A Fun Morning at the Practical Classics Show at the NEC

Our (“tame”, as they would say on Top Gear) British Reporter found this show’s focus on everyday classics well worth a visit – and explains why in words and photos:

The Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show at the NEC, besides having what must be one of the longest names for a show, is the third and final major indoor event in the UK alongside November’s NEC Classic and last month’s Race Retro, which I missed as I was on vacation. It’s a smaller affair than the NEC Classic, but with an emphasis on the practical aspects of owning and restoring classic cars and as a result, tends to focus more on everyday classics and is none the worse for that.

Even so, it’s still a sizeable event, with over 1300 cars on show, more than 160 car club stands and about 250 exhibitors trying to sell you cars and car-related products, as well as some selling things that have literally nothing to do with classics or indeed cars of any kind. There’s also an auction, hosted by Iconic Auctioneers, practical demonstration workshops and interviews with various celebrities. All this fills three of the NEC’s larger halls, and makes for a fun way to spend a few hours.

I arrived on the first day of the event, Friday, and this is what I found on my random wandering around the stands:

I have to start with what was the car of the day for me – a Series 2 1970 Mazda Cosmo 110S. I have never seen one in the metal before, and there’s a good reason for that – there are only two in the UK, one owned by Mazda themselves, and this one. Only 1176 were built in total, and this example came to the UK via several countries before being bought by Ryan at Yorkshire Car Restoration on ebay for £18,000! It was largely complete, missing only a few items such as a headlight lens and some badges, but has it’s original Wankel 10A rotary engine, which is one of two Ryan is considering installing, the other being an upgraded Wankel 12A unit. He’s also going to put an RX-7 ‘box in, but apart from that will keep the car as original as possible. He’s already done a lot of metalwork – you can clearly see it in the photos. The restoration is being documented on their YouTube channel, starting here – 1970 Classic MAZDA COSMO Restoration Part 1 – Crazy Rare! I believe that this very rare and groundbreaking Mazda would be welcome at the most exclusive UK concours events when completed.

Slightly more common – eight known to survive – and a lot less exotic was the Triumph Herald-based 1965 Bond Equipe GT4S. Utilising the Triumph’s chassis, doors and engine, with the rest of the body in fibreglass, these sporting coupés were part of Bond’s attempt to move upmarket from their traditional three-wheeler range; indeed, it was their first four-wheel car. This one was a runner, but still in need of quite a lot of work to make it properly roadworthy.

Checking out the classics on sale at the auction, all the lots were under £75,000 and many were under £20,000, and included a few lots that we don’t see on offer so often. My eyes were drawn to a pair of BMW’s, the first a 1972 2000 Neue Klasse in Atlantik Blau with grey fabric interior and very smart it looked, too. This delightful NK had just over 62000 miles (100,000km) on the clock, all in the hands of one family, who had restored it in 2019, and it still looked really good, yet bidding stalled at only £11,000.

The second BMW to attract my attention was one of the company’s so-called “Baroque Angels”, a 1957 502 V8 that was one of only a dozen RHD examples sold in the UK. Recently restored and in excellent condition, this 502 found a new owner for £12,375.

Among other interesting lots was a very smart 1978 Austin Princess 2200HL in Carmine Red, also with just 60k miles, but it only reached £5,500, while next to it was a tiny 1979 Suzuki SC1000 GX also in red and one of only 30 on the road in the UK – this little Japanese flyer, with under 20,000 miles under it’s wheels, found a new home for £6,862 – a lot of fun for not much money, though some of the interior was a little scruffy.

I also liked the look of a very tidy 1981 Talbot-Matra Murena 2.2 – a model featured recently in ViaRETRO – that fetched £7,875, good value, I thought.

Overall the sale went well, with 139 cars sold of 174 offered, a sale rate of 80% – a very good result following Historics’ difficult Ascot sale at the start of the month.

Back around the halls…since restoration is one of the key themes of the show, it always features a section dedicated to so-called “barn finds”. Frankly, many of these were completely beyond redemption and/or not worth the mount of work and money needed to bring them up to scratch. But as usual, there were a couple that looked like they might – just might – be worth the effort, particularly a 1960 Aston Martin DB4 that the current owner paid £145,000 in it’s as-found condition. But that leaves a decent amount of financial headroom, especially as he plans to do most of the work himself. Most of the others would surely be labours of love and money pits, if they ever got restored at all – the owner of the Morris Oxford, who has already had the car for years, said he doubted he would ever work on the car. All seems a bit pointless.

As well as cars needing restoration, there were many outstanding examples of the restorer’s work on display, such as the red Vauxhall Viva HB Estate – with Lotus slant-four engine! – and the 1979 Fiat 128 now powered by a 178bhp Kawasaki engine – making these restomods, I guess, but they were both beautifully done.

More conventional but equally high-quality restorations included the metallic brown 1976 Datsun 330 260C (one of just six in the UK), the very sweet and even rarer 1961 Goggomobil T700 Royal (two in the UK and just 95 known worldwide) and I loved the ex-unmarked Met Police 1976 Rover P6 V8 in a wonderful shade of avocado – and restored to complete police specification!

Probably the most spectacular, and certainly one of the biggest cars at the show was the glorious 1935 Packard Straight 8 convertible in a dazzling shade of red. Besides it’s extraordinary presence, emphasised by that huge radiator grille, two interesting aspects of this Packard were it’s rear “dickey seat” arrangement and the fact that it was actually assembled in London from a Complete Knock Down kit, explaining it’s RHD arrangement.

A more modest but still very lovely 1948 Triumph Roadster boasted a similar rear seat arrangement, this time cleverly and imaginatively concealed beneath a pair of glass panels in the “boot”.

As always at this show, there was lots of interesting classic machinery to check out, in varying states of (dis)repair – take a look at the gallery below and see if there was a classic for you at the show: