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Carole Nash Beale Country Park Classic Motor Show

30^th May 2004
by Nigel Warner

This was a new Greenwood Exhibitions venue for 2004. You have to book your car in for their exhibitions and it costs £2 which allows 2 adults and 2 children under 14 entry. Beale Country Park is a tranquil 400 acre park near Lower Basildon , reading. It is situated alongside the Thames and consists of meadows, woodland and a deer park as well as other attractions such as exotic birds and a narrow gauge railway. However we didn't see much of this as we were too busy wandering around the Classic cars.

I went with my friend Mike Peacock in the TVR 3000S on Sunday May 30th. It was a 2 day event as the Monday was a Bank Holiday. When I got to Mikes house to pick him up the weather didn't look too promising so we decided to keep the roof up. We also decided to go the more scenic route via Marlow and Henley instead of the M4 as I always think that the drive to a Classic Car event should be enjoyed along nice twisty A & B roads. We arrived just after 10:00am and the sun was shining although there were a few ominous black clouds. We parked up in our allotted space and were a little disappointed as there didn't seem to be as many cars there as we had hoped, but as it was early and there were still cars arriving we weren't unduly worried. The show field was in a nice setting with a lake to one side and the food and toilet facilities were good.

We started wandering round looking at the cars and after a short while we ended up having quite a long conversation with a 2.8 Capri owner. We then noticed a nice red Alfa Romeo Montreal enter the field and it parked up next to my TVR. It's the first time I've actually seen one of these being driven and it certainly drew a lot of attention during the day. Later on we had another long and interesting conversation with an Alfa owner unsurprisingly mainly about Alfas. It was getting towards lunchtime so we wandered back towards the TVR to get something to eat and I noticed that a very nice Reliant Scimitar SE4 had parked nearby however it started to rain but luckily it was only a short shower but it still caused quite a few people to rush and put their roofs up.

While we sat on the grass in front of the TVR we noticed the owner of a large customised American Van and Corvette arrived back and soon got to work drying off his cars. It also made me smile that he had roped them off, presumably to stop people touching them, but very few people were even paying them any attention. After our picnic I wandered over to have a chat with the young couple that owned the Scimitar SE4. It's nice to see young people interested in classic cars. It turned out they also had a Scimitar SE5A as an everyday car and he had just purchased a Trident Ventura which needed a lot of work. When I got back to the car I had another TVR owner come up to me for a chat. We then wandered off to the Arena where there was a commentator inviting people in with their cars for a chat and a bit of history about their car. Some of this can be quite interesting but I found, at times, the commentator was going on a bit but you have to admire him as it can't be an easy job.

By about 2:30pm it came over really dark and we could see heavy rain in the distance so we decided to head for home as we had seen everything we wanted to see. This proved to be a good decision as just as we got out on to the road the heavens opened and we had heavy rain, on and off, for the journey home.

To sum up the show was a bit disappointing as far as the number of cars on show was concerned, however there was a good mix of cars and a few unusual ones too, which was probably due to the weather. Also if you went hoping to find a few spares for your car you would have been a bit disappointed as there wasn't many auto jumblers present. I have however heard since that there were far more cars and visitors on the Monday probably due to the fact that the weather was a lot better.

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