Stoneleigh Kit Car Show 2013 was one of the best kit car shows I have been to in a long time. I arrived a day later than normal due to a wedding, but this didn’t matter as the weather was fantastic.
It took me a good couple of hours to get to Stoneleigh and although my buggy got there without a hitch, my sat nav was playing up, and I had to pull over and reset it, and I was soon back on my way and more to the point I was going in the right direction for the kit car show.
I had to make a stop at Cubbington on the way to see a friend who is buried there, and I decided to sit and enjoy the sunshine while eating my sandwiches. So far, so good.
I arrive at Stoneleigh at about 13:00, and the club stand was already pretty full up with buggies and tents. I straight away cracked open a beer and started chatting to the MuddyBuggies members and the general public.
About an hour later one of our member’s uncle turned up in not a kit car but a super car, yes a Maclaren MP-4. Now this is a very very pretty car, and it brought the crowds into our club stand, which was great and after chatting for some considerable time about it. I decided I really needed to get my tent pitched so I can carry on having a beer.
The tent was pitched, and I was ready to have a quick walk around the show before it closed for the day, and I had a shopping list of bits that I needed and also that I wanted to go and price check.
The show was buzzing and this could only be due to the fantastic weather, and boy was it hot I could feel myself burning, and my right hand was looking very red from the drive up. However, once inside the exhibition halls I was cooling down nicely and really started to enjoy the show.
I was after an alloy expansion tank and after the first pass around the show I had narrowed it down to just two companies that had the ones that I was interested in so naturally I was going to hang on until the last day to do a deal.
There was nothing really new at Stoneleigh this year, unlike last year when the Razor was launched and that really did capture my imagination and then to see it at the Newark kit car show as well but that was not there this year, so I wonder what has happened.
The rest of the day followed our club just drinking and chatting and me trying to work out why my kit car had lost about a litre of oil in the 150 miles, and so we had all the clubs scratching their heads as to where the oil was going.
A few beers were drunk, and we had a BBQ and the sun was setting, and it was the end of a fantastic day. I finally stumbled into bed at about 1am and the temperature was tumbling, and it was getting bloody cold, but I had a lovely thick sleeping bag, so I slept like a log 🙂
The following day I was woken up nice and early by the Westfields doing their burnouts, drifting and the doughnut event which is good fun but not when it is right next to your tent.
I had a good walk around the outside part of the show as you don’t always get to see that part as the last five years of Stoneleigh have been pretty wet, and we tend to hibernate in the exhibition halls.
I managed to get my expansion tank, and although they wouldn’t move on the price, they did me a deal on the cap which was nice, but I could have done with some discount on the tank.
I also needed to pick up some over-sized spanners as I don’t seem to have any, and I needed to make some adjustments to the lights on my kit car. I picked up a couple of the right size, and they were dirt cheap and of nice quality, so I was quite pleased.
There was not much at the show that was new, I had a good laugh at the Ferrari Replica kit cars as I still think they are tragic and are very puzzled as to why anybody would want to own one, and I always wonder if their neighbours at the same time think it’s a Ferrari.
Ultima as always was a fantastic stand I was please to get some really good close-up look at the new chassis and some of the old original Ultima, and I have to say the highlight of any kit car show is drooling over the Ultima kit car stand.
Stoneleigh is a fantastic kit car show, and I always enjoy meeting people who are just as big as petrol heads. There are not enough kit car shows in the UK I would like to start seeing a few more pops up, but we shall see as I am sure they will soon enough become more popular when the recession starts to end.
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