The (2017) Lancaster Classic Motor Show is a must in everyone’s classic year calendar, it’s the biggest show of it’s kind in the UK and this year it was huge.

I simply cannot manage to see everything and spending the whole day there I still managed to miss things. Same every year for me, but the quality of what I did see was very high. I’m sure the clubs do better each time with their presentations and the variety of what was on display. I’m going to share with you some of the highlights.

Heading through the nearest entrance as soon as it opened and I was faced with Classic & Sportscar’s rather nice display of Rolls-Royce products, the one attracting most of the attention was the Merlin engine, which is a rather beautiful thing. The Phantom Continental next to it had wonderful presence too.

Seeing as this is a British show there were some really good examples of British cars on display, as you would expect. Being in Birmingham too there’s a wealth of motoring history on the doorstep of the NEC.

The Morris Mini Traveller seen here was absolutely superb, three door state cars do look incredibly cool, well to my eyes anyway. This one complete with wood rear end too. They also made the identical Austin Mini Countryman, two competing brands that would become one under British Leyland with Morris eventually losing out.

The wood was non structural, unlike that of the Morris Minor Traveller, you could get both of these without the wood option, firstly for export markets then the UK. However, it’s the woodie versions that remained popular.

Speaking about Morris Minors, there was a fantastic Minor Million, complete in it’s resplendent err…. lilac. Actually, I rather like the colour and they made 350 of them to celebrate making a Million Minors. Actually they made over 1.5 Million  Minors over it’s 23 year run. Jalopy owned one years ago and never got to drive it. Seems to be a familiar story….

Now we do like French things at Jalopy and it’s good to see them well represented again, The Matra Enthusiasts Club always have unusual things and the Avantime is definitely that. A 3 door people carrier based on an Espace platform which looks fantastic. It never quite took off and remains a bit of a left field choice and can now be had at bargain prices. Running costs aren’t quite so good though, but if you’re not using one every day then it doesn’t matter. These were built by Matra for Renault in their home of Romorontin-Lanthenay until Renault pulled the plug on this and everything they built for them. Pity as there isn’t anything quite like this now.

The Renault 4CV is another favourite, with it’s rear mounted 750cc engine giving impressive cabin space. And they look like this, I mean who wouldn’t love that.

And it’s spiritual successor, the Twingo, now over 20 years old itself, another masterpiece of packaging by Renault. In Jalopy’s dream home in France there would be one of these parked outside. A cheap one, as over the years Jalopy’s dreams have become ever more realistic. Note I didn’t say South of France either…. Cracking car though and it would have sold bucket loads had they officially imported it in right hand drive.

This caught my attention early on,  3 wheeled vehicles are a traditional British oddity, especially those with the wheel at the front. Now these are much maligned, unfairly, by those who aren’t in the know. I’m dying to try one out, I think it would be great fun to drive, this one below may be a little bit too much… Powered by a Rover 3.5 V8 it’s been built to run the 1/4 mile, quickly. Hilarious really, but I’d be quite happy with a standard one.

Another British car company no longer with us, they built these along with the Scimitar’s in Tamworth, just North of Birmingham.

I came across this lovely group of Citroën Traction Avant’s on the club stand and a very friendly bunch they were too. After a bit of a quizzing they realised that Jalopy knew their stuff with regards to these and invited me inside the right hand drive Slough built big 15. It was fantastic, I have much admired these for many years and really should own one, stunning to look at and by all accounts they drive really well too feeling much younger than their age such was the advanced nature of their design. I should really join the club and if I did I would probably be one of their youngest members….

The 2CV Shop were there too with a fairly cheap Charleston you could buy on one condition, you get all the restoration parts from them. That would be expensive to do, but it would be just as good as buying one that Citroën built themselves, albeit one with a galvansied chassizs.

There’s still so much more to see, though whilst in this hall I headed over to the Corvette Owners Club stand as I rather like the idea of owning one, a C4 too. They are really good value being cheap to buy and not too expensive to run. Tempting, very tempting…. Again another friendly helpful bunch of guys too.

This stunning 1988 example would be enough to tempt most people.

There’s always something fun going on with the stands and the Panther club had a Pink Panther and this, 101 Dalmations themed De Ville. Another British car company no longer with us, which is a shame. The last Panther car to see the roads was the ill-fated Solo, a stunning looking thing which really showed how well a small company could take on the might of the established super car manufacturers and beat them at their own game. With one exception, sales. Not many Solo’s exist and there aren’t too many De Villes either, but at 60 there’s are a few more to be found. One of them, a 2 door coupe, featured in the 1996 Disney film, though why they felt the need to fit a small block Chevy in place of the Jaguar engine is a mystery. Still, the stand was great and Jalopy had a long chat with a very nice and Friendly Cruella.

Of course there would be more BL fodder to be found with quite possibly the best colour I have ever seen on an SD1, This was a great car and in the late 70s could be had in a variety of lurid paint schemes, this one simply is the best. And the condition of it too was stunning.

Then it had to be closely followed by this orange Princess, another highly underrated car,one of them should really be in the Jalopy fleet, I do think they are that good. They certainly stand out in BL 70’s paint too.

One thing we seemed to be very good at in the UK is taking coach building to mass production vehicles and making them look and feel incredibly luxurious. So it’s somewhat odd that a Belgian company by the name of Vanden Plas became one of our most well known names. They used to build complete bodies for cars and may be most well known in this respect, outside of aircraft manufacture, for making the Daimler DS420 limousines. They became a subsiduary of the Austin motor company in 1946 and became quite a well known British entity transforming Austin products, several of which were on display. But, it was this that really caught my eye, a superb Vanden Plas Princess from the early 70’s

Understated opulence, a very British thing. No shouting about it.  This was everything an English gentleman would require in transportation. It’s not fitted with the kind of extras that modern cars come adorned with but what a place to spend time in. Simply stunning and Jalopy dreams of being an English gentleman in order to drive such a vehicle.

A good note to finish on has to be Graeme Hardy as Tazio Nuvolari. Graeme who’s most commonly found as a George Formby tribute, complete with Shuttelworth Speed Demon motorcycle, does do a splendid job and spends all day sat in the 1911 Ford Model T racer whilst in character.

There was so much more there I cannot do the show justice other than to say go and see it. They need another day to it and who knows, the show could grow and grow, this wouldn’t be a bad thing.  From the live restoration carried out by the Practical Classics team to the Wheeler Dealers live show and all of the clubs it just gets better every year. The best of British on display, we forget just how good we really were at all this, but hang on, we still are. ..

Head over to Facebook and check out the gallery, there’s something new and British in there, yes the all new TVR.

Simon