Every summer the antidote to most car shows takes place. Most classic car owners want their vehicle to stand out because it’s exceptional in some way - the best preserved or most beautiful. At the Festival of the Unexceptional the opposite is true - to be eligible your car must be the sort of model which was once familiar but is now rare because no one’s really cared about saving them.
We’ve been threatening to attend for years, but things have never quite worked out until this summer. The centre attraction is the Concours d’Ordinaire - the creme de la creme of ordinaryness. The competition was won this year by a Vauxhall Astra 1.3 which was so ordinary we walked straight past it! There were lots of other fascinating cars to see in the Concours, mostly beautifully restored examples of the sort of cars we grew up with. There was even an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, very similar to the one my Dad had when I was at school!
For those who’d come in cars which either weren’t eligible for the Concourse (we couldn’t have entered Morris as he’s now too old) but were still pretty unexceptional, there was a huge parking area where your pride and joy could be admired. This is where I took most of my photos.
Another car from my childhood driving into the display area - an Austin 1800.
Details from a Citroen DS - definitely too exceptional!
I went minimalist for my photography, taking two small film cameras - a Rollei 35S and a cheap and cheerful RETO plastic camera. This slowed me down and I rather enjoyed the experience of shooting retro cars with retro cameras.
A brace of Bond Bugs!
An Alfa Romeo Sud - a great little car, but most of them have long since rusted into oblivion.
Photos taken 30 July 2022