Pop-up Motor Show
Preview to the big event proves the revitalised British Motor Show has a classic heart
Stunning Jaguar E-type previews 2021’s big return in Basingstoke
Seizing the opportunity presented by an empty department store in Basingstoke’s Festival Place, British Motor Show CEO Andy Entwistle decided to stage a ‘pop-up’ preview ahead of the main show itself returning to the UK’S events calendar from 19-21 August 2021. The event’s unusual classic content promised a show for more than just new-car fans.
Go to the british motor show. live for news of the main event next year.
Jaguar E-type
This Jaguar E-type, restored two years ago and hardly seen since, is considered to be one of the best examples of the breed, according to Andy Entwistle.
‘It was built in November 1962, and is one of just 76 built with a close-ratio gearbox, as also found on the Lightweight racing E-type,’ Andy explained.
‘Its first owner was Paul de Ferranti Craddock Pycroft, who had won the firstever race to be held at the Goodwood circuit, on 18 September 1948 in his ‘Pycroft-jaguar’. He raced this car when it was new too, contesting two sprints run by the North Wales Car Club in 1963 and 1964. It was later owned in 1974-5 by Triumph works rally driver Ian Giles, although thankfully he didn’t take the E-type into any forests!’
Mini Marvel
The pop-up preview was the first time that this bizarre two-mini-based special has been seen since its stunt-driving heyday in the Eighties. ‘It was quite famous in custom Mini circles in the Eighties as part of the Mini Marvels Display Team,’ Entwistle explained. ‘They literally took two Minis – a Seventies example and an early Eighties one – sliced them both in half and locked the front ends together back-to-back!
‘Both ends have 998cc A-series engines, so the car can be driven and steered from either end. It can also “crab” if both ends are put on full lock and one end is put in first gear while the opposite end is in reverse – and as part of Mini Marvels’ show finale, with the snap of a lever, the car could split in two. It has skidplates at the bottom trailing edge of each bodyshell, and each end has its own battery and fuel tank, following the same method that Remy Julienne used with the Renault 11 in the 1985 Bond film A View To
A Kill. They used to load pyrotechnics into the middle of the car too...
‘We’ve got the Eighties-end running again, but it’ll be fully restored and wrapped in the British Motor Show colours in time for the 2021 show, and Mini stunt-driving legend Paul Swift will drive it in the arena shows.’
TVR Tuscan S
This TVR, restored last year and shown outside of TVR circles for the first time at the show, is the only 02-plate Tuscan S left on UK roads that survives from the model’s first year of production.
It’s also the only example in the Northern Hemisphere to have been finished in the unusual purple-bronze flippaint scheme of Cascade Copper – the other example was sold to Australia.