Rustival

9th March 2024

 

Clapped out to concours every vehicle is welcome! was the strap-line for a very different car show organised by British Youtubers Ian and Carly from HubNut, Matt from Furious Driving and Steph from idriveaclassic. Rustival was held at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire, a nicely central location with good access to the motorway network and only about 90 minutes drive away for me. I follow two of the organisers channels and fancied a Saturday trip out. Now I don’t have a particularly interesting car but that’s rather the point of Rustival - all wheels are welcome - and since it was also cheaper to go as an exhibitor than as a general visitor I booked my space. I even gave the car a wash and polish a couple of days before, something that happens… shall we say infrequently? 

 

Exhibitors were allocated into two car park areas named Van den Plas and Mayfair, I was allocated to Mayfair and entry was from 10:00 a.m. I arrived a little before 10:15 and the exhibitor areas were mostly full by that time so I was parked up almost at the far edge of the show. 

 

 

 

 It looks a little lonely here but the area quickly filled and my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid was framed by a Porsche 944 and a Vauxhall the details of which I cannot now recall. I’d been a little concerned that my boring and reliable modern car would look a little out of place but it was far from the newest car present. As far as I could tell it was, surprisingly, the only RAV4 present. As my sister pointed out it was bound to win the prize for “Car I’m Most Likely To Go Home In” :-)

 

I’d planned ahead and taken a flask and a picnic lunch because who wants to spend time queuing at the burger van when you can be checking out the exhibits? So first I took a cup of coffee for a walk around the Mayfair section which contained some interesting, ordinary, and rare cars

 

 

 

 and other vehicles, not all of which had seen wax or polish recently

 

 

 

which sums up the ethos of the show nicely.

 

I popped back to my car and ate lunch then headed down to the Van den Plas area where the various Youtubers’ displays, portable stage, stalls, and a lot more exhibits were located.

 

 

 

 And I spent the next few hours wandering around looking at what everyone had brought and chatting with or listening to exhibitors and visitors. There was getting on for 900 cars exhibited and although my ticket included entry to the British Motor Museum I never actually made it indoors (though I have visited before). Time flew and soon it was nearly 3 o’clock, prizes were being awarded

 

 

 

 and it was almost time to head home. Particularly since I set my alarm for 0600, woken at 0355, and failed to get back to sleep before it was time to get up so having been mostly on my feet I was starting to flag.

 

A couple of my show highlights:

 

 

 

 This Austin A40 Farina Mk1. I’m always going to be drawn towards one of these as a 1961 Countryman model was my first car. The young lady owner of this example has also adapted it into one of the smallest micro-campers I’ve ever come across. So that’s my choice for car of the show because I’m partisan :-)

 

 

 

This slightly scary Reliant Robin based trials car, complete with quite a lot of countryside still stuck to it from its last trials event. The gent who owns and built it was happy to explain to visitors the why’s and wherefores of his creation and yes, it’s street-legal and yes he drove it to and from Rustival so I guess he was as glad as anyone else that we had fine weather on Saturday!

 

Here’s 63 photos that I took on the day in a Flickr Album

 

 

 

 Rustival was a great success and the organisers plan to do it again next year so I hope to do it again too, I’ll be keeping an eye on https://www.rustival.co.uk/ and suggest you do as well if you’re interested in all types of cars not just the “special” ones.

My 2023 in Review

 

2023 was my first whole year as an idle sod (officially) so I've taken a look back through my calendar to see what I actually did and pick out some highlights.

January Started with a week of Rail Strikes so travel opportunities were a bit limited but after that managed to get out and walk from Catford to the Thames along the River Ravensbourne. I also paid a Sunday afternoon visit to Hanwell, and managed a trip to see the Winter Lights at Canary Wharf and made my only visit to the Tower of London thanks to a Christmas present of a year's Historic Royal Palaces membership.

February Saw a boat trip around Portsmouth Harbour, a visit to the shopping mall that is Battersea Power Station, a day down at the Army Flying Museum in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, and a trip to Hackney for the great Urban Good relocation map giveaway from which scrummage I bagged a decent number of maps of London and a couple of other cities. The big highlight of the month was my Hidden London tour of Shepherd's Bush Underground station, which turned out to be a personal tour since by coincidence I was the only customer to book that particular time slot on that day.

 

To finish the month I had a belated Xmas Drinks with some of my former workmates where vast quantities of drink were taken, resulting in a rather uncomfortable ride home by rail Replacement Bus!

March saw my first trip away of the year and despite a weather warning for snow had a good stay in a working water mill in Wookey, Somerset. From which I visited Wells Cathedral, Burnham On Sea, and a spectacularly wet Glastonbury. The HRP membership got me inside the spectacular Banqueting House on Whitehall and LT Museum Friends membership into the Depot Open day at Acton.

April 5th saw me take a midweek afternoon ride route 465 - Transport for London's most un-London Bus Route. On the 21st I hit the big six-oh and took my HRP membership card for a ride to Kensington Palace

May was the month for my big rail trip to the far north of Scotland which had been delayed since March 2020 when something screwed up my careful plans. It was worth the wait, nine days away stopping in Edinburgh, Inverness, and Thurso and finally setting foot in my original target of Wick on a very quiet Saturday 13th. Second highlight of May was going to Worcester to see Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp in concert. 

June brought another bus trip, the Route 65 and 71 Heritage Event between Ealing and Kingston and Leatherhead. I also went away to Happisburgh in Norfolk to explore childhood holiday territory and visit the North Norfolk Railway again and the East Anglian Transport Museum for the first time, the latter fulfilling an ambitions a good fifty years old.

July Featured a trip on the LT Museum's Heritage 1938 Stock Tube train from Acton Town to Oakwood and back. 

 

In between industrial action on the railways I managed to squeeze in a "pick a random city you haven't been to" trip away. Which this time was Nottingham for the trams, the Trent, and the castle.

August began with the Freddie Mercury exhibition at Sotheby's and then majored on buses, with a visit to the Oxford Bus Museum followed by an incredibly busy Imberbus Day

 

 

Right at the end of the month into the beginning of September I got away for a long weekend in Paignton for some seaside walking and of course a seaside steam train.

September brought my second Hidden London tour of 2023, the newly introduced one at Baker Street station. I had to share this one but it was still good.
September saw Open House London run over two weekends and this year I managed visits to The City Churches: St Mary-le-Bow, Grand Junction at St Mary Magdalene Church, Paddington, and Fitzrovia Chapel on the first and National Audit Office (former Imperial Airways Terminal) and Lewisham Arthouse on the second. I went to the second LT Museum Depot open weekend of the year and finished off the month with a trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden which was having a free entry day as part of Chelsea Festival.

October was a bit quieter. Not entirely quiet as I went to Basingstoke and saw Toyah and Robert in concert again. Also a visit to Gunnersbury House to see the rather good Exhibition "Set to Stun: Designing & Filming Sci-Fi in West London". The end of the month marked the 1 year anniversary of my exit from wage-slavery.

November was mostly car related things. I spent the 5th standing at a Sussex roadside taking pictures of the VCC London to Brighton Run and at least this year it didn't piss down with rain.
I went to the Classic Car Show at Birmingham NEC for the first time in years, travelling up by train and staying in Coventry as it was easier - and cheaper - than finding a suitable hotel in Brum. Finally I saw Show Of Hands on their last tour, in Basingstoke again.

December is never up to much. The highlight of the month might have been putting four new tyres on the car but was edged out by meeting some former colleagues for beers in Reading. Lots of beers but fortunately no rail Replacement Buses this time. I made the LT Museum Friends AGM at Covent Garden and Barry Le Jeune's entertaining talk afterwards. In fact now work doesn't get in the way I've been able to attend many more of the Friends' meetings this year. Xmas? Meh. I had a good lunch on the day with family but I'm not really a Christmas person.

So ends another trip around the sun. Skimming the calendar to write this blog post I realize I've done more than I first thought. I've only included the more notable events here, there have been many other minor excursions. 2024 will likely be similar.

VCC London to Brighton Run 2023 at Staplefield

 5th November 2023

I got up early and secured a spot at the roadside in Staplefield to watch the London to Brighton veteran car run. A few hours with a camera, a bacon roll, a picnic, and a flask of Bovril and I seem to have quite a lot of photos of the cars at and passing through the village.

300 or so of which should be visible here.

At least this year the weather was dry 😀

 

Avoiding Steep Hills where possible

A recent Twitter post by Paul Whitewick about an early road atlas reminded me that on my map shelf (What? Don't you have one?) are some AA "prepared routes" made for my parents in the early 1960s.

AA Prepared Route Maps

While not as old as the one Paul's looking at they do provide a reminder of road travel in a time before sat-nav, largely before motorways, and when the performance of cars required careful route planning to help ensure a trouble-free journey.

The earliest from 1960 goes from Kingston-upon-Thames to Sidmouth in Devon, a journey of 158¼ miles according to the front cover, Google maps suggests 154 miles today. A year later they were off to another favourite holiday haunt, Hayle in Cornwall - probably to join Mum's parents who rarely went elsewhere - a much longer 267¼ miles. Although the AA route starts at Harrow & Wealdstone Station and they lived at Heston so you can knock about 7 miles off that.

This route has on the cover the endorsement "(Avoiding Steep Hills where possible)". This isn't some thing that we often need to think about now with most modern cars having ample power to tackle any hill in this country excepting the few exceptional steep mountain passes.

It was a factor in 1961 however, particularly if your "sports car" only had a 328cc motorcycle engine (and only three wheels). Failure to plan ahead might result in your passenger having to get out and carry the suitcases!

Having said which the photo here was taken in Wales where nothing is flat except sometimes the beer.
The prepared route maps are a little odd to look at at first.

 The list of instructions on the left of the page run from top to bottom.

The strip map on the right of the page runs from bottom to top so that you are looking at the map in the direction of travel, which is logical once you've thought about it but a little confusing at first.

A North-pointing arrow is included in the map for orientation purposes and at the top of the page a brief description of the terrain through which you;ll be travelling is given.

The return trip is printed on the reverse of the pages so when you want to come home you simply open the booklet at the back cover and follow the instructions and maps as you did on the outward trip.

For 1963 the destination was Skegness, the Berkeley had been replaced by a Ford Popular 100E and the passenger count was increased by one. For 1965 it was Skeggy again though by then an Austin A35 Countryman (like Wallace and Gromit's van but with side windows) had replaced the Ford. Steep hills were less of a concern and something else had appeared on the maps.

Section Mill Hill to Baldock

North of Hatfield was  Welwyn "The Clock" Motorway Terminal. The southern end of the A1(M) motorway section between Welwyn and Stevenage had opened in 1962. (This is now Junctions 6 to 8.)

If you didn't fancy driving on this new-fangled invention a footnote gave an alternative:

"If all purpose roads are preferred take 3rd exit B197 & proceed via Knebworth, Broadwater & Stevenage where bear rt to rejoin old road at Graveley".

I like the distinction between Motorways and "all purpose roads". If you had been letting rip on the new motorway, which you might well have been doing given that until just before Christmas 1965 there was no speed limit, you are cautioned in the route notes to "watch your speed" on rejoining the A1 at Graveley. Even if the 70mph limit had been in force I'm not sure either of Dad's cars could have broken it though I'm sure he'd have tried to find out 😀



Images: Route to Hayle and route to Sidmouth:

Scans of the outward trips to Hayle and to Sidmouth, 1960 and 1961.

If you wanted to try and follow the 1961 route to Hayle and back avoiding steep hills where possible (and once the COVID-19 lockdown has been lifted obviously) there's a PDF of the document here although I rather think 59 years of changes in the road system might turn that into a bigger challenge than the original trip regardless of how many cc your car's engine has 😃