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The 12^th Notts Classic Car & Motorcycle Show

Monday 30^th August 2004

by John Cooper

Trips to the Greenwood’s classic car shows at Thoresby Hall have pretty much become an institution in our family and this year has been no different. As with previous shows it starts with everyone rendezvousing at Katie’s Kitchen on the A1 just south of Bawtry for the traditional fried breakfast. This is where the show really starts for me as we invariably spot a number of cars passing by obviously heading for the same place as us.

Before long we bundle the kids into the back of the Morris Minor with my parents before the cavalcade sets off on the fairly short run down the A1.

As we approach the entrance I start to get the feeling that this is going to be a large show as it’s still early and there appear to be plenty of cars about. Sure enough, this is confirmed as we pull into the field. This bank holiday was forecast to be one of the best days we’d had over the dreadful summer so I’d expected to see a good turn out. Later, in his closing comments, organiser Andrew Greenwood confirms that this is the largest attendance they’ve ever had at Thoresby.

The format of the show was the same as previous years with good variety of vehicles and trade stalls. This year there was also an aerobatic display. To be completely honest, I couldn’t tell you whether this had been arranged for the show or just happened to be for another close event, but either way it was highly entertaining.

One thing that struck me throughout the day was how many people left quite early. By the time we started to set up our barbeque there were already a significant number of gaps starting to appear in the car park.

I must apologise to everyone who was there on the day for taking a barbeque, as this was obviously what caused the heavy showers we had. These showers were enough to cause yet more people to flee the show, which I felt was very disappointing. Sure enough, the showers passed over and we had a great time over the rest of the day.

The majority of the day was simply spent wandering around the parked cars. It’s a completely personal opinion, but I don’t as a rule like American cars though I must admit that everyone’s always drawn to them, me included, and I always have to drag the kids away.

Personally I don’t think I could single out any one car as being my favourite. The E-types are always a pleasure to see and the Lancia was fantastic, but I think I appreciated this Avenger as much as anything else I saw. As I think I’ve said before, I have the ultimate respect for people who keep these less-glamorous cars on the road and turning up at the shows.

We stayed until the end of the show. I won’t bore you with the details of the winners in each of the classes in the show, but will just say that the car of the show was a beautiful Rover P6. Soon after this we joined the stampede out of the car park and made our way home after another great day out.

Car of the show

For those of you who didn't manage to make it along on the day, here are some more examples of what you missed out on:

The end.

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