The turnout of cars was excellent and it was great to see the cars during their tour of Cotswolds roads to see them at their best on the open road.
On the Sunday the weather was excellent for the day I attended to photograph the event and the range of cars went from the 1960s MKII Jaguar’s and E types to 1950s and earlier examples of Armstrong Siddeley’s and Lancia small vans. The later van in its Lancia Appia Consortium livery, was owned from new in 1958 and was used as a delivery van in Treviso before being sold to Lancia in 2006 and then to its current owner in 2012. It has a 5-speed box and is in excellent condition.
From the world of motor racing and rallying, we had the monstrous MG Metro 6R4 in its Computervision livery, as raced by works driver Tony Pond (with co-driver Rob Arthur). It achieved a 3rd place finish in the Lombard RAC Rally behind two Lancia Delta S4 driven by Finnish works drivers Henri Toivonen and Markku Alén.
From the world of the British Touring Car Championship, we had the still-running Volvo 850 Estate, run by the highly successful Tom Walkinshaw racing (TWR) team with the example on show by Sweden’s Rickard Rydell. This car had its debut at Thruxton in April 1994 and competed for two full seasons before the team moved over to the saloon model of the 850.
From the modern NGTC period of the Dunlop MSA British Car Championship, we had the trackday example of the Honda Sports tourer, as raced by the Honda Yuasa racing team (run by Pershore’s Team Dynamics), in the 2014 season winning three races in the hands of Scottish racer (Knockhill) Gordon Shedden. Matt Neal raced the other example and is a triple winner of the championship (Shedden has one championship win to date).
From Porsche, we had a 1980’s 911 example in rallying spec in its Rothman’s livery.
As well as these we had MG’s, AC Cobra’s, Lotus open-top prototypes, old Bentley’s from 1920, a Citroen DS3 from the 1960s, a Rolls Royce, some Range Rovers (in different configurations) and a 3 wheel Morgan (which Richard Hammond on Top Gear used around Donington Park).
There was also a selection of VW camper vans in various configurations from the 1960s as well as exotic customised examples normally seen at the Shakespeare Speedway circuit at Long Marston.
The market area outside the RSC was also full of some more car examples, including Super Cars as well as stalls selling a wide range of motoring equipment and memorabilia. The next show will take place in Stratford-upon-Avon on Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd May 2016, and I am looking forward to it!.
