Summer of fun: the top motoring events to attend this year
Now that you’ve got your used car for the summer, where are you going to take it?
Fortunately, the UK is blessed with no end of excuses for a drive, ranging from must-see museums and events to must-tour roads. In recent years, they have been joined by a growing roster of weekend and weekday-evening pub meets and cars-and-coffee gatherings.
A great source of information for these less well-publicised events is carevents.com, on which you can search by date, city and car event.
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It recently broadened its scope to also include companies offering, for example, supercar hire, karting and circuit experiences.
To set you thinking about where you could go this summer, we have compiled a selection of drives, events and destinations to consider. Happy motoring!
Days out
With institutions including Brooklands, the British Motor Museum and the National Motor Museum to choose from, you’d think car enthusiasts’ appetite for automotive history were sufficiently served, but there are plenty more such places to visit.
Among the newest is the Museum of Land Speed near Pendine Sands in South Wales, which tells the story of speed trials there. The Great British Car Journey in Ambergate, Derbyshire, has been open for a few years now and remains an intriguing celebration of British cars with the added attraction of being able to go for drives in some of them.
Taunton’s recently opened County Classics Motor Museum is the brainchild of one local enthusiast who has been collecting interesting mainstream cars, most of them British, for years and decided to display them.
Also in Somerset, Haynes Motor Museum in Sparkford is a similar but more ambitious concept founded by Mr Haynes Manuals himself.
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Top events
The British Grand Prix (6 July) has to be at the top of your must-see list, but affordable, general-admission race-day tickets are selling out fast.
Don’t worry, though, because there are plenty still available for the Silverstone Festival (22-24 August), an event that promises to be just as exciting as the circuit celebrates 75 years as a Formula 1 championship venue (it was the first back in 1950) with a cavalcade of legendary F1 cars. Admission-only tickets for the Goodwood Festival of Speed (10-13 July) are selling out fast too, so get your skates on.
At least there’s the Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional (26 July), a much more down-to-earth affair for which tickets are still available at reasonable prices. If one of our suggested used cars qualifies as an unexceptional classic, you and it may qualify for a display entry ticket costing just £20.
It’s from the sublime to the ridiculous the following week when it’s the turn of Beaulieu Supercar Weekend (2-3 August) with demonstration runs and arena performance displays. F1 champion Jody Scheckter’s Laverstoke Farm in Hampshire is once again the venue for CarFest (22-24 August), featuring driving displays, track events and test drives.
Round off the summer season with your best bib and tucker for a day at Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace (27-31 August) or the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace (5-7 September).
Great roads
Starting in the south, there’s the 70-mile long Atlantic Highway section of the A39 from Barnstaple to Newquay, and in Dorset the 18-mile Jurassic Coast Road following the B3157 from Weymouth to Bridport (or peel off and continue to Lyme Regis).
For south-east drivers, the A272 Winchester to Uckfield is a good road with a recently opened Caffeine & Machine petrolhead stop where it crosses the A32. Turning northwards, another is the A429 Fosse Way linking the south (Cirencester) with the Midlands (Leicester).
In the west, the recently created Pembrokeshire Coast Road follows the Wales coastline for 200 miles from Amroth to Dale. Alternatively, spend a day enjoying the roads in the Brecon Beacons.
The Brecon to Llandovery section of the A40 followed by the A4069 across the Black Mountains to Brynamman and back to Brecon via Penderyn makes a good circuit.
In the north-east, you’re spoiled for choice with roads such as the A171 Scarborough to Whitby, returning via the A169 to Pickering and then the A170. In Scotland, well, where to start? How about the A710 Moffat to Edinburgh or the A710/711 Solway Coast road?
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