I live in Matlock, and it's 2 hours door to door to Bicester Heritage. And it's an early start, doors open at 9.00 am at Bicester. So it's a 7.30 start from Matlock. Traffic is usually light on a Sunday at that time, although today it was a wet start.
But the Gods shine on Bicester Heritage (BH), and as we drove towards Bicester in the XK, the skies started to clear as we approached Northamptonshire. Today, Silverstone hosted Japfest, which meant 1) Roads clogged with noisy, smokey, lowered Toyotas's, Nissans and the like. 2) A lot of broken down Jap Cars by the side of the M1 3) Lots of Police Activity (Unmarked red Omega Estate anyone?) and finally lots of radar detectors, police cars and bikes. Oh, and a massive queue into Silverstone.
Once passed that lot, we were at BH on schedule at 9.30, and bacon buttie ordered and consumed it was on to the action. Folks are really friendly at BH, and over the breakfast table there was one chap who had driven up from Cornwall the night before. He must have had the 'longest distance driven' award!
Car Club Parking disappeared a few years back at BH, so now you have to search out the Jags amongst all the other cars/pickups/bikes etc. We spotted quite a few Jaguars (see pictures) but there are many many distractions.
Motorsport UK have moved their HQ to BH, and it was really interesting to see displayed famous motorsport trophies engraved with names such as Richard Burns, Colin McRae, Lando Norris etc as they confirmed their positions as UK champions before moving onto the International stage.
Amongst the Jaguars and other classics were some real oddities. Such as the 7.2 litre twin engined (2x 4 Cylinder) in-line Allard Special. We were very lucky to be there when the current custodian fired it up! What a machine! Look at the photos and see if you can imagine the engineering challenges!
And so yes, there are things here that you simply will not have seen before, anywhere. There was the current Porsche Le Mans car, for example, and a Lotus Esprit 'Essex' model (Confession - my other life is spent in Lotus circles with a Heritage Edition Elise sharing garage space with the XK).
So there you are - have a look at the photo's and decide for yourself. But as far as I'm concerned, It's simply the best car show in the UK. And it happens 4 times a year, and they are all different!
Ignore it, and you really don't know what you are missing!
Next one is the Flywheel gathering in June, then a break to the final, end of year Scramble in October. There is limited entry, and tickets sell fast, so you need to be signed up to ticket alerts and move quickly to secure your tickets.
See you there!
** UPDATE ** February 2024. The Scrambles are now 3 times a year: January, April and October. See the BH website for exact dates.
