Retro Cars Show, Santa Pod, 4th July 2004

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The Southern Area Coupe Group attended this blowout stuffed to the gunwales with cars from the '60s, '70s and '80s. This extravaganza was organised by your friendly glossy magazine (seen below)

The weather started off crap, and got better. The standard of presentation was, in almost all cases, unbelievably high. There were only 3 E24s appearing at the show - yes, ours - and we got completely outshone in terms of turnout, as you can see here:

....er, that's it.
Anyone seeking to hire period vehicles for those undemanding, heartwarming (*blurgh*) Sunday evening programmes such as Heartbeat would probably have had an orgasm. All the great (or "grate", depending on how reliable you remember these cars to be when, or if, you drove them) popular marques and models, which you used to take for granted all those years ago on WCUK roads, sat up and took their bows at Santa Pod. Among them:
Ford (row upon row upon row of Mk.1/2 Escorts, Mk.2/3 Cortinas, Anglias, Capris, and many of these packed serious power, as we saw on the dragstrip later on, plus the odd Mk.1 Cortina, and a 105E Popular or two; also, a number of supposedly ordinary-looking Ford vans....)

BL (Rover, Mini, Triumph, Morris mainly) - so many TR7s, Minis of every persuasion, souped-up Minors, an occasional P5B and SD1
Hillman (and, ooh look! here's a '71 Imp for Nigel!!!):

Vauxhall (Droop Snoots, Firenzas, Vivas, Chevettes, Cavalier Mk.1 and 2, and Andy Frost's monster VX4/90:

...which registered probably the day's quickest quarter-mile - somewhere under 10secs, I think.
"Respec' " also to the highly-entertaining drivers of several Japanese sporting saloons and hatchbacks, Mitsubishi Lancers, 1st-generation Toyota MR2s, even a very early chrome-laden Toyota Corolla, plus this fine comedy motoring moment:

which I think used to be a 1980 Toyota Starlet until its present owner got ambitious. It's got "All My Own Work" written all over it.
Let us not forget also the fella in the modified 1983 Nissan Cherry Europe who later showed a certain E24 a clean pair of heels...

First time your correspondent has been anywhere near a dragstrip, never mind drive on it... thankfully, no photos are known to exist of my three desultory runs - *phew*. I will say only that I managed to get my reaction start time down to 0.476 secs....
As my old Six can't get anywhere near 100mph at the quarter-mile mark, the much-loved Simpson RX8 helmet brought along for the occasion

was not needed.
The complete set of the day's digipics - or rather, those I managed to take before my batteries expired - can be found HERE. Please do take time to go through them, and remember your mis-spent younger days....

Edited by Horsetan