First of all, allow me to wish all who read our virtual pages a very Happy New Year! I don’t think there’s any doubt that this past year has been the most frustrating I can remember from the point of view of our classic car hobby. Meetings large and small were cancelled for much of the year, and just as there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel, it went out, and then a glimmer began to appear again in November as news of the coronavirus vaccines broke.
2020 started off like pretty much any year and I had a loooong list of events to look forward to, starting off with what had become my traditional start to the year with the Brooklands New Year’s Day Gathering – some 1500 classics from the everyday to the exotic congregated on and around the iconic Brooklands circuit, and all was well in my world. This was followed just a few days later with the opening Bicester Scramble of the year, and again, well over one thousand classics and 7,000 visitors assembled in and around Bicester Heritage’s evocative workshops and runway to enjoy both the atmosphere and the usual wide variety of classics assembled around this marvellous location.
Next up, my first visit to Race Retro, a feast of classic racing and rallying with a more demanding than expected demonstration track that caught a few of the drivers out – thanks to some prolonged wet weather, conditions were pretty treacherous under foot and wheel, but what a super event! Over the same weekend we had the London Classic Car Show, at a new venue, Olympia, in West London, which I missed but that our own Zack Stiling reported on as being a great success.
And then… it all went quiet, as news of the spread of the novel virus reached our shores and suddenly the world shrank as public gatherings were verboten and the early optimism of the year disappeared into thin air.
I had tickets for my first ever Goodwood Members’ Meeting at the end of March – cancelled. The Practical Classics Car and Restoration Show at the NEC – cancelled. And on it went… To give you some idea of how different 2020 was, in 2019 I attended 23 classic events; in 2020, the total was just six, plus four auctions.
All that was left was to take our classics out on solo drives; thankfully the weather during the first lockdown period here was warm and sunny and the roads uncharacteristically quiet – I had one particularly enjoyable such drive in the late March sunshine, where I ran into a couple of other classic fans taking advantage of these temporarily calm conditions. Little did we know then that things would be no different nine months later…
And so on… the Silverstone Classic, Goodwood Revival, cars and coffee mornings, Drive-It Day, Auto Italia Day and many more were cancelled or postponed to a later date, only for those new dates also to fall through.
Now I’m very aware that this could sound like whining – many thousands of people suffered far more than having their hobby adversely affected, and it’s important not to lose sight of that. However, it’s also worth pointing out that fund-raising is the key aim of many local classic shows, some of them pretty big, so charities that usually were supported by local events such as the Kop Hill Climb or Chiltern Classic lost out on many thousands of pounds worth of donations – an unhappy side effect of the cancellations. And this was happening everywhere, not just in the UK.
And then, in August, things began to look up – the London Concours at the Honourable Artillery Company in the heart of the city went ahead, with social distancing– a phrase with which we were to become all too familiar – measures in place, Bicester Heritage managed to organise a superb socially-distanced event, and the crowning glory of static events (for me, at least), the fabulous Hampton Court Concours of Elegance took place at one of the most splendid locations imaginable as scheduled at the beginning of September with a glorious collection of jaw-dropping cars, including a 1962 Ferrari 250GTO and the first Le Mans-winning Porsche 917K among many, many other delectable classics. It was also notable for hosting the Goodings and Company auction at which a world-record price for a Bugatti at auction was paid, £9.5m for a 1934 Bugatti Type 59 – it seems not everyone was financially impacted by the virus crisis.
Also in August, I decided to return my modern BMW to their finance company and replaced it with my second classic, a lovely red 1982 Mercedes-Benz 280CE that has become my daily driver, with die Zitrone being saved for fair weather days. It’s had a few minor issues sorted, been given a full service and has so far performed beautifully. It’s very different to the ‘02, obviously, but a lovely car to cruise around in, or do the weekly food shop.
Staying on a personal level, I started helping a classic car restorer friend of mine who had chosen this year of all years to start his own business, Templar Classics, having split from his business partner – I manage his social media for him – and it’s been exciting to see some fabulous classics come in and out of his workshops despite some very challenging business conditions.
However, for organisers of historic motor sport events, life didn’t get any easier – the answer was to hold them behind closed doors with no or few spectators, and to stream them live over the internet. Goodwood Speed Week replaced both the Festival of Speed and the Revival Meeting, and while it made for entertaining viewing it seemed to me it was much more for the benefit of the participants than spectators.
Auctions also largely moved online, although Historics managed to hold a couple of covid-compliant events, both of which were pretty successful in terms of sell-through and on-site attendees.
However, as we started to look forward to 2021, the news actually got worse, with mutant strains of the virus being discovered and more and more of the UK being forced to stay at home. The Brooklands New Year’s Day gathering, my traditional classic curtain-raiser in recent years – along with all Brooklands events – was cancelled, and this weekend’s Bicester Scramble is now pushed back to April 24/25th, to coincide at least in part with Drive It Day. Race Retro has already been cancelled, and the Practical Classics Car and Restoration Show has been put back to June 11th to 13th. Even some events that were not scheduled to take place until well into the year have already been pushed back – the BMW ’02 Bavaria Tour, which I was – still am – really looking forward to, has already been postponed from its early June date to the beginning of September.
So as we approach the start of 2021 things don’t look any better in the short term than most of 2020, and yet… as I write, the UK regulator has approved the Oxford University/Astra Zeneca vaccine that is supposedly more easily transportable and storable than the Pfizer/BioNTech one and so should be rolled out faster – this might be the key to outdoor events being allowed again during the Spring, which would include the Goodwood Members Meeting in May.
While the first three months of the coming year will probably still be one where the only way to enjoy our classics will be on solo drives, there is now every possibility that, without wanting to be too rose-tinted about it, we might see at least a partial return to normal – so here’s hoping for a return to showing off our classics, admiring those of other enthusiasts and watching old cars be hurled around tracks, rally routes and up hill climbs – Happy Classic New Year!
