…and a Vauxhall 30/98 round the corner. Five minutes ago a ‘Shelsley Special’ called the ADRO was pushed past the front of the bookstall… and past the elegant Lagonda (Below) parked opposite. Now I'm looking out of the stall and there's a stimply stunning red Bristol 403 with Touring Superleggera carrozzerie (lower) parked across the way near the foot bridge. It can only be ‘Vintage Prescott’ where you can hardly move for the kind of exotic collectors' cars that would steal the show at most classic car events .
That's my stall you can see in the background. We traders are assembled under the apple trees down below the footbridge and if my own specific pitch was a bit off the beaten track for maximum ‘foot fall’ , it did have a great view of what's going on. And the Lagonda I mentioned…. Oh, I did like that! I have a bit of a penchant for the marque . My Grandmother once worked as a maid at the country estate of one of the directors, Lord de Clifford, and I grew up on tales of house parties where the driveway was lined with Lagondas and Bugattis. Those kind of mental pictures tend to stay with you.
The ADRO makes it way back to the paddock past my stall
Beautiful Italian-bodied Bristol
Ignoring what appears on the hill, the car park alone is an event all of it's own here ; vintage Bentleys, Alvis, Talbot, Alfa Romeo, Frazer Nash, AC, MG… and a great many wicker picnic hampers with bone china crockery and crystal decanters. And a lot of fine wine and good food therein. The only pity is that I can't get away from the stall long enough to look round before the end of the day, by which time most of them have gone back to their hotels for the night.
Those that are competeing and chose to eshew the hotels in order to stay in the campsite over the road are another stand-alone event ! But in this case an unheralded one. Among the bell-tents and camper vans, gazeebos and barbecues are even more old cars of all ages, not just pre war, and when I took a stroll around on Saturday evening the first thing I walked past was a newly restored Citroen 'Big 15', the Traction Avante's big brother. A far from common sight in Britain.
Neither were a pair of small 1920s Peugeots ,one on a trailer the other (below), looking delisheously un-restored had apparantly been driven there.
I had a long chat with the builder of a smart Riley special (below) who was a fellow trial competitor . We discussed Lands End Trials and taking our children along with us as navigators and ‘bouncers’ .
With literally hundreds of interesting cars and some fairly unusual ‘support vehicles’ scattered around, and the aroma of frying bacon and grilling burgers drifting on the warm summer breeze, you have to ask ; Is this the best camp site in the world? As the famous lager adverts would conclude “probably!”
Talbot & Rover P6
Rover 9
Bentley 3 Litre
MG J4
Lea Francis ‘Hyper’
So all of this is before you look around the actual paddock at what's competeing on the hill. There are 4 ERAs , numerous Bugattis including Winston Teague's newly restored ex Works team car from 1925 (Below) , enormous Edwardians and more GN based chain-drive ‘specials’ than you can shake a stick at.
The weather was lovely, the company was good and thankfully trade was good too. All in all one of the best events of the year.
ERA R4A
GN 'Gloworm' Special
GN Kapito Special
Frazer Nash
SS100 Jaguar (ex Tommy Wisdom)
GN
Chalmers
