Motorist - May 2024

Car shows are getting more expensive and simultaneously less interesting. We'd planned going to Newby Hall Sportscars in the Park. It's a classic car show (not classic cars, but an archetypal show) with an assortment of clubs and wealthy owners showing off new Porches, Ferraris, Aston Martins, and similar, largely bland, modern sportscars. Mixed in you might get a glimpse of a modern Focus RS complete with hydrodipped valve cover to demonstrate the owner's fondness for the Joker or Iron Man, and older cars kept completely standard or restored to such a quality in a way that must have cost thousands with the result of owning the same car you had 30 years prior.

Having visited the Motorist previously, I didn't hold much higher expectation but not having to pay £20 to get in was a massive advantage. Another attraction is it being much more lax in being able to arrive and leave whenever you want and not having to keep wandering around the same 5 cars for hours because a. you've paid to get in, and, b. you're not allowed to leave (if an exhibitor). It was a pleasant surprise to see a nice 993 almost immediately and, although there were still guys in white polos driving daddy's Porche, most of the cars were pretty interesting.

Everything about this is ultra stylish and considered. Love the way it looks in black, and at this height.

A very 'of its era' colour.

Very fond of this one even with the little bits of rust around the edges. The wheels are very supertouring.

Something as simple as the design of the fan control switches is super interesting. It's sort of like they've been taken off a Tomy fighter jet or a Fisher Price funny car. They really compliment all the other little touches on the interior though; the circular cutouts in the steering wheel, the bubbly hydroformed look of the centre console, even the colour and the texture of the plastic is so right. Although I'm still not a massive fan of completely utouched standard cars for the sake of being standard, I think the interior of this (admittedly not totally standard) is a worthwhile piece of design to retain.

This Opel was more an exercise in incongruity from a style perspective. Super cool engine swap but the wheels completely wrong for the car. The engine seemed to fit well and the car itself looked excellent, but the wheels really let it down on the whole.

This wheel/tyre on the other hand completely the opposite. These are some of my all time favourite wheels and having such a great size tyre on at the same time - brilliant.