Visit a classic car show and usually you’ll be dazzled by the shine from the chrome. Fastidious owners will carefully wipe specks of dust from the freshly polished paint and boast about how their sleek and desirable machine is better than when it came out of the factory.
But some enthusiasts are rebelling. They’re shunning the shine to celebrate cars that bear the scars of a long life lived, gravitating to a new type of event which welcomes scruffy, seemingly undesirable cars.
Events such the Festival of the Unexceptional, Rustival and the Patina Classic Car Show are growing every year and encouraging a new generation of enthusiasts who value the well-used cars and mundane vehicles that used to be common but have since dwindled in numbers – exactly the sort of models celebrated in The Telegraph’s UK’s rarest cars series.
The shows are organised by enthusiasts who have realised they are not alone in their love for the seemingly unloved. Darren Sullivan runs a classic car club and organises the Patina Classic Car Show, an event which he set up after rebuilding his striking 1957 MGA. “I bought the car from Texas in need of restoration and intended to do a full rebuild including a shiny paint job,” he says. “But everyone who saw the car said I had to keep it as it is, because it had more character. So I rebuilt everything underneath so it was legal and safe, but left the bodywork as it was.”
It wasn’t just his friends who loved the car, says Sullivan. “I took it to an MG show at the Brooklands Museum and the people I parked next to weren’t all that pleased to have my grubby car in among their beautifully polished examples. They were even less happy when mine got more attention than theirs.”
When his friend mentioned he was too embarrassed to show the unrestored and scruffy Morris Minor which his grandma had bought new, it gave Sullivan the idea for the Patina event, to cater for drivers who have no interest in restoring their cars. Held every August in the grounds of Lullingstone Castle in Kent, it has grown from 80 cars in 2021 to 170 this year. Sullivan is expecting 250 in 2025. Awards are given for categories including the Least Likely to Get Home and Most In Need of a Polish. The winner of Least Likely to Get Home is awarded a tool kit; Sullivan says it is normally needed on the return journey.
“I think these shows should be as much about the people and their stories as the cars,” says Sullivan. “They are less stuffy and more fun than the traditional classic events, but the owners are no less passionate about their cars.”
The biggest of the “alternative” events is the Festival of the Unexceptional, or Fotu for short, which has been running for a decade and growing exponentially every year. The first show had 150 visitors, this July more than 5,000 made the pilgrimage to see the rows of mundane motors on the lawns of Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire.
Steve Cropley is editor-in-chief of Autocar and one of the judges who awards prizes at Fotu. He says: “The owners tend to be young and are usually very proud of their low-value car. Often they have a backstory about their ownership and how the car survived, like it was their grandad’s or belonged to the old lady across the road who didn’t drive much. But the owners are never stuck up about it, the way Aston or E-type owners would be. Their relationship with the car is their own affair.”
Danny Hopkins is editor of Practical Classics magazine and another Fotu judge. He agrees, saying nostalgia is a great motivator: “We celebrate the cars that were on your parents’ drive, not the cars that were on your bedroom wall. Nostalgia and familiarity are way more potent than fantasy and aspiration. The affection for the cars we knew and loved runs a lot deeper than a desire to acquire exotica.”
Ironically, these sorts of “unexceptional” cars are often exceptionally rare: The Telegraph’s UK’s rarest series features plenty of cars that are the only survivors on UK roads. Cropley says: “We consulted the How Many Left website while judging a Daewoo this year and discovered that Ferrari 250GTs were more common.” This year’s winner was a Toyota Hilux pick-up; previous awards have gone to a Proton and a Vauxhall Astra.
If you like the sound of this movement, it’s not too late to get in on the action. This weekend will see two events – Rustival and the Classic Car Boot Sale.
Rustival started earlier this year and was so popular the organisers have put on another meeting for Saturday September 28 at the British Motor Museum, at Gaydon in Warwickshire. The event’s main motto is: “Clapped out to concours – if it’s got wheels it is welcome.” It aims to be a “safe space” for all enthusiasts and even has an area to meet fellow automotive fans.
Steph Holloway, the show’s co-founder, said: “We got sick of attending car shows which didn’t include everyone. If it wasn’t a barrier based on entry it was a sense that some people weren’t welcome because their car wasn’t shiny enough. We had hoped to create a community of people who felt the same as us and, blimey, we’ve been absolutely blown away by the response! We had only planned to do one a year but made it two due to demand – the first event had more than 2,000 attendees and we expect similar numbers again.”
The Classic Car Boot Sale is being held on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 at the restored Coal Drops Yard adjacent to London’s King’s Cross station. Among the fairground, DJs and sustainable shopping stalls there will be a selection of pre-1990s vintage vehicles including Darren Sullivan’s MGA as part of a special display to celebrate the centenary of the MG marque.
The other models on display will almost certainly be shinier than Sullivan’s, but he says he will be able to relax and enjoy the event more than other owners: “I don’t worry about my car getting scratched. I don’t think anyone is likely to steal it either, as thieves wouldn’t think they’d make it home.”
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