The South of England’s Great Classics and Super Cars Show held at Sherborne Castle has to be one of the most fabulous venues for this annual summer event.
A place where historic classic cars aged 100 years and older to the very new super cars of today, parade, shine, dazzle and inspire the visitor.
Now in its 10th year, the show hosted the Ferrari F12 – the fastest and most powerful road Ferrari ever produced, the McLaren 12-C Spider, the latest Lamborghini Aventor, a very rare Porsche Carrera GT, the simply stunning Bugatti Veyron (which I saw 2 years ago at the Wilton House Super Car Show – and Lord Pembroke STILL hasn’t asked me to take a ride in it … one can only dream), hundreds of rare classics, hot rods and custom cars.
Sherborne Castle was built by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1594, and has been the stately home to the Wingfield Digby family since 1617. The 42 acres of beautiful grounds and gardens (with a stunning 50 acre lake created by ‘Capability’ Brown in 1753) showing off magnificent specimen trees and sweeping lawns is such a perfect backdrop to these wonderful cars.
Sitting by the lake you could here the bidding taking place in the marquee – run by Charterhouse Car Auctions – where cars and machines were being sold at auction during the afternoon.
With 1000’s of cars on display from Veterans to Supercars, walking along, with camera clicking away in one hand (together with many others) trying to capture the best snapshots of inside and outsides of these beautiful cars was a pleasing way to spend an afternoon. Oh and by the way – the sun shone – all day!
A live commentary kept the crowds informed of forthcoming afternoon parades, competitions and up to the moment information, and at 12.30 all eyes were trained on the road leading up to the castle to catch sight of the arrival of the first Sports and Supercars. (It was a bit of a give-away as you could hear them arriving for miles!!)
Aston Martin’s, Lamborghini’s, Rally Cars, TVR’s, Porsche’s, the Jaguar XJ220 and the Bugatti Veyron – in the static park – you name it, it was there; engines purring (some far more loudly than others), drivers smiling and waving, and clearly enthralling the crowd who had by now lined the road to take a closer look.
I fell in love at this show…. not with a human… but with a car! It was the most beautiful car in the show. A small line of MG’s had caught my eye.
On closer inspection, to my delight, there it was, an MGA, MGB and MGC all in a line! But it was the beautiful shape, colour and lines of the MGA, which stole my heart. It was perfect. Here she is… all sparkling in powder blue … (deep sigh) …!
With the arrival of the Veteran cars at 2pm, the crowds had settled down for the afternoon, picnicking, chatting and swapping stories, admiring and watching these extremely old, yet such carefully and lovingly restored cars, travel together along the road – all 6 of them – delightful.
Watch them arrive here: http://youtu.be/b_iCsqvKIrs
Later during the afternoon it was the turn of the Dragsters to fire up – gosh, how engineering has moved on and developed in just 100 years. A big thank you to Merlin Events who were the organisers of this fab day out in Dorset.
