This year celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Festival of the Unexceptional. From inauspicious beginnings a decade ago, which was basically a few owners of mundane motors parking up in a field, it’s now blossomed into a huge event held in the grounds of the appropriately named Grimsthorpe Castle. Organized by our friends at Hagerty, it’s one of the highlights of the British car show summer and cat nip to owners of the beigest cars known to man.
The Festival of the Unexceptional is not a regular classic car show. Well, it’s exactly that really, a show for cars that are rare but nobody cares. Not the usual chrome and wire wheeled stuff that’s well catered for elsewhere. There’s no clattering Beetles, crusty MGs or anything exotic (apart from one Ferrari, ahem). The focus (sorry) is on the resolutely middle of the road mass market stuff that normal people with kids and mortgages bought in the seventies, eighties and nineties. If the standard equipment includes non-alloy wheels and a dazzling array of switch blanks, all the better. Slightly cheesy special edition with a hideous stripy interior and iffy decals? Parking is over there. Obscure barge with a velour interior and an interior aroma reminiscent of key swapping parties? Here’s your ticket. Stark bollock naked spec family hatch? Step right this way.
About forty or so cars every year are selected by the organizers to be displayed on the lawn in front of the castle to make up the coveted Concours d ’Ordinaire. These are the crème de la crap. An assembly of the acceptable. A massing of the mediocre. The cut-off for this works on a rolling twenty five year basis, so for this year that means nothing offered for sale after 1999. They are then judged at the end of the day by a committee including several well known UK based auto-journalists and attempts to bribe them with custard cream biscuits (cookies) are encouraged. Awards are handed out and an overall winner is declared (a slightly controversial one this year, as we’ll see). Everybody not in the concours gets to park in a dedicated classic and unexceptional display area, and punters turning up in modern stuff are shunted out of sight round the back to prevent them trying to sneak into the display area, because of course in the past young vapers in Subarus with noisy fuel maps and slammed BMWs tried to do exactly that.
Enough waffle from me, let’s look at some utter automotive dross.
1981 Austin Metro
This striking shade is called Applejack green – so sweet looking I wanted to take a bite out of it. The Metro was meant to replace the classic Mini. British Leyland had no money, so the Metro had to use updated versions of Mini running gear, including the grinding A series engines with the gearbox in the sump and its subframes. At the time, the Metro was a considerable source of pride in the British motor industry, although God alone only knows why compared to a Fiat 127 or VW Polo. Diecast models came in Union Jack boxes and TV ads showed a line of Metros on the white cliffs of Dover in a non-too subtle war reference. This is an extremely early version from 1981, and the sunken headlights (as opposed to flush items on posher Metros) denote a povvo-spec 1.0 engine. What a stoater though – bask in the thigh burning plainness of that vinyl interior. This was in the concours and won the Chairman’s Award. As if the Chairman would be seen dead in a humble Metro, a car for the hired help.
1990 Mercedes 190E
Imagine a car totally sucked dry of all vitality. Imagine no more, friends. From the post war German housing estate grey paint to its totally joyless wheel trims, I find this car immensely soothing, like a children’s playground constructed entirely out of concrete. A stolid example of dour German efficiency in a world of frippery. After the thermonuclear apocalypse two things will emerge from the smoking rubble – cockroaches and Sacco-era Benzes. The bodyside cladding marks this out as a later facelift model and the E denotes the 1.8 motor is fuel injected. I would drive this around listening to Einstürzende Neubauten tapes on the optional Becker Europa stereo.
1999(?) Suzuki Swift AWD.
Your humble author neglected to get a picture of this wheeled egg-plant that included the license plate, so I can’t give you an exact year of first registration for this little Suzuki but let’s say 1999 because this looks like a late model and that’s the final year of eligibility for the Concours d ‘Ordinaire. If it looks familiar this car was also a Subaru Justy, a Geo Metro, the Holden Barina and a few other names depending where on the globe you come from. Frustrated by years of building motorcycles that are only one-wheel-drive, Suzuki overcompensated by making the most useless all-wheel-drive car ever. I’m not sure what engine is in this – it could be a 1.0 liter or a 1.3. Either way I don’t really care. Nice color though.
1997 Renault Twingo
A sort of 1992 interpretation of the Renault 4, the monobox Twingo sported lots of clever touches such as an instrument pod in the center of the dash, a sliding rear seat to increase legroom or cargo room and secondary controls molded in bright green. Interiors came in suitably jazzy fabrics and the UK motoring press worked themselves up so much over this car they needed a cold shower. The French being French however decided the UK didn’t deserve any fun and therefore never sold the Twingo here officially. Plenty have made the 22 mile journey across the channel though, including this Spring limited edition in white, which makes it look like a friendly washing machine.
1996 Lada Riva
Because we weren’t miserable enough in the eighties, the UK decided to import more misery in the form of the Lada Riva. Your average British family could cosplay a life behind the iron curtain for about four grand, when a typical Ford Escort of the time started at about ten. Think of all the turnips you could buy with the difference. Our Soviet stalwart here is riding on Continental tires, which I strongly suspect were not standard fitment. Weirdly due to it being a derivative of the old Fiat 124, according to Wikipedia this is the third best selling single car platform of all time after the Beetle and Model T. I think I’d rather drive a Beetle than one of these, and I fucking hate Beetles.
1986 BMW 316
Just how badly did you have to want an E30 to drive this, a 3 series for people who hate themselves and the idea of getting anywhere quickly. A glance at contemporary car magazines tells me in 1986 this retailed for £7995 and included such luxuries as seats and wheels. None of your fancy BBS cross spoke alloys or Blaupunkt stereos here. Or fuel injection for that matter. Instead you can marvel at the engineering integrity, build quality and the amount of switch blanks you’ve bought right up to the moment it spits you off the first wet rotary you come across. As enticing as a night out at a Berlin comedy club.
2004 Rover 25 Streetwise
Good grief, the death throes of the British car industry summed up in one ancient hatchback. The 25 had already been on sale since 1995 by the time the Streetwise appeared in 2003. Desperate to move some metal after BMW came to their senses in 2000 and dumped the company, Rover needed to appeal to the youth market because most of their customers were union jack humping coffin dodgers, one tabloid headline induced rage stroke away from the grave. The 10mm jacked up ride height, rugged unpainted bumpers and body side cladding might have suggested four wheel drive, but the Shitwise was two wheel drive only. I’ve never seen one with the cladding painted sliver before, and hope I never see one again.
1982 Toyota Hilux
Years ago my best friend had one of these. The first time I drove it I nearly put it on its roof because my daily driver at the time was a Porsche Boxster. Anyway I promised you controversy, and here it is. This immaculate, unrestored pick-up was the overall winner of the Concours d’ Ordinaire. In the days after the FOTU there was a minor brouhaha on Twitter about how this winning didn’t really feel in keeping with the spirit of the event, and I’m inclined to agree. Toyota pick ups have been cool since at least Back to the Future, and this could easily win Radwood UK, which a cynical (me?) writer might think is the point. Anyway, deserved winner or not you could eat your dinner off any part of this and it’s only covered 20,000 miles since new, working for a living on a fruit farm. Not working very hard though by the look of it.
Rover Streetwise aside, all the above were entrants in the concours. What follows is selection of the best of the rest, stuff not selected for the lawn but deserving of your attention and my opprobrium.
1989 Alfa Romeo 164.
Were I a mafia boss, this would be my staff car.
1982 Fiat Strada.
Slightly spoiled by rolling on alloy wheels from the Abarth version, but still a magnificent example of stark Italian Modernism.
1988 Vauxhall Cavalier
Our version of the GM J-car. If you got utterly plastered on a night out in the nineties chances are one of these would be your cab ride home.
1994 Fiat Cinquecento
Early nineties tiddler built in the old 126 factory in Poland. Be still my beating heart.
2002 Fiat Seicento
A curvier reskin of the Cinquecento, but don’t ever have a crash in one.
1989 Proton Black Knight
A UK Proton dealer special edition, of which about 200 were sold. This is the only one left on UK roads and was the Concours winner in 2021. Alright, no need for living on former glory.
2004 MG ZT
MG getting in on the Y2K flip paint aesthetic four years too late. If you look closely you can see they painted the window frames black but left the door handles chrome like the standard Rover 75. What in the name of Lord Stokes’ rotting corpse was that all about?
1982 Matra Murena
Only the French would build a sports coupe with seats for your girlfriend and mistress.
Audi A2
Unable to date this one because it’s on a private plate. These entirely aluminum fuel sippers were built between 2000 and 2005 and reportedly Audi lost money on every single one. One for the design bores, except yours truly.
1988 Seat Marbella Danbury Camper
How the fuck this moves is anybody’s guess.
1990 Nissan Bluebird
Although not the first Japanese car built in Britian the Bluebird was instrumental in proving British workers could build Japanese cars as well as Japan, which given Austin Rover was on strike every other week was something of a minor industrial miracle.
1988 Yugo 45
Torch, why doesn’t yours look or run like this? [Editor’s Note: (sobs softly) – JT]
I’ve taken my usual tongue in cheek attitude here, but of course I loved all these cars and would much rather spend a sunny day looking at everyday stuff like this as opposed to the usual classic car suspects. Another indeterminate 911? Tedious darling. Muscle car with a Marti report? I’d be just as happy with a clone, thanks. This isn’t because I’m now a jaded hack who has seen everything. And it’s not because I’m wistful for a simpler time when as an autistic child I could decipher a model range by simple application of wheel trim knowledge. It’s because everyday cars tell us so much more about the social and economic factors that influenced their design. This part of the market is generally where the real creativity is found, not to mention the sheer variety of technical solutions that were around either. For instance, did you know the top trim level of the ill-fated Talbot Horizon had an LED rev counter? Just like a racing car, except in a shitty late seventies’ family hatch. I didn’t.
The best bit is of course you don’t need a truck full of money to be a part of all this. Although I have seen a few examples of FOTU scene tax online, most of the cars present were only worth a couple of thousand pounds at most. They were all driven to the show as well, which is an ethos I think all Autopians can get behind.
I probably shouldn’t go in the Ferrari next year though.
- A Car Magazine Convinced Me The 1990 Ford Escort Was Trash. Now That I’ve Driven One I’m Here To Defend It From The Classist And Wrongheaded Editors Of The October 1990 Issue Of Autocar
- My Beige-On-Beige Pontiac Aztek Is Here And It Looks Amazing!
- Choose Your Two-Seat Shitbox: Gremlin Vs. Chevette
- World’s Worst Cars Book Redemption: MG Montego
Both the 1999(?) Suzuki Swift AWD and the Audi A2 are extremely cool and you are wrong!
I will argue that many of these cars are hardly unexceptional, but quite special indeed, and brimming with character, especially when compared to the hordes of look-alike angry origami robots designed-by-CAD-Plug-ins roaming the streets currently.
Tbh I took so many pictures it was hard to decide what to include for this piece.
“Because we weren’t miserable enough in the eighties, the UK decided to import more misery in the form of the Lada Riva.”
I don’t get the hate for the Lada. My grandmother had one and I found it drove fine on Swedish roads. I thought it was cheap and cheerful. I even was able to test its emergency handling/braking with a car full of people and a trunk packed with auction junk er, “winnings” and again it did just fine even on cheap tires.
I’ll give the Streetwise some credit, it was on the vanguard of “let’s glue some vaguely off roady crap to a totally normal car and see if the rubes buy it.” It’s a cynical marketing exercise, sure, but is that so different from a Subaru Crosstrek?
I am not a fan of the Crosstrek, but at least it has proper four wheel drive and more ground clearance than most SUVs.
As a small child I always gravitated to the show cars/muscle cars/street rods at any show. As I have matured I have gained a strong appreciation for the more mundane or bizarre at any show. Weird Canadian Chevy’s badged as Pontiacs. Four door survivors from any era. Less chrome and anodized aluminum. Just authentic cars.
I’m working on a 1962 Corvair 700 4 door for a friend and hope to buy it eventually. 4 door cream sedan with a tomato red interior. 2 speed Powerglide and base engine. No frills or frippery, just an honest old car.
This reminds me that I need to find time to visit that awesome car museum in Dwight, IL this coming week. My apologies to the late great David E. Davis that famously creeded, “No Boring Cars.”
Great article Mr. Clarke
The Metro is mint and I actually kinda like the plebian wheels of the 190E, sorry.
Bluebird looks like the Stanza that was sold here in the States.
Any Cavalier is probably shit.
That show is a great reminder of a simpler time when the general public didn’t seem to care much for powerful vehicles.
Those Cavaliers were actually pretty decent and sold well because they were developed separately and had much better engines and interiors than the US J-cars.
Well, that makes sense in the same way the European Escort was wildly different than the half-assed shit box we got here. A lot of the cars I like(d) seemed to never make the trip across the Pond, but I still don’t think I’d ever pine for a Vauxhall Cavalier. The Matra (which I wasn’t aware of until reading your article), on the other hand…
The Cavalier was definitely a J-car so did share a lot with its US cousins. The EU and US Escorts shared nothing.
It depends on the generation too. The ’80s US Escort was based on the same platform as the Euro Mk3 but had completely different body styling over common hard points which was born with too much plastichrome but aged better as that was stripped away in the mid-model-year ’85 refresh due to being a little bit more soft and rounded.
The ’90s US Escort was based on the Mazda 323, identical to the Aussie Laser apart from an EFI 1.9 CVH engine and a wagon they never got Down Under. It was MUCH better-reviewed than the Euro Mk4 and I’d be genuinely interested in your opinion of it having redeemed the Euro car a while back. Maybe Beau can hook you up, Galpin Ford must’ve sold hundreds if not thousands of ’em back in the day.
This isn’t quite right. When the Golf Mk1 came out Iacocca knew the next Escort had to be FWD. HFII put Hal Sperlich in charge of the program. At that point it would have been one car. But HFII fired Sperlich because he was very close to Iacocca (who HFII hated) and the one Escort became two. The US version was developed independently of the Euro Escort, despite Ford marketing it as a World car. The story is in Secret Fords.
Europe’s Cavaliers had nothing to do with our Crapaliers.
Thank goodness.
Not true. They all used the J platform, but the Euro Ancona/Cavalier had better engines and interiors. And were built properly.
I didn’t know they were importing everything from Germany that early.
They would have transmitted the engineering data down a dedicated copper line underneath the Atlantic. Very slowly.
Pigeons must have been offline.
Thanks Adrian, I now have to lick my coffee off the computer monitor this morning. Again.
I also love those 190E wheels. I told a German friend I was considering buying one and he immediately called another mutual friend of ours, tells us both to grab a beer, and we sat and talked about them and all the things I could/should do if so for about an hour. I still need to make the trip to Germany and actually get a beer with them one of these days.
It’s one of my favorite cars, despite being so ordinary.
That’s a lineup guaranteed to melt the heart of every true Autopian. I do agree that the selection of the Toyota Truck is a bit questionable for the ethos of the show. That truck was never uncool (from a general public sense) or unappreciated at any point in its life.
To this day I still think the first-gen Twingo is one of the great city cars of all time. That the Lada is a ’96 reminds me of the coelacanth (wow, spelled it right before I checked it!), as something ancient still existing in the modern day. Lastly, I’m not one of the cool kids as I only have a wife and no mistress or girlfriend, but I still think the Matra is lustworthy.
I was at a small gathering of cars designers and their cars earlier in the summer, and someone bought a Twingo along. Sam Livingstone (of Car Design Research) and myself spent ten minutes marveling over it.
The Twingo is one of the all time greats. Some family friends had one and we used to go on the rural roads of the west French coast.
I thought the Twingo was even more out of place than the Hilux. It was the absolute star of the Paris Motor Show when it was announced.
I can’t prove it but I think the Twingo’s success is what allowed Chrysler to make the Neon here.
JUST saw a video on Insta this morning about this show. I love it. The Peugeot 306 Roland Garros edition convertible was awesome, but I love all the oddball editions they made for the most pedestrian cars. Like hey, here’s a Rolling Stones edition Golf, why? Just because.
It’s at the point that whenever I read a Adrian article, I wonder how long it will take for Adrian to mention that he owns a Ferrari
It’s a condition of ownership that is passed on with every sale, you see.
I have to remind the readers that not all the writers here are a total automotive disaster area.
Well, quite.
Bruh, you traded cheap fun for expensive fun. We’ll outlast your Ferrari phase
Purchase price aside it’s cost me less than £1k a year to run.
Except it’s a Mondial.
Which I’m pretty sure has it’s own pages in Torch’s book.
Let’s see how Torch manages to redeem that. The poor guy will probably blow out another artery trying and still not manage it.
It’s also a requirement that at least one staffer of every automotive site own an Italian car.
Jason’s Yugo being basically a Fiat doesn’t count, and neither does anything Beau has under Galpin’s “Used Cars” tab.
The automotive version of being vegan and wanting the world to know? 🙂
Or the alternate version: how do you know someone is into Iron Man/triathlons/tough mudders….
This is aweomse.
I learned about this difference the hard way several years ago when I bought a set from the UK, sight unseen, for swapping the headlights in my British-market ’82 MG Metro from left-hand traffic to right-hand traffic. When they arrived they did indeed have the correct “overseas” directionality but they were very much the wrong size, utterly incompatible with the car. That’s when I belatedly did the research and learned that there were two types. Rather than go to the trouble of returning them I stuck them on a shelf and kept using adhesive-backed beam benders on the lights for as long as I had the car, as I never found a correct set for sale.
A few years later I got a UK-spec ’82 Austin Allegro which also needed a headlight swap for US driving. They fit it just fine.
The A2 is perhaps the best Audi ever made. A shame that it was from a future that never came…
They didn’t sell well at and lost a ton of money. It was just too odd and expensive.
A friend’s mother had one (an early 1.4 litre model) which I drove once. It was brilliant. Very stable, very spacious, light, agile and you could make the most of those 75bhp.
It was definitely expensive, but a great car.
Until recently, I owned an early A2 with 1.4 petrol. I agree on the spacious, agile and light, for the rest not. In windy weather, it was sometimes a genuine challenge to keep it in lane. After years of ownership, I got the impression that Audi poured all their R&D money into that amazing aluminum body and then just slapped in the first engine they found from VWs selection that would fit. It was an ok engine for such a small car, but only during those rare occasions when it ran right. Every now and then I check the classifieds for A2’s and if a petrol one pops up, it’s fairly safe to bet that the add mentions a permanently lit CEL and/or EPC light, or the car just “not running quite right”.
inb4 that’s all they make so they have no choice lol
Watch it GM boy.
I had no idea the Swift (Metro) came in AWD. Given the added weight, drivetrain loss and A/C, I’m shocked it could move under its own power.
You remind me of how for cars of that era, turning off the A/C was like turning on a turbocharger!
’95 Miata owner, can 100% confirm.
I get a kick out of how my ’02 Mustang (which is of course basically a holdover from the bad old days) has a feature where if the ECU detects heavy throttle input, it disables the A/C for a few seconds.
My BRZ does this.
That’s pretty common on modern cars where everything is electronically controlled; it only takes a few lines of code in the ECU to implement.
’87 Plymouth Reliant. Going up a hill in summer required preparation – get within 1/8 mile and jam the accelerator to give the 10 seconds it took for the transmission to kick down and build some speed. Then, check and make sure air conditioning was off or yell out “hit the power button!” to the shotgun seat. Then just keep it pinned for the duration. Good times…..
Dude, it’s a blower.
A friend in college had the 4-door body style, no AWD, and an automatic. She let me drive it once and I had to mat the accelerator to get up a modest hill. Adding AWD…I can’t even imagine.
If it is a 1.3, it’s about 70HP in a vehicle that weights about two bicycles before the extra drive shaft and related parts. I had a Swift GT of that generation with 100HP in FWD form It was a very capable fun car. These were also pretty much indestructible vehicles. The more you abused them, the longer they lasted.
My real point here is that so many in the community pine for AWD Pandas. Look up the stats on those. I’m pretty sure the Swift AWD could easily get out of the way of one of those. Slow mountain goat fast!
This platform was never sold in NA with AWD, so no Metro version would have existed. Also, the Metro was 3cyl not 4cyl. But look at all the 3cyl AWD kei cars in Japan. They work just fine.
It would be a beast in the snow. Never came to the US to my knowledge sadly.
That was my thought. Put a ski rack on the top and go dominate on roads at Tahoe.
Every time I go snowboarding I see expensive SUVs spun out and stuck if it’s been snowing. Once those heavy ass things lose traction they are not stopping until they hit something. Tahoe Donner is prime viewing for this.
Yep. I want the lightest thing with the lowest torque and either full time 4WD or manually selectable 4WD for the snow. Momentum is good when you know how to manage it, but for the most part it doesn’t help you if you have a capable car in the first place.
If it doesn’t have the power to break the tires loose in the snow it’s much less of a concern.
What I like about cars like these is how focused on driving they are, if only b/c they’re too cheap to provide anything else on which to focus. There’s a purity of connection to the experience of doing that that seems to be lessening every day.
The owner’s manuals for these kinds of cars are amazing for their focus on that; by comparison, an owner’s manual for a contemporary vehicle devotes much of its pages (and right at the beginning too) to the operation of the infotainment system.
Automobiles must be the only consumer products that come with a manual that tells you nothing about how to use them.*
*Looks out the window at passing traffic; can confirm.
And when they do, they’re almost comically brief. My favorite has always been the instructions they provide on how to use a manual transmission (if equipped, as they say) – maybe half a page in length and completely context-free.
All the modern cars I’ve seen have a separate infotainment manual that’s about half as long as the actual manual that covers every other feature on the car.
Saw coverage of this on Youtube a couple days ago and assumed (rightly, as it turns out) that someone at The Autopian should/would know about it. So many cars there that, to me, are exceptionally interesting. A gross generalization perhaps, but since the majority of cars shown were offered at unexceptional (attainable) prices, whenever they’re interesting/charming it always seems so much more impressive vs. clever bits on some multimillion dollar carbon fiber billionaire plaything.
Speaking of which, I ran across a recent issue of Road and Track recently (never was a fan) and it appeared to be targeting ONLY billionare wannabes for readership.
Cromulent Cars and Lukewarm Tea
Luckily I drink coffee.
And they still let you call yourself British? 😉
I always felt much more at home in the US.
He likes Coffee Mate in his coffee, mate.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out we drank more coffee than tea these days.
Yesterday I was at a site in the UK that had over 800 employees and the drinks machines served a dozen different coffees and no tea.
Vending machine tea is always dreadful, but you think they’d still try.
That Rover thing perfectly demonstrates the difference between “styling” and “style”.
That Mercedes 190E perfectly captures the joy and whimsy of a Soviet military barrack in car form.
That Merc makes me sad…
I know. It’s wonderful.
I love the Benz and the BMW for the same reasons. They are stripped down and yet the unknowing would think you were a person of means! I was in the Army in Germany 89-92 this Florida kid was floored that MB and BMW were taxis!
They still are… 😉
The 190E was still bloody expensive even then. BMW went down market first.
Expensive or not, the taxis i took flew through the streets taking little notice of street signs. Felt like I was in Ronin before Ronin..
I don’t know, I think a lot of people would say a Mondial would slot right in there just fine.
I can’t wait for the response to this…
Actual conversation that happened:
Richard Porter: How the hell did you get your Ferrari in here?
Me: Because it’s me, of course.
Hagerty PR guy: it’s the unexceptional Ferrari!
Me: that’s my joke.
Namedropper. Sniff is surely FOTU royalty?
He namedrops me I’ll have you know.
When do you get your channel 4 game show?
Don’t be silly they don’t let working class people like me on the television unless it’s to mock them.
So you don’t make enough to be a tax cheat…
For more auto shows like this! Every car should be celebrated, even those that some people say that are bad. Because there is no such thing as bad car if ever had ridden in a fully packed subway.
Also, they are buyable without the need to talk to human organ smugglers.
This is why I like our local Cars and Coffee…some people show up in the old ‘boring’ ‘survivor’ cars you’ve forgotten about hidden among the rows of late model mustangs/vettes.
Love this! Also one thing I loved about BL was the colors you could get in the 70s and 80s. That Metro is fabulous.
Loved the writing! The number and variety of insults were well worth the read. Goes to show that the best insults are ones that lack swearing. All in good fun, of course!
Glad to see that people do care about these “mundane” cars.
I’m aware we have a much wider reach now so I moderate my language somewhat. Which really cramps my fucking style, let me tell you.
Adrian, don’t you dare moderate a single word.
This line, “Desperate to move some metal after BMW came to their senses in 2000 and dumped the company, Rover needed to appeal to the youth market because most of their customers were union jack humping coffin dodgers, one tabloid headline induced rage stroke away from the grave,” made me LOL! It actually brought tears to my eyes from laughing so hard, and I couldn’t even get through reading it aloud as I tried to explain to my wife why I was laughing so hard.
Keep up the good work!
I love it! I agree with what you said Adrian. Cars like these should be celebrated too.