As you may know, the London Show took place over 3 days at the ExCel Exhibition Centre near City Airport in London. Steve Hagger, our L1/2 Region representative, suggested that it would be a good idea for the qOC to be present at the Show. With only a few days to go, it was quickly decided that we would take a stand. There was very little time to organise the stand and get the correct cars, we needed five at short notice. Between the paper work, the logistics and the cars, there was quite a lot to do for this event. We must thank all the volunteers for their work and contribution. Also Andy, Steve and Roger for manning the stand for 3 days.
As we said above, 5 cars on the stand: Steve Hagger black 88 MB and Andy Galloway black 90 RR. We don’t need to tell how good these two cars are, just immaculate in every detail; the factory would be more than proud. Steve Slade brought his white 87 WR and Roger came down with his trusty red short wheelbase and an early white WR. The stand looked just right.
In fact, in this Classic Car Show, the Club stands were good and fuss free, allowing the public to see and circulate amongst the cars rather than fancy stands overloaded with “stuff”. Quite different to the NEC where one feels the need for a competition for “best stand”, some clubs going over the top. We felt that the ExCel venue was OK for the qOC. The emphasis of the show was mainly 70/80’s i.e. the new generation classics, the quattro fitting in extremely well. The response we had from the public was once again excellent, a crowd puller to say the least. It definitely raised the profile of the Ur quattro which is not a bad thing. In a word, a well worth exercise, thank you Steve.
There were quite a few upmarket classic car dealers with great cars of outstanding quality. Some of the prices were, what we call silly money, in some cases “very silly money”, no crisis here! As they say, just telephone numbers, actually more like international telephone numbers. The dearest we saw was a cool £2,394,000 for a second hand, sorry we meant “previously owned” …. LaFerrari!
In the bigger hall they had what they called the “Grand Avenue”, it was like a road with 60 classic cars in action. These were driven up and down in front of a big crowd. There was also a stand with all the classic Group B cars not forgetting the awesome Audi quattro S1, an amazing sight of a bygone era.
Sunday was well worth a visit. In fact, We didn’t get enough time to see everything which is a shame, we were all too busy on the stand. If you didn’t go, put in the calendar for next year; the venue is easy to get to particularly for the members from the South. Parking wasn’t a problem at all, and getting in and out was very easy indeed.
The show was worth it for the qOC. We saw yet again the increasing interest in this great car, the Ur quattro, job done …. and we got some more new members! Well done all..