Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show 2017: what we saw at the NEC on the weekend

I can summarise the appeal of the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show with the phrase “Palace of Varieties”. This year's was an event where a Series One E-Type Coupe could share a display with a special edition Mini 30, the Deux Chevaux Club of Great Britain paid tribute to 50 years of the Dyane, while on Lancaster Insurance's own stand was a Ford Capri 1600 GT XLR Mk. I, which embodied a lost world of Hai Karate aftershave and crimplene flared trousers.
No-one could fail to be charmed by the miniature sports cars of the Frisky Register, and the joint Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs/Historic Commercial Vehicle Society featured the wild skiffle beat of The Quarrymen.
As always, the effort and sheer imagination that went into the creation of the various club showcases continued to astound. Austin A40 ‘Farinas’ were featured in a seaside setting with overtones of Tony Hancock’s The Punch and Judy Man and the Morris Minor Owners Club had a delightful “Hatches, Matches and Dispatches” interpretation of this year’s ‘Family Ties’ theme.
The Capri Club International excelled themselves with their ‘Going On Holiday In Our Capri’ line-up and the Crayford Convertible Car Club offered utterly beguiling drophead versions of the Mini, the Metro plus, best of all, the Wolseley Hornet in ‘Heinz 57’ guise. In 1966 no respectable motorist could have resisted the chance of winning a convertible that even boasted an electric kettle in the boot.
Moving to the Lotus Historic Register, visitors were taken on an ingeniously planned journey that celebrated the work of Colin Chapman, and the Vanden Plas Owners’ Club offered the chance to see a long-lost family member in the form of the 1971 1800 ‘Landcrab’ prototype. This looked even more impressive in the metal than in photographs and surely would have been a viable Ford Granada rival had it entered production.
A further pleasure of the day was the opportunity to re-acquaint oneself with some aesthetically beautiful cars of the past 70 years, be it a very late model X1/9 or a cream-coloured Reliant Scimitar GT. One could also engage in the fantasy of owning a fleet of utterly unattainable vehicles, not least £95,625 worth of Eric Morecambe's 1968 Jensen Interceptor Mk I. My own choice of Car of The Show could well have been a very early Renault 16 or a quite incredible Fiat 600 Multipla but ultimately, I opted for a Wolseley 6/90 that looked as though it hailed from a 1950s B-feature crime epic.
The winner of the Pride of Ownership competition was the painstakingly restored 1983 VW Golf GTi MkI owned by Simon McNamara, and the Meguiar’s Club Showcase prize went to the 1959 Morris Mini-Minor of Ian Matthews; ‘Wizardry on Wheels, to quote the original advertisements.
Saturday 11th saw the Classic Rumble charity auction with the 2017 Dowsetts Classic Cars “Unique Sports Racer” of Team Ant (Anstead) raising £22,500 for Harrison’s Fund and Team Mike (Brewer)’s Escort XR3i Cabriolet Mk IV reaching the same price for the Marie Crawford Boyd Foundation. However, the Ford proved to be the winner as Mr. Brewer donated the £5,000 project seed money for the project.
And for many showgoers, one the major attractions of the NEC were those 1970s cars that were once familiar sights; a Fiat 131 Supermirafiori and an Austin Allegro complete with the ‘square’ steering wheel. A fleet of Maestros and Montegos would have once dominated Asda car parks across the UK, and the Rover 800s served as reminders of how remote the 1980s now seem.
Indeed, the owners of such ‘everyday’ classics all shared a common experience – i.e. being constantly approached by motorists of a certain age all uttering a variation of the phrase ‘my dad/mum/uncle/grandad used to have one of those’…