Classics on the Common

Cue: A Jeremy Clarkson type voice.

Across the face of Britain, and particularly in the summer, pub car parks everywhere play host to an event that is almost as British as the pint of bitter itself. An event so entangled with the British psyche that it’s demise would signal the final litmus failure of the British way of life. An event so thoroughly ubiquitous that to not accidentally come across one every once in a while would lead one to doubt the integrity of the very fabric of the universe.

It’s the weekend, say an early Saturday afternoon as you drive into your local pub car park with a steak and kidney pie on your mind. You drive up and down looking for a space easily missing the cheeky little Austin Healey parked in between the blue Mondeo and the grey Vauxhall Vectra. You drive right past the Champaign white Triumph Vitesse barely noticing the fact that someone has fitted a chrome straight through sports exhaust to it. You think nothing strange when you drive right past the four gleaming Triumph Spitfires all with their bonnets up, sporting after market oil coolers, Kenlow fans and gleaming K&N filters stuck to the side of chrome dipped SU carburettors. You do little more than take a little extra care as you finally come to rest right next to the sleek green E-Type Jaguar with its roof down and with a proper wicker picnic basket on the front seat. Yes, you’ve driven into a classic car meet, and it hardly registers at all. After all, you almost expected it.

Inside the pub you order your drinks and food and retire to a nearby table where, only a few feet away, a group of three people are discussing the relative merits of replacing a Triumph Stag engine with a Rover V8. Another fellow asks you where one might find a reconditioned gearbox for their TR-4A and you, being British, kindly refer them to the Triumph Sports Six Club; ”they’ll probably be able to help” you remark. A Jaguar owner in the corner gets annoyed at a little old man for daring to accusing him of never actually working on his own car. You nod; it’s a minor outrage.

Yes that’s the scene and, usually, there is generally not a lot more to it than that. Down the pub, with like minded people and a bunch of really rather nice cars.

Except sometimes things go fantastically bonkers.

About ten years ago, in a pub somewhere in a small town called Harpenden, a small gathering of local classic car owners took place. Not an unusual event in itself as we know but this time something odd happened. Perhaps a little too much swarfega had been absorbed during a rather messy engine rebuild or maybe the sun was a little too hot on that fateful day but, whatever the cause, that little innocuous meet grew over a period of ten years into this:

In 2003 it’s reported that this little meet, known as Classics on the Common attracted over 10,000 visitors. And that’s mid-week. From a mere 25 originals at the very first meet this originally impromptu event has grown into a regular yearly show with something in the region of 1600 exhibitors. There is no prescribed parking, no prizes, no competitions and no professional presence other than the odd ice cream van or two. It is the mother of all pub car park meets, except now without the car park though the pub still plays a roll I am led to believe.

So yesterday, The England Project family cycled to the show and walked around the common for a bit and here, for your pleasure, are some pictures of some of what we saw:

For more on the show visit the Classics on the Common web site. Go on, you know you want to.

Posted by John at July 29, 2004 11:04 AM | TrackBack