Retro Rides Gathering 2014

Last weekend I journeyed off with some old friends for a weekend of curry and cars. What a weekend it was! Naturally I began proceedings on Saturday morning with more than a hint of a hangover, so put in a can of beans on toast and awaited the arrival of Ste, my taxi driver for the weekend.

Chariot

It was pretty cosy in there. And hot. And very, very loud. Ideal for a 120 mile journey on a Saturday afternoon.

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I did try many times to chat to Ste about the car. He told me all about it in great detail. Sadly it was like one of those nightclub conversations where I caught the odd syllable while nodding and smiling a lot. Suffice to say both the engine and Ste were happiest bouncing off the limiter and the car was rapid, light, and insanely grippy in the bends.

The other car in our convoy was an old favourite, Ian’s S50B32 powered E30.

Ian's S50B32 E30

Following a lively curry we stayed the night at the frankly terrible Mount Pleasant hotel in Malvern. I had a room with a view.

Room with a view

In the morning I topped up the can of beans and curry with an appalling fried breakfast and we jollied off to Shelsley Walsh, firing on all cylinders.

Then came the cars. Oh the wonderful, wonderful cars. Here’s my favourite.

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How good is that? What do you think about this?

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Then this.

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These all followed us into the car park within minutes. It was hilarious.

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What I enjoyed most was the obvious respect shown for motoring heritage.

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There’s nothing quite like an immaculate, unmolested MkI Golf.

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Okay okay. So it wasn’t all comedy. Let’s try and fix things, starting with that Golf.

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There were plenty of RS representatives.

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Ste summed up this amazing MkI Escort carrying an RS Cosworth lump very well: “This is a beautiful conversion. It’s really tidy and a great combination of car and engine. However it is four wheel drive, and that makes me very sad indeed.”

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Then I found RS500 number 159 and time stopped.

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Once I’d tidied myself up we headed to the paddock at the bottom of the hill sprint route, where some interesting kit was waiting for us.

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We walked up the hill. It was knackering. We should have taken a car like the sensible folk.

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Ian even stretched the old girl’s legs…

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But entertaining as that was, the comedy cars really were the highlight for me.

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This Volvo had a T5 engine under the bonnet. And one in the boot.

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This thing was powered by something insane – probably a Porsche engine. Went up the hill like a rat up a drain pipe!

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To finish off, some more photos from the paddock. All in all, an amazing day out. At £7.50 a ticket, great value for money and highly recommended!

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All 106 photos can be found here. Any photo both here and on the all photos page may be clicked to view a high resolution version.