A L D AUTOMOTIVE
There are many reasons to attend a car show: taking photographs, writing a fairly unfunny blog, or seeing a good mate's new car.
So when my mate James told me he'd bought a 2016 Mini Cooper S JCW, it was definitely a good excuse for a trip to Bicester Heritage for the Collecting Cars Coffee Run.
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​After grabbing a mocha and having a brief inspection of his new purchase at a Starbucks on the A47, we set off.
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With a fairly uneventful journey behind us we pulled onto the airfield and straight away my head began to swivel at the array of interesting cars just within the car park (not a great thing to do when you're still behind the wheel).
As soon as we exited the cars, we set off, charging round the car park - which could've been a car show in itself...
Amongst the highlights in the car park was a pristine VW Golf MK II which was finished in a lovely shade of green. My eyes were constantly drawn to the abundance of other Hyundai I30N's in the car park, (roughly 9 including mine). After getting decidedly giddy just parking around the car parks, I practically bounced into the actual show. The first cars that I noticed were the 4 Mclaren 675LT's (YES, 4!). The Diablo SV that I managed to miss at Salon Prive, was also parked up next to them, as was a blue Porsche Carrera GT that really stood out from the crowd. A late arrival came in the form of a Noble M600, which sounded incredible, this then proceeded to park up besides a previously hidden Murcielago LP-640. Once we'd had a nosy around the supercar area and the hangar, it was once again time to position ourselves by the exit to see everything leave.
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For those of you who have never been to a Collecting Cars meet before (I can't imagine there's many), the primary focus is on Porsche, and this was evident in the ratio of them to other cars, which was about 1:3. Everything from a rattle-canned Boxster, to a dreamy 996 GT3 RS rolled out of the show, with other gems interspersed between. If you haven't already worked out, my taste in cars is very varied - from muscle cars, to classic rally cars, to 00's uber-saloons, I appreciate, and have tried to purchase the lot. In this respect, I was in my element with an E92 M3, an Audi Sport Quattro and a rusty Ford Galaxie 500 fulfilling those briefs (what a tumble the Galaxie name has taken right?)
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The long flat airfield made for some great photos, coupled with the nice weather and the very pleasant gentleman who flew his plane into the show from a nearby village (massive flex points), it was a great day. Definitely a place I would recommend to visit, and certainly a place I will be back to very soon.
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Right, I'm off to look at classic Golfs and green Dulux paint - Cheerio!!
