Cholmondeley Power and Speed: A cool new name and more features for Cheshire motoring spectacular

CHOLMONDELEY Power and Speed. It might sound like the world’s poshest brand of energy drink but it’s actually a vow to bring three days of high octane fun right here to the North West.

Chances are you’ll already know it by its not that dissimilarly named predecessor, the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power. It’s long been a good idea; give the grounds of a stately pile in deepest Cheshire over to some car nuts for three days, flood the grounds with every Jaguar XJ220, Noble M600 and Ariel Atom you can find and see what happens.

For the past eight years the Pageant of Power’s managed to win over folk who don’t normally go to car shows. Don’t me get me wrong, I love wandering around parks looking at rows of Ford Anglias but I fully understand if it’s not your thing. Cholmondeley, on the other hand, offers you the chance to see Ferraris being raced against the clock and to hear the anarchic growl of Group B rally cars being driven in anger. It’s got a thrill factor that pulls in people with even the faintest interest in cars.

Yet – even as one of the event’s biggest fans – I’ll freely admit the same thing every year was beginning to feel a bit staid, which is why I’m glad the people behind it are vowing it’s not just a case of Opal Fruits being rebranded as Starburst.

For starters all the car clubs, who for years have been relegated to the edge of the public car park, an eternity away from all the exciting stuff, are being moved somewhere visitors will actually find them. That’s great news because they always bring along scores of wonderful cars – think TVRs, Audi Quattros and Nissan Skylines – and now you won’t have to walk miles out of your way to see them.

The renamed event also has more in the way of tie-ups with car manufacturers – including the chance to drive some of them for yourself on the opening day – as well as a renewed focus on having lots of supercars being put through their paces at this year’s event. It’s also telling that while the organisers could have picked somewhere in the North West to announce everything, they did it in London instead. Yes, that London, all the way down there in the South. The new Cholmondeley will be so good that people ‘daahn saaf’ will want to join us!

The one thing I’m keeping my fingers crossed for is Cholmondeley resisting the rather obvious path of becoming the North’s answer to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Having been to both I actually prefer what we’ve got because it’s friendlier, less corporate and – crucially – you see cars rather than the back of people’s heads. Whatever happens, make a date for June 10-12.

Just when I was going to give Cholmondeley a miss this year because I’ve seen it all before they go and shake things up a bit. Even if it does sound like a posh energy drink.

Cholmondeley Pageant of Power 2013

THE sight, sound and smell of supercars strutting their stuff at a stately home in Cheshire proved a bombardment for the senses last weekend.

It’s that wonderful time of year when the sun tries its best to break through the cloud, scores of mouthwatering motors emerge from hibernation, and enterprising petrolheads bring them all together in fields and parks across the north west. It is, if you’re really into wandering around looking at automotive exotica, entirely possible to end up at a car show every single weekend because there’s so many of them across the north west, to the point where you have to start being picky about which ones you go to!

The Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, however, is one I’ll always put down in my diary, because it’s a bombardment to the automotive senses. If you haven’t been – and you should, because it’s only an hour away in the car, in the greener bits of deepest Cheshire – then you’re missing out on a treat. In a nutshell, it involves taking over the grounds of a stately home, turning it into a sort of improvised racetrack and then setting off some of the world’s most exciting cars around it to see how fast they can go. Not only can you get up close to Ferraris and Bugattis and scary Group B rally cars, but you can watch them burning rubber and going flat out too.

I tried totting up the value of the various bits of automotive exotica parked up in the paddock but I lost count when I got to the trio of Le Mans-winning Bentleys – and instead just immersed myself in how stunning these bits of motoring beauty were. I’d try and listen to the loudspeakers for more information for the commentators, but every 30 seconds or so he’d be drowned out by the sound of a Ford GT40 roaring past. Then, if you trapsed past the food stalls and hunted down the rally sections, you could decide whether you’d prefer a Ford Escort RS1800 or a Group B Audi Quattro in your dream garage!

The spectacle of seeing, hearing and even smelling these incredible machines makes the Pageant of Power of what it is, and it was great that thousand of people were enjoying it alongside me, even when it was chucking it down with rain. If you managed to make it to Cholmondeley last weekend, you’ll know why I rate it as one of the best motoring events not just in the north west, but in the whole country. If you didn’t, make sure you jot the dates of next year’s event down in your diary.

It really is that good.

For more pictures and a full report from the event, check out Classic Car Weekly on Wednesday, June 19.

Get set for a year of great motoring events in 2013

A SUMMER of motoring fun is just a few months away, if the list of exciting events across the north west and further afield is anything to go by.

Fans of classic cars and bikes will be spoilt for choice when a host of events get underway, with draws including the Ormskirk MotorFest - now in its third year - on August 25, the Lydiate Classic Car Show on July 7, and the Bank Hall show in Bretherton on July 28 among others.

It's also hoped that the Woodvale Rally, a longstanding favourite with car and bike fans, will return to its traditional home at RAF Woodvale for 2013, after concerns about asbestos at the site prompted a change of venue to Victoria Park last year. The show's organisers are still awaiting confirmation, but the event is provisionally set for the weekend of August 3 and 4 so keep an eye on their website at www.woodvalerally.com for any further announcements.

A little further afield there's the return of the North West Indoor Classic Car Show, after the inaugural event proved to be one of last year's surprise hits. This year's show takes place at EventCity in Manchester - a stone's throw from The Trafford Centre - so make sure you've got the weekend of April 6 and 7 in your diary.

A couple of other big draws to make a note of are the Classic Car Spectacular, due to take place over the first weekend of June at Tatton Park in Cheshire, the Classic, Vintage and Sports Car Show at the same venue on August 17 and 18, the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power between June 14 and 16, the Gold Cup at the Oulton Park race circuit over the August Bank Holiday. There's also word that CarFest - a motoring event organised by Radio 2 DJ and Ferrari nut Chris Evans - will get the green light for a 2013 event, so while there's no official dates yet don't bet against it being hosted at some point in August or September.

There's also - if you're prepared to hop in the car and venture even further - all manner of national events being held at Goodwood, the NEC, Beaulieu, Silverstone and Santa Pod to name just a few, but even if you can't it looks set to be a vintage year for automotive outings.

If you're organising a motoring event or show why not share it with Life On Cars? Get in touch with David Simister, our motoring correspondent, by sending an email to david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or leave a comment below.

Chris Evans has a hit with CarFest North

CHRIS Evans pulled up alongside us in a golf cart, prompting a moment of comedy genius. 

Someone in the crowd turned to the Radio 2 DJ, gave him a cheeky glance and shouted “It’s nice to see you’ve brought your car to show, mate”. It was hilarious but I think Chris saw the funny side.

Say what you want about Chris Evans but even if you didn’t like his stint on The Big Breakfast you can’t deny he’s a proper petrolhead, through and through; a car connoisseur rather than someone who just throws their millions at any old Ferrari or Lambo. That’s what made CarFest North far better than I could’ve expected it to be, because Chris wasn’t hiding backstage. He was out there gawping at supercars, just like everyone else.

I turned up at Cholmondeley last Saturday with the same exasperated question as everyone else – sounds great, but it costs HOW much? Even bearing in mind it was a fundraiser for BBC Children In Need, with a third of the price going straight to charity, at £60 for a day ticket it’s nearly as twice as much as Cholmondeley’s other show, the Pageant of Power, which until now has been the priciest automotive outing I’ve enjoyed. On the basis you can actually buy a secondhand supermini for the cost of some of the VIP weekend glamping packages, I was ready to declare it a bit of a rip-off in these pages.

But here’s the rub – I can’t, because even with the price in mind it was a truly enjoyable car show quite unlike any other. There was all the stuff you’d expect to see at a high end car show – supercar sprints, Group B rally cars, classics being auctioned off and so on – but at the point when I’d normally trapse out of the gate, overloaded with freebies for the long drive home, the car show ended and the music,  Chris’ other passion, began.

Life On Cars took these pictures at the event, which continues today (September 9, 2012):

Admittedly, I stayed right to the raggedy end because Texas, one of my favourite bands, were headlining, but it’s amazing to think that I met Chris Evans, sang Say What You Want with 20,000 other people and saw hundreds of shiny supercars, all at the same show. If this the future of charity fundraising, count me in.

I’m already planning on making a weekend of next year’s event, when Chris inevitably confirms it. Time, I think, to dig the tent out...

 

Cholmondeley Pageant of Power 2012 - Part Two

LIKE the buffet at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, it's all too easy to gorge yourself silly with all the car shows on at the moment.

I think it must be to do with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics and Euro 2012 having a head-on slap bang in the middle of summer that the run of the region's motoring events have been shoehorned into the few wet weekends when we haven't broken out the bunting or adorned our cars with En-ger-land flags. Which is a pain if you all you want to do is drool over shiny supercars in a field.

Over the past weekend I've had the choice of watching Audi win at Le Mans for the two millionth time, watch steam trains and classics meet at the Ribble Steam Railway, watch old racing cars doing burnouts in the grounds of a castle in Cheshire or chat to some classic car enthusiasts at an event in Hundred End, just outside Hesketh Bank. In the end I went for the latter two and while Hundred End proved good fun it's the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power that'll stick out in the mind most.

Think of it as a sort of automotive Glastonbury and you won't be too far off - an impression, thanks to the relentless sheets of rain, made all the more real by the soaked visitors trying to create ponchos out of binbags. Headline acts included Jaguar D-Type and the Le Mans racers of the Fifties, gritty live performances from the Group B Audi Sport Quattro and the Lancia Integrale Group A car, and a deep-throated solo session given by the a vintage Bentley special with a 42-litre Packard engine. Yep, you read that right; 42 litres and more power than a Bugatti Veyron!

It was automotive overload - with so much on offer, where do you start? At the tent where a Lexus L-FA, an Aston One-77, a Nissan GTR and a V8-engined Ariel Atom competed for your attention? At the big screen, watching a superbike ace going sideways on two wheels? Or at the start line, watching a BMW M3 racing car shred its way through a set of tyres in a burnout? Even though I missed out on the chance of getting up close to a McLaren F1 pretty much every other significant fast car, bike and boat was there somewhere, pulling in the crowds.

There are all sorts of motoring shows on across the north west this summer and they'll all be a great day out, but I think what gave Cholmondely the edge was that the cars weren't just museum pieces - you could actually see them being driven, in anger, by people who love them. Yes, I got soaked and my shoes got ruined but it was worth it just to see the Rothmans Ford Escort RS1800 strutting its stuff at the start line.

In a smörgåsbord of car shows stretching right out to the end of the summer, Cholmondeley's proven a bit of a feast in itself...

To see more photos from the event, click here for Part One.

Cholmondeley Pageant of Power 2012 - Part One

WET but worth it. That's the conclusion you'll probably have come to if you clocked an Audi Sport Quattro, a Napier Bentley and a Lexus L-FA strutting their stuff at Cholmondeley today.

The Pageant of Power, which has been held in the grounds of the Cheshire castle since 2008, has grown into one of the biggest celebrations of horsepower, history and handsomely-styled machinery anywhere in Europe, with the added thrill of actually getting to see hundreds of cars and bikes in action on a specially-created test track.

 Here are just some of the photos of the mouthwatering machines which took part in the event, come (mostly) rain or shine:

For more pictures, a video and a full review of the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power 2012, check back tomorrow (June 17) for Part Two...