OLD SKOOL CRUISE 2007
Think of a Classic car show and most people tend to think of pipe smoking middle aged men polishing their MGB’s wheel nuts on a sun-drenched grassy show ground. Well this is no Classic car show this is Retro Car club!
With an RCC meet you’re more likely to find yourself in a mid February floodlight car park in some bitterly cold retail park being circled by the Traffic Police with the smell of Ikea hotdogs temptingly drifting by. Oh no, you don’t need sun cream and a deckchair for one of these meets!
Retro Car Club’s first meets were little more than a year ago and Fast and Modified were there to cover one of the earliest in Falkirk when things were just kicking off. Since then the attendance of the early small meets have multiplied with a huge variety of cars now showing up, often in numbers to rival some cruises!
The selection of cars genuinely has something for everyone with all sorts from the 70s, 80s and early 90s usually turning up. When was the last time you saw a MK3 Cortina on the road, or even an MG Maestro, let alone either of these parked up beside a Skyline and a Mustang?! Cars that you may have forgot all about (or even never seen before!) instantly take on a new appeal. The likes of Dennis with his XJS caused quite a stir, and made myself and a few others badly want one even though we’d probably never have considered such a car without being reminded of their awesome style and power in the metal as we were on that night.
One thing that was especially refreshing about this winter RCC meet is that all the owners had thrown caution to the wind and defiantly brought their cars out no matter how many gritters were spraying the nasty steel eating Retro poison on our roads! Respect guys, I used to think I’m the only one daft enough to use a Retro all year round….. (see my Capri which was crowned ‘dirtiest car of the meet’ pictured here!). You don’t get that kind of dedication from the trailer queen Classic crowd!
One thing the RCC meets do is nicely bridge the gap between a cruise and a classic car show. Often taking place at night, welcoming everyone and anyone much like a cruise, but draw in a lot of more obscure car owners who sometimes feel left out from the Cruise scene or can’t find their niche in the sometimes snobbish single marque meets.
There’s nothing at all cliquey about an RCC meet, and thankfully they don’t usually take place on hangover-unfriendly Sunday mornings like a lot of shows do.
Also there’s no need for membership or even a Retro car! Chris Cassidy, Scottish Events Co-ordinator actively encourages anyone with an interest in older cars to come along for a look and a chat, as there’s always the chance that mingling amongst the cars and owners could create a new convert to the Retro way.
So if you fancy attending the next just have a peek in at their forum for details, or just keep an eye out for the next one on whatever site you use as Chris’s RCC posts are infiltrating every motoring forum on the net, at a rate not unlike the growing enthusiasm for Retro cars!
www.retrocarclub.co.uk
words and pix by Ade Brannan
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