IF IT AIN’T BROKE...

A strict focus on pre-1973 classics helps to boost Newby Hall’s attendance by more than 100 cars over last year’s event, and there are no plans to change it

Afirm focus on pre-1973 cars and an insistence on sticking to a proven format helped to draw more than 1400 classics into Yorkshire for this one-day show – 100 more than at 2016’s event.

Organised by the North of England Classic and Pre War Automobile Motoring Club and held in the grounds of the Grade I-listed 18th century country house, this longrunning show divided the entrants ’These are vehicles your grandfather or father might have owned’ up into a mixture of age- and marque-specific classes, all of which were in the running to be named the day’s best car by the club’s judges.

Plenty of the grounds were taken up too by Yorkshire regional branches of the classic world’s bigger clubs – where if you kept your eyes peeled you could occasionally see a couple of classics from the late 1970s sneaking in!

Highlights included the North Yorkshire area of the Stag Owners’ Club, which brought 51 cars, a 35-car turnout from the Daimler and Lanchester Owners’ Club, and a 16-car display dominated by Interceptors and FFs from the Jensen Owners’ Club. The only exception to the pre-1973 rule was a Future Classics area, comprising 50 pre-1994 cars brought by the organising club’s members.

Show organiser, Harry Fletcher, said that the rally’s hosts at Newby Hall are delighted with the event’s success, and don’t intend to expand it any further by branching out into newer classics or by making it a twoday event.

He says: ‘This classic show at Newby Hall is unique, as we don’t allow anyone to bring along a car younger than 1973. These are vehicles that you just don’t see anymore, that your grandfather or father might have owned.

‘They’ve outlived what was originally intended, but they’ve been so well looked after that they now form what’s part of a lovely show.

‘ We’re one of the few shows that has strict criteria, and we’d never think about altering it.’

This 1957 Austin A35 is affectionately nicknamed Albert, and was brought along by David Addyman from nearby Harrogate. The East Yorkshire Thoroughbred Car Club’s turnout also included this 1972 Ford Escort 1600GT, which competed in the post-1931 Ford...