So, it's January, and that is universally crap. The only dot of light on the horizon is Autosport at the NEC and there was way less there to hold my attention than there has been previously.
There were a few classics to get all sweaty over, but by and large it seemed to be fewer stands spread out to cover the same area. The 'engineering' section appeared to be pretty empty, too, with far fewer American visitors than there have been in previous years.
I can't say I'm surprised, mind you. Speaking to a couple of the stallholders, I was stunned to learn of the price they get charged for the simplest of stands. You want a stand big enough to fit one car and a few bits of display material? That'll be £14,000 please. You want a mains supply? That'll be extra. Or, if you just want a 3x2 metre booth in the 'engineering' section - for two days, not four - that'll be £3500. And at nearly £30 for a ticket plus £10 to park your car, I reckon that it's only the fact that there's bugger all else happening in January that keeps the crowds coming.
I liked this Gaskit stand, with the posters saying "Now you can fix head gasket failures YOURSELF!" My god, it's come to that. It kinda reminded me of Mr Ed Gaskit ... "F**k off and fix it YOURSELF!" He needn't have bothered hiring the pretty Asian girl to hand out leaflets, though - his end of the hall was bloody empty.
I say there's bugger-all happening in January, but in fact there were two new shows - the London Classic Car Show, which, for all I've seen of it, seems to be an exercise in saying "Look how much money we've got", and a new indoor custom car show in Manchester's G-Mex. And, naturally, they all happened on the same weekend. Brilliant - it's the dullest month on the calendar, there are only three shows happening, and they all happen on the same weekend. The G-Mex one didn't seem to be terribly well promoted, in as much as people were talking about it a few weeks beforehand as if that was the first they'd heard of it. Still, early reports are promising, and this could grow into the winter high spot on the custom calendar.
Talking of winter high points, the plans for the NSCC AGM have been announced. The new venue is the Red Lion in Bispham, a place we've previously been told not to return to after a spectacular chunder fountain down the stairs. I can't remember what year that was, but it has to be at least 10 years ago so hopefully they'll have cleaned the stairs by now. And, hopefully, nobody will feel compelled to have a 3D laugh at the carpet this year. Enthusiasm is high, and this could actually prove to be a problem in itself.
Firstly, there's a Premier Inn next door. Perfect. Cheap rooms with brilliant showers. The Manhattan was all well and good, but the rooms were a miracle of packaging that would make the Japanese piss their knickers in delight. Okay, to the letter, the rooms each had an en suite bathroom, but I always felt that being able to have a crap in the lavatory, clean your teeth in the basin and wash your hair in the shower, simultaneously, meant that the room was a bit small. To do all these things without having to get out of the bed means that the room is so tiny that a bloody Hobbit would have said, "Are they taking the piss or what?" However, as the Premier Inn fills up, the price of the rooms is going up. Tight bastards!
Secondly, the function room isn't massive, and less than a week after the date and venue have been announced, the number of people who have said they're coming and/or booked into the hotel means we may be looking at over-capacity issues...
We'll be having a good sit-down dinner at the AGM, which should be a revelation. We'll have to count the cutlery in and out of the room, you know what some of these Yorkshire folk are like...
Happy new year!
Eugene.
