadly, one unfortunate side to the downsizing was that pre-war numbers seemed to suffer particularly, which we might attribute to the loss of the Grand Avenue, which always featured a curated collection of cars from all ages of motoring, and the fact that the dealer Vintage & Prestige wasn’t present, it having usually presented the bulk of pre-war cars for sale at previous shows. At least the Classic Motor Hub did its best to cover all ages and tastes, with a 1928 Riley Nine special, bodied in the 1950s, and a 1927 Bentley Three/Eight-Litre special mixing with later cars including a Porsche 911S, Ferrari 365 GTC, Jensen FF and Lancia Aurelia B20 GT, plus a particularly handsome motorcycle in the form of a 1958 Moto Guzzi Falcone.
Americana on offer included a 1950 Studebaker Champion Business Coupe with County Classics (next to nothing less than a 1966 Maserati Sebring), a 1955 Ford Thunderbird with the Classic Car Company, a ’65 Mustang GT350 imitation with Dylan Miles and a pair of matching black ’69 and ’70 Chargers with Classic Investments.
One worrying trend I noticed, and which I fear is not likely to disappear, is for perverting classic cars to use electric motors. There were three companies present offering to undertake acts of cultural vandalism for the undiscerning client, and some of the cars to have gone under the knife included a 1982 Ferrari 308 and an early ’60s Beetle.
The future of the past?
The next hall contained the car clubs, catering for all manner of marques. Bristol was forever synonymous with good taste, so it was a pleasure to be among the Bristol Owners’ Club with its four cars including a 411 Series IV, a 405 saloon and, best of all, a 405 drophead, one of 43 bodied by Abbott of Farnham.
As we are certainly among Lancia lovers on ViaRETRO, it is worth a run-down of the Lancia Motor Club’s stand, featuring a 1963 Flaminia GT, 1963 Flavia 1800 convertible, race-prepared Fulvia Sport, 1974 Stratos Group 4 and 1981 Beta coupé. The Ford AVO Owners’ Club commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Escort’s win in the 1970 London to Mexico Rally with a display of period endurance rally cars while a highlight of the TR Register’s stand was a 1959 Triumph 2000 Italia, one of 329 built by Vignale to a Michelotti design, as commissioned by Salvatore Ruffino, the Italian Standard-Triumph distributor.
The Ford Mustang Owners’ Club of Great Britain presented an attractive line of first-gens including a ’66 fastback, ’67 coupé and ’70 Mach 1, while the Classic Corvette Club UK showed the model’s evolution through each generation up to the C5, including a 1978 Silver Anniversary model, a ’66 resto-mod and a flawless ’59 roadster, a beautiful design so indelibly linked with ’50s American cruising.
As usual, Waterloo Classics delivered a very eclectic display, featuring a Bond Bug alongside a Lotus Europa, though my heart was stolen by a split-screen Morris Minor with endearing patina. I couldn’t help taking an interest, too, in a Fiat 124 Sport Coupé which the number plates would suggest was a recent Italian import, and it would seem to have been very well enjoyed over there going by its scruffy appearance and jauntily lopsided grille.
Disappointingly, no club contributed to the pre-war turnout save for the London Vintage Taxi Association, which delivered the biggest and best display of all. Among several Austin 12/4s, two Beardmores and an Austin FX3 was to be found a 1912 Unic 12/16hp, which spent most of its life in America having been given to a Fort Worth newspaper mogul by the CEO of General Motors c1930. The Transit Van Club knew how to please me, too, with the showing of a fantastic full custom Mk II called Motown Gold. Although it had been a custom since the early 1980s, its current guise was only realised after it was sold to a new owner in 2005 and painted in Porsche metallic brown with the Motown airbrushing. I love it and I don’t even like Motown.
Naturally, Coys had some nice cars in its auction, including another Morris Minor with the correct amount of surface rust (Moggies always look best that way), 1973 Plymouth Barracuda 440, race-prepared 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 and 1970 Maserati Ghibli Spyder. A 1979 Escort had a certain appeal, mainly on account of it being a scruffy base model that had miraculously avoided being scrapped or turned into another RS2000 lookalike. A 1968 Mini Cooper was a one-owner car until last year but, as desirable as Coopers may be, the £8000-10,000 estimate seemed ludicrous. Optimistically described as ‘benefitting from a previous restoration’, it was a total wreck despite having resided in Spain from 1969 to 2015. I was personally delighted to find a 1963 Hillman Super Minx convertible which, if you believed the auction blurb, had been used as a company car from new until 2017 by a manager at Harrods. A favourite was the charming little 1924 Amilcar CC, though the real star was the 1934 Mercedes-Benz 170V Sport Roadster. The sole survivor of three made, this one placed third in its class at the Pebble Beach Concours last year.
Other cars that took my fancy ranged from an FB-type Vauxhall VX4/90 to a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso, going via a 1954 Wolseley 6/80 Metropolitan Police car, 1960 Wolseley 15/60, 1961 BMW 502, 1964 Buick Riviera, 1972 Oldsmobile 442 and a 1964 Rolls-Royce Phantom V with blue pass light indicating its former tenure with HRH Princess Alexandra and Sir Angus Ogilvy.
A selection of curated displays rounded off the show, though one of these was nothing short of insulting. The 50th Anniversary of the Range Rover promised eight models ‘representing key moments in its history’. Instead you got a factory-restored example from 1974, one from 1994, one from 2000, one from 2011 and four footballers’ wives’ chariots built within the last year. Obviously a transparent and cynical marketing ploy, had it been properly executed with a selection of proper classic Range Rovers, it might not have left such a sour taste. In fact, the Dunsfold Collection outdid the anniversary display by exhibiting the 1970 Range Rover that won the 1971 Welsh Hill Rally, driven by Roger Crathorne and Vern Evans on behalf of Rover’s Engineering Department. For the record, I counted 11 third and fourth generation Range Rovers as I was walking from Barons Court to Olympia.
The only Range Rovers we thought worth showing
The Audi Quattro’s 40th Anniversary was better and more genuinely representative, featuring one of the first examples from 1981, one of the last from 1991, retained by Audi from new, while in between there was a 1990 20-valve model and two rally cars, including that raced by Stig Blomqvist in the 1985 Rally of the 1000 Lakes.
I was most impressed by the Tribute to Bruce McLaren, who died 50 years ago in a crash while testing the McLaren M8D at Goodwood. The display featured a 1970 M14D raced by Andrea de Adamich in the 1970 F1 season, a 1970 M8D Can-Am car raced successfully by Dan Gurney and Denny Hulme and the one-off 1969 M7C. The highlight, though, was a 1929 Austin Seven Ulster. Bought by McLaren’s father Les in 1949 in a dismantled state, the pair rebuilt and tuned the car in time for Bruce’s first taste of competitive driving at the 1952 Muriwai Beach hill-climb at the tender age of 15.
As Olympia couldn’t accommodate the Grand Avenue, a new Car Stories feature was introduced which saw various motoring personalities recall their memories of certain cars. Among them were Tiff Needell discussing racing in the 1987 Porsche 962C, a celebration of the Audi Sport Quattro, an introduction to Aston Martin’s continuation Goldfinger DB5, Mark Hales relating his experience of driving the ex-Stirling Moss, 1956 Monaco GP-winning Maserati 250F, Adrian Newey sharing his love for his 1968 Lotus 49, Tim Leese and Tony O’Keefe explaining the bespoke restoration of a 1954 Jaguar XK120 and Bradly Mauger giving insight into the restoration of the Haynes International Motor Museum’s 1931 Duesenberg Model J Derham Tourster.
It wouldn’t do to sign off without mentioning the automobilia stands. Previously, browsing these would always be hassle because they were difficult to navigate and you’d invariably be harassed by hucksters from irrelevant stands in the hope of selling you some distressed pine garden furniture or somesuch. I really don’t know why these people are at shows like this. A positive outcome of the reduction in size meant that there was just space enough for the interesting stalls. There were some fantastic items on offer with a King’s Road antiques dealer and I was seriously considering shelling out a few hundred pounds for a single-cylinder model steam car built by R H Walker MBE in 1909 until I enquired and discovered it would set me back £9500. So I slunk off to browse the fantastic array of motoring literature with Ads Verbatim, and ended up succumbing to temptation and buying The Boys’ Book of Modern Motor Cars and Ladybird’s The Story of the Motor Car.
After parting with my cash, I left for home having enjoyed the show for the first time ever and hoping that the partnership with Olympia will be a lasting one.
