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OK, so I didn't get my shiz together to get there in the FD. But in my defence, I was on holiday when I should have been phoning for a stand pass... and Legoland is a great distraction! Hey, at least I was there. Where were you, lol? And I managed to fire off a few snaps to share wid y'all. So here they are.
You can always tell a good show by the quality of the motors you stumble across in the car park. And belive me, you need a bit of cheering up after queuing to get in for about three quarters of an hour! Anyway, have a 308GTB sitting unassumingly in the car park
I think it's fair to say that the Wings element has overtaken the Wheels part of the show recently. There are still plenty of car clubs willing to represent, however. Not the least of these, of course, is our very own FD:UK...
Only three cars on the day *shuffles feet embarrassedly* but to be fair there's no way I'd have fitted two kids, the waff and the Monster in Law in mine. Anyway, Tom and Ada and Joe at least managed to defend the honour of the FD; FD:UK hobbits captured in Surrey!
Joe's car features very unusual version of the MazdaSpeed wheels. Mmmm, shiny
One advantage of the sparsity of club stands is that it leaves plenty of room for a family day out picnic sort of atmosphere. As proved by Lady H and li'l Stanley. FD in practical family hauler shock!
Stan wasn't too convinced by my dodgy hat, though. Here he is tolerating the proud father, lol (That's Ada for all those who don't recognise his freakish bulk)
...and here's his car, now finally featuring matching intercooler hoses. Looks much more better for the new headlight covers, too
That's it, the FD:UK stand. You can all go home now. Thanks for looking in
Actually, there were one or two other things worth noticing...
Plenty of squashed Beetles around the place. I always struggle to tell which 911 is good and which isn't because mostly they leave me pretty unmoved. I tend to go for ones I like the look of, therefore, without knowing whether they'll be the ones to please the purists and enthusiasts. But then, ain't that what it's all about, choosing what you like rather than what fashion dictates? I especially liked this chubby-bottomed one;
And this one. I seem to gravitate towards the older air/oil cooled models, for some reason. Must be getting old, lol
Here's a proper water-cooled Porsche then, for those who prefer non-stone age tech.
Of course, the Unique Selling Point of the show is that you get a mix of... well, Wings as well as Wheels, at the risk of sounding slightly fatuous. So there you are drooling over a pair of vintage Bentleys when suddenly some outrageous display of aerial prowess kicks off overhead without any warning. And let's be fair, watching the Red Arrows just never gets old
...I wish Photobucket would stop insisting that photo ought to be the wrong way round...
Rather like how nice it'd be to remember Marc Bolan before he went all fat and tragic, or Syd Barret before he turned into an incoherent mumbling acid casualty, just think how lovely a place the world would be if Ford had stopped at the MkIII Cortina...
I had an unhealthy amount of lust for the D-Type Jag and spent quite a while trying to get "that" pic. Still not sure if I managed it, and now I can't decide which one I like best so you'll have to put up with a few
before the Evo there was... well, the Evo. Which is the true Evo I guess depends on whether you prefer sushi or antipasta
more Porsche stuff...
How about a display from the Spitfire's less glamorous sister, the Hurricane?
So wrong, on so many levels...
Now all we need is an "F" to complete the I-Spy book of Jag letter cars;
Plenty of Grannies. They're allowed to look like Ford Granadas, y'see, cos they are. Cortinas ought to know better. Although oddly one of my favourites was the one that doesn't actually look like a Granada, the white coupe. Could do with lows to match the wheels though
They seem to have turned up another air-worthy Lancaster from somewhere, Canada, I think and what an awesome sight it is to see a brace of them fly overhead. Gives you some idea how awesome a sight a whole phalanx must have made!
Shall we have a look at some bikes now? Oh, don't be like that, you never know you may like it. Let's start in the leftfield with the oddball Ariel Arrow. Once all bikes were going to be made like this; pressed section frame, leading link built-up front end, high volume low-cost production. Might even have worked if not for two important facts the designers failed to consider. One, it looked awful. Two, it was awful. Weird bike is weird
here's one you often see; BMWs Flying Brick K-series turned into a stripped-out streetfighter. When you see the sheer size of the engine you can really tell BMW hadn't quite figured out that car engines wouldn't work in bikes!
Unfeasibly long drag Ducati is long! Probably the only way to make a Duke reliable is to only run it for quarter of a mile at a time, lol
Beautiful Rossi-rep YZR Yamaha is beautiful. I love the smell of two-stroke in the morning. Smells like... victory. All the best bikes have one exhaust per cylinder
The original street bruiser, still crazy after all these years. We all love a nice Geep, innit
Alexander, Third Lord Hesketh was not only a total hero of F1 privateer-dom (the Good Lord, as James Hunt called him), he also was that rarest of entrepeneurs, a man who actually managed to jump through all the hoops needed to get a mainstream production vehicle manufactured in his own name. The Hesketh in all its variants may not have been the best, but it was definitely the most aristocratic of all niche Brit bike marques. Rare old thing, lovely to see
A couple of Honda RC replicas celebrated Honda's early GP years when the answer to low power outputs was more cylinders and more valves, even against the two-strokes. Swiss-watch engineering in a performance competition vehicle
Panther "sloper" is another rare survivor from the glory days when British marques ruled the world. Got it's nickname from the way it's single massive cylinder lay down in the frame
