COMMENT
SteveCropley
MY WEEK IN CARS
Fine winners at Festival of the Unexceptional
SATURDAY
They call it the Festival of the Unexceptional. We viewed the cars and got the joke, but there’s nothing ordinary about the delight that this unique event brings to those who go.
This year’s gathering of 1200 ordinary cars and 5000 average car nuts at Grimsthorpe Castle, near Stamford, was better than ever – especially for me, because I was invited to be a judge. I had thought that assessing 50 fi nalists might be tough, but the eight of us wandered about as a posse, meeting owners and enjoying every step. The winner was an exceptionally ordinary Vauxhall Astra Merit, but my own favourite was a Fiat Panda Italia 90 (complete with a spare set of ultra-rare football hubcaps) fronted by an extraordinarily keen, jack-in-the-box owner.