Sunday 13th August saw us return to Brands Hatch for our annual get together as part of Festival Italia. Rain early in the morning was a dramatic change to last year’s intense heat but conditions improved during the day so that the sun was shining on the large numbers of Italian cars and bikes both on display and on track.
We had nine cars generating plenty of attention in our dedicated display area alongside our friends at the Fiat Coupe Club UK, various other Fiats and a large number of Abarths. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Lancia were also well represented with cars from all eras on display, something for everyone alongside the Italian food and music.
It was great to catch up with some friends from previous club events and to meet many new ones as well. Many thanks to all the following that attended – Mark Simmons, Ross Williams, Geoff Lezemore (all the way from Devon!), Sasha Adib-Yaghmai, Rob and Tracy Curl, Michael Storey, Catherine & Mike O’Malley and Lynn & Mark Taylor. Chris Reynolds, our technical star who has done so much work on the maintenance guides on the website, was also present with his car on the Fiat Forum stand.
New member Kevin Pooley, who was displaying his Maserati, stopped by to say hello and we signed up one new member as well. Also a mention for our Barchetta owning friend Edward from Italy who this year attended the show in his restored Fiat X/19 prior to driving to Dover to start the long drive home the following day.
Mike’s silver Barchetta caught the eye of the Alfa Showroom YouTube channel, being selected as their car of the day, and below you can watch their video of the event with Mike’s starring role starting from around 11 minutes in. Many thanks to the guys for coming to talk to us and we are glad you liked our cars, please check out their other videos.
Staying until the very end of the day also gave us the opportunity to take part in the parade lap around the Brands Hatch track which as always was great fun.
It was great to hear how passionate Barchetta owners are about their cars and there was plenty of chat, laughter and advice being shared throughout the day. Lets hope we can do it again in 2024!
Neil Mead
Thanks Neil. Obviously a successful day, very pleasing to see that we were well represented.
It was great day out and brilliant to see so many B’s all together even if mine was away from the pack. Lovely feature on that video too. Wished I’d stayed long enough to go on the track but then my sunburn would have been even worse! My B behaved impeccably on the day, four hours of motorway driving without a hitch (other than the smell of petrol but that’s a winter project)
Great report Neil. So glad the sun shone again this year.
…and a great review on the YouTube vid. Good to hear their man bigging up the B!