A great many shows have been cancelled this year thanks to the coronavirus epidemic, particularly indoor events. For this event, the organisers of the London Classic Car Show wracked their brains and came up with an ingenious solution, one that could comply with the looser constraints that began to apply in early summer. It involved locating it outside London – despite their name – some 60m/100km north to Bicester Heritage, enabling them to make it an outdoor show. Even the imposition of new restrictions announced just a couple of weeks before the event was due to go ahead failed to stop them, and huge credit should go to them for that.
They also adapted to their new venue – for them – by creating what they called The Classic Car Drive-In Weekend, combining a drive-in cinema – featuring movies with a car theme, of course, including the obligatory The Italian Job – a Bonhams MPH auction and car club, dealer and visitor displays, as well as classic car parades and track demonstrations of classic racing cars – something to satisfy pretty much every classic car enthusiast.
With so much going on, it paid to get to Bicester Heritage – one of my favourite venues for classic car events, and one we have reported from numerous times, most recently in January – in good time. For this visit, I chose to go in die Tomate, and rocked up on site just after 09.30 on the first day of the three-day event after a very lovely early morning drive – we have been enjoying something of an Indian Summer this year in the South-East corner of England. Having said that, Bicester is very exposed, and there was a chill wind blowing across the site for the first couple of hours before the sun warmed things up a little.
I parked in the area reserved for visitors’ classics next to a delightful pastel green MG Magnette in superb condition – the owner had bought it just a couple of years ago – but was less impressed when a modern Aston parked on the other side of me; I’m not sure how that qualified to be there. Anyway, time to go walkies – as always, there were far too many delights for me to be able to mention them all, so forgive me if I might not mention some of your favourites, dear Reader.
One of the features of the weekend was the series of demonstration laps around the airfield track by over 60 historic competition cars. There were six categories of race cars, with some stunning historic racing machines to gaze upon, as well as the chance to see and hear them in action. Static displays are all very well, but seeing these cars being driven – quite enthusiastically, in some cases – is even better.
Among the highlights for me was watching the Ferrari 212 Inter and the Maserati Tipo 61 “Birdcage”, with the driver of the 1959 Mk1 Jaguar managing to lift a wheel on more than one corner, providing great entertainment for the crowd.
Wandering round the paddock, containing all the track cars, there was much to enjoy – how about a 1932 Alfa Romeo RL Targa Florio, a 1955 Maserati 250F GP car and a beautifully patinated 1930 Bugatti Type 35B (check out the chalked-in gearchange diagram!) lined up in a row? Not forgetting the 1951 and 1952 Jaguar C-Types… the glories from the past went on and on…
The Touring Car legends included a 1987 BMW M3 E30, a 1980 Fabergé Ford Capri, a 1964 Lotus Cortina Mk1 which, unusually, was in blue with white stripes as opposed to the more common white with green side flash, and a wonderful 1975 Opel Commodore – marvellous to see these legendary Touring Cars take a few laps.
The Rally Section included a celebration of Colin McRae on the 25th anniversary of the great Scot winning the World Rally Championship with a half dozen Subaru World Rally Championship cars, most interestingly the Legacy, as well as some fire-breathing Group B monsters from Audi and Lancia – two mighty Quattro’s from the German company, a 1983 Evo 037 and 1987 Delta HF Integrale in Martini Racing colours from the Italians.
Out and about around the site, some 25 car clubs were expected – there wasn’t a full turnout on Friday but still some very nice stands – the BMW Southern Region had some fine examples of the Munich marque on display, including a mouth-watering 1972 Taiga metallic E9 CSL – still one of the most gorgeous cars ever built – among others.
As well as Waterloo Classics founder Darren Vince’s own fine 1961 BMW 502 and a Vauxhall Viceroy for fans of brown and velour , the club also had Tim Carpenter’s well-known – to ViaRETRO readers, at least – red Unipower GT, currently the only one on the road and last seen at the London Concours a few weeks back), but parked next to it was a car I had never seen before, as low as the Unipower and as sleek as the Lotus X it bears some resemblance to – a 1963 WB120 Special.
Built in a single garage over a six-year period by Bob White (the “B” in “WB”, the “B” being his friend and partner Dr. John Best, who designed the car as essentially an aerofoil on wheels), it’s only 39-inches (one metre) high and is powered by a 1220cc Coventry Climax engine producing 105bhp. This dramatically styled aerodynamic marvel – it had a drag co-efficient of just 0.33 and could reach a top speed of over 135mph – was bought by its current owner in 1980, has had a complete rebuild in the last decade and now looks as it did back in 1963 when it was first completed. It was a real treat to see it.
Another uncommon sighting was a 1970 Ford Cortina MkII Savage Estate, fitted with the 3-ltre V6 Essex engine, a conversion initiated by Jeff Uren’s Race Proved Ltd company and in fact, this used to be his car – a genuine Q-car, there’s very little apart from the Savage badges to indicate this is anything other than a standard Cortina.
The Corvette Club was out in force with a strong display of ‘vette’s through the ages from a gorgeous blue and white 1956 first generation car through a brutal 1967 Stingray Coupé and on through the C3 and C4. America’s sports car is one of the few US classics that I’ve liked virtually every iteration of.
The Renault Alpine Owners Club put on a fine showing too, including A110’s, A310’s, and A610’s and that other marque famous for it’s rear-engined sports car was also well represented by its club through not only the 911 but 928’s and a superb Guard’s Red 924GTS.
Depressingly, the move towards the electrification of classics seems to be gathering momentum – I saw stands offering electric conversions of Citroën 2CV’s, Triumph Stags and VW Beetles – a silent Beetle just seems wrong, they should burble merrily along. I really hope that the recent higher profile of hydrogen power starts to increase – without getting on my high horse about it, it just seems more logical to me to convert existing ICE’s and the fuel station network, all of which can be made to run on and deliver hydrogen-based fuel, than to try to replace everything with electric power – which still has to be generated somehow. Anyway…
Words to chill the heart…
A number of the site’s specialists opened their doors to visitors and I had a most enjoyable chat with Bernard and Mark from The Motor Shed. Bernard was out in the sun polishing a fine array of English classics – I was particularly taken with the red 1930 Austin Seven and recently restored blue Austin Special, as well as the 1948 Lea Francis 2-door in dark blue, and the 1955 3-litre Alvis TC21, or Grey Lady, which when launched came with a guarantee that it would reach 100mph – such distinguished English sporting saloons.
Bicester Heritage has embarked on an ambitious expansion plan over the past 18 months or so, and this was my first visit since most of the new buildings had been completed. I had feared the worst when I initially saw the plans, but the new units integrate well with the existing ones, a view shared by others I spoke to and the first tenants are already in, with BH sticking to the heritage engineering sector, which is right and proper.
The Bonhams MPH auction took place on the Sunday, so I watched some of it online, which obviously lacks the live atmosphere, but is actually not a bad way to follow an auction, though Bonhams could take a leaf out of ACA’s book and make it possible to pause and rewind their live stream.
Bonhams MPH auctions tend to focus on the sub-£100k market – in fact, the vast majority carried estimates below £50k – but even with this upper limit, there were some interesting lots among what was a very eclectic sale. Top of the list on estimated price was a lovely 1952 Jaguar XK120 in Birch Grey Metallic that had been the subject of a 1400 hour restoration just three years ago; however, it failed to find a new home.
More within the reach of the average classic enthusiast were some potential bargain entry-level classics under the hammer such as the orange 1973 Volvo 144 ( a car my father used to own, though his was a 1967 model) that sold for £7,312 and a 1968 Wolseley 6/110 saloon given a 99-point rating – admittedly by its vendor, but it really was immaculate and a fine example of one of BL’s prestige mid-sized saloons – that sold for £16,875, well above estimate. There was also a reasonably tidy looking red MG Maestro that went for just £6,750 against an estimate of just £2-4,000, which was still good value, I thought, and could be improved by the new owner – I remember driving the MG Maestro back in the day, it was fun.
The oddest car – I use the word loosely – on sale would certainly be the very scruffy blue 1979 Cicostar Matic 50, a French micro-car that someone forked out £843 for, and while on the subject of tiny cars, it was fun to see the 1954 Heinkel Trojan 200 parked next to a huge ’46 Oldsmobile Series 76 Dynamic – both in need of considerable work with the Olds missing an engine and gearbox; the Trojan went for £11,250, well under estimate, while the Olds failed to sell.
Bidding seemd erratic, but overall, Bonhams managed to sell 60 of the 101 car lots on the day (the remainder were commercials, boats, plates), mostly within estimate and could consider the sale a success.
It being a Friday and therefore a working day, both the displays and crowds were below capacity, though in the latter case I have to say it made for a more pleasant experience being able to amble around this most evocative site and take photos without being constantly photo-bombed. Nevertheless, for the sake of the organisers – who had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to put the weekend on – I hope the weekend’s attendances were higher; I heard that on the Thursday alone they sold over 400 tickets – I think quite a few people were leaving it to the last minute to book as there was so much uncertainty around whether or not the event would actually take place, so hopefully the combination of clarity on the COVID rules plus a weekend of sunshine brought in the crowds.
This was a super day out, lots of variety and some brilliant classics to enjoy – fingers crossed the Sunday Scramble scheduled for October 4th at the same venue goes ahead too. If it does, ViaRETRO will, of course, be there.
