Since moving up to the Worcestershire/Warwickshire borders last year, a few classic venues have turned out to be conveniently closer to home than they used to be – Prescott Hill, Shelsley Walsh, Chateau Impney and the Classic Motor Hub to name but four. None, however, are as close as Ragley Hall, a traditional English country estate a mere 10km away that hosts a pretty big classic car show each year, which took place last weekend.
Ragley Hall was completed in 1683 and in common with many of the nation’s country estates, opens its doors for the great unwashed to attend concerts, air displays, garden festivals and, yes, classic car shows among many other events. It’s the home of the 9th Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford and is surrounded by ten acres of gardens designed by world-renowned landscaper Capability Brown and is used as a location for TV and film – credits include Dr, Who, The Scarlet Pimpernel and Netflix’s 100% accurate documentary about the royal family, The Crown. Besides all this, the estate is also a working farm – I can recommend their free range chickens for a Sunday roast.
‘Tis but a few minutes’ drive to the gates of Ragley, which we did in the W123 as the 911 is currently getting it’s gearbox rebuilt ahead of a planned road trip to Germany next month. We got there just after 9.45 to join what was already a considerable queue, although it moved reasonably rapidly and after parking up – this time between a white 1965 Volvo P1800E and a very cute two-tone 1960 Singer Gazelle drop-top – got out to see what we could find, to paraphrase Mungo Jerry. Surprisingly, we didn’t find many other classic Mercedes, not even a single W107.
The weather forecast had been unpromising and we feared a wet day out, but the threatened rain held off and the grounds of the Ragley Estate glittered with the sun bouncing off hundreds of classics and some not-so-classics, and while there were many of the cars we now come to expect to see at shows like this, there was also a smattering of cars that we get to see only very occasionally, so for this piece I thought I’d focus largely on those.
Two of the rarities were FIAT’s – one a 1979 131 Mirafiori Sport resplendent in orange with black trim replacing chrome, parked alongside one of the same company’s pretty 124 Spiders, and the other, a white 1970 FIAT 125S. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of these, and the information in the window gave a good idea as to why – there are apparently just three left in this country. There is of course absolutely nothing of interest about this car visually, but it did have a Lampredi-designed engine.
Another uncommon sight – though a car that I have seen before, at both a Festival of the Unexceptional and an NEC show – was the South African-built, and therefore conveniently RHD, 1976 Austin Apache, a garage find some years ago that has been nicely restored. The styling seems to be a mixed bag of Allegro, ADO16 and Triumph Toledo, and although not my cup of tannin, doesn’t look too bad. This one is apparently one of only two in the UK, though no doubt there are more in its home market.
Other oddities… how about a 1976 Jensen Interceptor coupé? Not sure I’ve ever seen one of these and I find it oddly named, since it is effectively a notchback version of the standard, much better-looking fastback. Not far from West Bromwich, where the Jensen was built, we’d find the Star Motor Company of Wolverhampton, a name previously unknown to me. The company was apparently active from 1893 to 1932 and for through the first half of the 1920’s produced 1000 cars a year, making it the UK’s sixth-largest car manufacturer at the time. In 1928 however it was taken over by Guy Motors, also based in Wolverhampton, and the black 1931 2.2-litre Star Comet on display was one of the last cars built to carry the Star name. It is also one of only 35 Star cars left worldwide and as a nice postscript, is now owned by the great-great grandson of the company’s founder, Edward Lisle.
Lancia were once the makers of some of the greatest, most characterful cars on the planet. Sadly, as the ‘70’s turned into the ‘80’s and the ‘90’s, their cars became less and less interesting, and their reputation sank to the point where they were no longer officially imported into the UK. The Lancia Dedra is one of those forgettable Lancia’s – I’d forgotten the model ever existed – but there was a 1992 example at Ragley, one of the six remaining on our roads.
Opel’s mini-Corvette, the GT, is not quite such a rare sight but to see four on one day definitely is. The GT looks nothing like the Nash Metropolitan, obviously, but the two do share an odd characteristic – access to the luggage compartment is only possible via the rear seats. The Nash was always an oddball; an attempt to make a small car that appealed to American buyers, but it never really took off. Usually in rock’n’roll two tone colours, and spare wheel mounted externally on the rear, the Nash Metropolitan Owners’ Club had a colourful display of five cars at the show, representing almost ten percent of all Metropolitans on the road here.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think the very tidy looking 1972 Datsun 1800GL SSS coupé was ever officially available in the UK so I have to assume the red and black example at Ragley was a grey import. Our International Editor would have enthused mightily over it.
American classics were well represented around the grounds, not least a handful of mid-‘60’s Corvettes as well as a ‘67 Pontiac Catalina that I’ve seen before, but my favourite US car of the day was the pale blue ’68 Plymouth Barracuda, though the big 7-litre 1967 dark blue Buick Wildcat ran it close. I’m a fan of the long, clean lines of American cars of this period.
Rolls Royce don’t often get a mention in reports like this, but there were some beauties at Ragley, including a pair of RR Twenty’s. These “small” Rollers are often called “Doctor’s Coupés” even though – as the owner of the immaculate red and black 1928 example informed me – no coachbuilder ever built an actual “Doctor’s Coupé”. I’ve not been able to establish how these cars got their nickname – perhaps one of our knowledgeable readers could shed some light on the subject? In any case, these smaller Rollers’ both looked very distinguished, the kind of car a doctor should have been driving back in the late ‘twenties.
As we’re in the West Midlands it wasn’t a surprise to see a large number of cars from the region’s motor industry on display – a smart white 1974 Morris Marina 1.8 coupé, a silver 1981 Morris Ital (with an incorrect front grille) which brought back unpleasant memories of the brown one I had to drive for a few weeks as a company car, a gorgeous Jaguar XJ6 4.2 coupé alongside one of its cousins, a 1975 Daimler Sovereign saloon, a gaggle of Triumph Stags, TR7’s, Metro’s, Maestro’s and more. I actually drove past the old Longbridge factory site a few days ago while in Birmingham for some other business, and it is now the site of a college, as well as flats, shops and other facilities – completely repurposed, no sign of it having been a motor manufacturing plant.
Commercials aren’t vehicles that usually attract my attention, but to see a Royal Mail Maestro and Austin Rover Maestro parts van brought back some memories, and in the case of the yellow British Telecom Bedford van there was a reminder of some TV advertisements from 1976 in the form of a stuffed “Buzby”, the ridiculous cartoon character the company used to try to persuade us to use our ‘phones more.
Fords of all kinds were, as usual, numerous, but you don’t often see a group of Granada MkII’s including a very smart 2.8 Ghia Estate and a black German-registered 2.1D was a long way from its Bremen home. Fast Fords were several, including a couple of Capri 3100RS’s, Cosworth Sierra’s and RS Escorts of varying generations.
This was a pretty big show – some 900 cars, although these included a number of what most ViaRETRO readers would consider “moderns” – in spectacular surroundings, and as usual, too many delights to mention here, but the gallery below should cover at least some of them. My superior half and I spent a thoroughly enjoyable morning there, and went on to an equally enjoyable lunch – an excellent way to spend a few hours.
