No, not that Broadway! I was at Broadway in the Cotswolds, a village that looks like what Americans imagine all English country villages look like.
Therefore this Broadway in England attracts thousands of tourists throughout the year. But I was there for a specific reason: Every two years its high street of honey-coloured stone buildings, many of them hundreds of years old, provides the backdrop to a weekend collection of supercars on Saturday and classics on Sunday that would grace any concours.
Two years ago I was a participant in my 911T; this year I went as a spectator and enjoyed yet another hot summer’s day taking in the sight and sound of classic cars being driven and displayed around the village.
The Broadway Car Show now attracts several hundred applicants for the 75 places for each day of the parade and display itself, while visitors and sponsors add many more, and all the shops and restaurants are open to create a wonderful atmosphere of a village garden party for cars which attracts thousands of visitors over the two days.
In among the show cars were some very delectable pieces of machinery indeed – I think my personal favourite was the stunning navy blue 1970 Ferrari 365 GTC; the owner had just had it back after a year-long restoration project and it looked fabulous. Meanwhile, a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing is always a spectacular sight, especially when paraded along the high street with those famous doors open.
Mercedes Benz were very well represented here – there were several fine examples of the marque present, including a couple of the 300SL’s smaller brother, the ever-elegant 190SL, later SL pagoda’s and the big W111 coupé and convertible – Mercedes-Benz were on a roll through the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
Other fine classics from that era included a smart yellow Jensen Interceptor convertible, a beautiful 1961 Aston Martin DB4, a very pretty 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider and it’s always a treat to see a Gordon Keeble any time, but I could just as easily have picked a different equally fine quartet from those decades.
The oldest car to take part was a 1906 Bianchi28/40 Speedster, a car that the driver sat on, rather than in. Other older cars that took part included a gorgeous 1936 Rolls-Royce Phantom III in red over black – both of these sported engines over 7-litres, the Rolls a V12, the Bianchi a 4-cylinder while at the other extreme was a 1938 FIAT “Topolino” A, with a mere 569cc at its disposal, but with the same number of cylinders as the Banchi!
Other older classics that caught my eye included a very lovely 1933 Swallow (later SS Cars Ltd before becoming Jaguar in 1945) SS1 in yellow and brown, a 1923 Bentley 3-litre, a 1936 Triumph Gloria in dark green and a delightful MG PB from the same year in a two-tone combination of the same colour. I also loved the delightful blue and silver 1939 SS Jaguar 3 ½ litre. One thing all these pre-WW2 cars had in common, apart from the fact that they were all around 90, or in the case of the Bentley, over 100 years old, was they all wore wire wheels, and they all looked great on them.
There were a couple of what can only be described as novelty cars at the show – the most fun was perhaps the Mini-based Outspan Orange, one of six built in the early 1970’s to promote, well, Outspan oranges. It was especially popular with the younger members of the public. The other was the frankly ludicrous 1991 Mitsuoka Le-Seyde, complete with wing-mounted chandeliers. Underneath this parody of a Mercedes SSK-type are the mechanicals from a Nissan Silvia S13. Some 500 of these were built and all of them were allegedly sold within four days…there’s no accounting for taste.
Visitors to the show also brought a number of cool classics with them – the next gallery shows just a small selection, with a light grey Porsche 356, red Audi Quattro, ’72 Buick Riviera and a damn near perfect Volvo 245DL among the standouts for me.
It might be a relatively small event compared to many I attend, but the combination of high-quality classics in such a beautiful setting made for a very special day. I’ve been to any number of local village car shows over recent years and this one is definitely the gold standard for variety and quality – huge credit to the organisers.
This is also what I dream about for the perfect English village! Love the Cotswolds area for lots of them actually coming rather close. And for the country roads.
Besides that I really like car events that take please in the natural environment of cars. It is, after all, what they were designed for and in my mind it adds to the experience seeing them out there in the wild – or sort of.