2017 British Car Day

The annual British car display day at the Kings School is not be missed.  Over 1500 classic British cars, trucks and commercial vehicles.  The weather was lovely so the turnout was excellent.  Last year, the show had to be postponed due to a sodden field.

Not only is the display quite a sight, but its one of the few times of the year you’ll sit in traffic behind a Jowett and have a Daimler behind you.    One of the highlights was seeing a Bentley 6.5 liter in the Vintage Sports Car Club.   I was hoping to see a Derby Bentley as well, but unfortunately it would appear there were none in attendance.    Was hoping a member of the Rolls Royce, Bentley or Vintage sports car clubs would bring one along.   There was a rather nice S Series Continental though.

As usual, the Jaguar Club had a great display, especially the E-Type register.    As with last year, no XK140s on display but a few with other clubs.    There are always large numbers of MGs, Minis etc on display too.    After the big Flynn auction I was wondering if there would be a big display of Rovers this year, but it as pretty similar to last year.    For some reason this year there were only a few Jensen Interceptors on display.   The Bristol club had a nice handout of their key models including numbers in the club and production volume.   A nice touch.

It is great to see some of the more forgotten marques, such as Riley, Alvis, Wolesely, Humber.   These cars are going to need their next generation of enthusiast.   And the marques that are defunct but perhaps better known like Austin, Rover, Daimler etc.   These shows certainly help show off the cars to people who may not have been familiar with them.

UPDATE (1/9/17):  There was a lovely Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that looked it it had been through a very thorough restoration.   I noticed an interesting switch on the side of the car.   Through a friend in the Rolls Royce club, I was able to find out its function.   It controls fuel pumps.   The Silver Ghost apparently has a mechanical pump and a manual pump that can be operated by the passenger.   The switch allows the selection of one, both or neither of the pumps.   It is quite a clever system, as it’s easy to forget that back at the time this car was new, the infrastructure to support the automobile was also in its infancy.