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James Walshe on why we should champion the mainstream
Consider the content of most motoringrelated magazines, books and TV shows and you’ll encounter a selection of fairly predictable classics. Obviously, there’s nothing at all wrong with an E-type or a Ferrari 250 – quite the opposite, in fact – but I usually get my own fix of classics by scanning through the tattered pages of a Daily Mail Motor Show Review publication – or an hour perusing my embarrassingly vast collection of brochures.
In doing so, it doesn’t take long to find a long-forgotten slice of mainstream motoring furniture with a fascinating story. The Talbot Horizon (see opposite) is an unnecessarily ridiculed car with an intriguing history behind its development, production and marketing.
All too often, we encounter a breed of writers and TV people who have zero understanding of what it is to be a car enthusiast. I’m talking about the sort who scoffs at an Austin Princess or snootily dismisses a humble Hillman Hunter as nothing more than archaic road junk.
Dropping a piano onto a Morris Marina or smashing up an Allegro with a sledgehammer is little more than fuel for the freak show, where those whose passions these individuals choose not to understand are poked and prodded for the amusement of the crowd.
What’s hardest to understand is why some enthusiasts themselves fall into this trap and risk sabotaging the scene they supposedly love. If you’re at all in doubt the passion for a Reliant Robin isn’t identical to that for a Testarossa, get yourself to the Festival of the Unexceptional at Claydon Estate in Buckinghamshire on July 20 (we’ll be there), chat to the bloke with the Talbot Horizon and listen. Your ears will prove themselves to be the best tools you’ve got.
‘Your ears might be the best tools you’ve got’