La Vie en Bleu

The weekend of the 30th and 31st May was a two day celebration of all cars on Saturday and all things French on Sunday. We were also promised the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, a Dakota and some wing walking with Stearman Biplanes. In the event, the wind proved to much for the planes and the volume of traffic too much for some pretty inept car park attendants (only two!). The net result was that the 20 mile journey from my home to Prescott two two and half hours including a breakdown because the car overheated in the extremely long and exceptionally slow moving queue to get in. For the second and last time a Pertronix ignition unit has overheated and failed on my Bentley. I’ve gone back to points!

When we eventually did get in, it was extremely busy and there were fewer interesting cars there than for the even more expensive annual VSCC event, but quite a few stalls and a friendly atmosphere. We’d gone to see friend John Hodgson who runs www.alpineeagle.co.uk and has just completed the restoration of a magnificent 1929 Type 46 Bugatti. Said to be Etorre’s favourite model this one is a Weymann Faux Cabriolet. It looks perfect, the Crocodile Skin leather has to be seen to be believed and it won AE their second award for the Most Elegant Car in Show. They’d previously done it with a 1929 Rolls-Royce Short Chassis PII. John, it turns out, is a PerTronix hater as well because they’d sold a Big Bore MKVI that broke down miles from anywhere three times with its new customer and each time they had to go and replace the unit.

Bugatti Veyrons aren’t Bugattis at all but a fiercely expensive and ludicrously fast Audi and like buses you don’t see them very often, but when you do, as we did at Prescott, there were five in a row! One had a fence round it and a guard while not thirty feet away was an incredible Type 57S coupe just parked and not apparently even locked. It must have been worth at least as much as all five Veyrons!

All in all a pleasant day best described by the accompanying photos and spoilt by a dreadful queue, ineffective parking operatives and a healthy £18 a head entry fee.

I suppose that the truth is that Prescott is becoming too popular to cope with the influx of traffic it produces and in so doing, is losing that old world charm that it has been famous for. Smaller attendances, such as one sees at Shelsley make for a more relaxed and enjoyable day out amongst mostly genuine enthusiasts. I still love it and far prefer it to the horribly commercial Festival of Speed at Goodwood, but I shall give their VSCC event a miss for a year or two after this.

Ashley

More photos from our day at Prescott

A beautiful Bugatti - none of this Veyron nonsense