Furious Driving’s, Matt, celebrates the success of the second Rustival show!

When Ian from Hubnut, Steph from I Drive a Classic and Matt, from Furious Driving YouTube channels planned the first Rustival show they only expected maybe 300 cars might turn up, but more than double that did, so when Rustival 2 hosted almost 900 cars and more than twice as many visitors, they were delighted to welcome so many but still surprised to see so many.

Rustival has brought a unique take on car shows, with the tag line “clapped out to concourse’ and their choice to let in any make, model or age car - as long as the owner loves it and want to show it - was something different from other classic car shows.

After a week of terrible rain, they had been worried the bad weather would keep people away or the British Motor Museum’s car parks might flood, but on the day of the show it was a fine autumn day, Ian and Matt even camped with their families in Bob the folding camper and in Hippo the Freelander’s roof tent!

Keen visitors began arriving soon after 7am, even as they were still setting up, and soon both Vanden Plas - the lower car park- and Mayfair - the upper car park were filled with one of the most eclectic collections of vehicles ever assembled, from pre-war to modern and even some bigger things.

With a huge YouTube and social media community surrounding and supporting the car world now, they decided to invite other creators to be part of the show. YouTuber Kev Tee arrived with a rolling one-man car show, his recovery truck loaded with some recent finds, a Rover 220 Coupe, an Audi 80 which drew quite a crowd and a very nice Rover 100.

Nearby was Pete and his Bus, a double decker and the only thing in the car park that could make Jupiter, Lawrie of Lawrie’s Mechanical Marvels, Dennis fire appliance look small, and in that same corner were the Crown Vic cop cars (apart from mine), a friendly and enthusiastic group who love to share their love of the iconic American Fords who always make an entrance with lights and sirens and are always happy to shut people in the prisoner cell and show off the police equipment.

And that friendly enthusiasm is what drives Rustival, from both the organisers and the guests as pretty much everyone was happy to talk about whatever car they’d brought, and to be parked alongside almost anything as cliques aren’t allowed, so an immaculate NSU RO80 parked with a Renault Twingo and unusual campers.

While the Festival of the Unexceptional may have cornered the unloved-to-classic market, Rustival’s open to everything attitude means there were many once ordinary autos around, a strong presence from the local makers meant plenty to see of every generation for Rover fans, with a large turnout of 75s again, Rover’s last all new car and still feels like a very high quality product, again there was a strong Volvo presence with the Nordic Rides group gathered together, and very unexpectedly the most common model at the show was the Citroen BX, a rare car but nearly 20 were lurking in the line up!

There were also high end, luxury and sports cars of all eras and makes and ‘normal’ fins’n’chrome classics all parked door to door, and Rustival seem to be creating a home for the weird, wonderful and uncommon motors to gravitate to. An original Fiat Multiple is a quirky car, and rare now, but even rarer, in the UK at least, is the Peugeot Hoggar, a 207 based pick up all the way from South America - this one came from Sao Paulo in Brazil.

One of the rarest cars in the show is something American readers might find very dull but it might - the Pontiac Le Mans. Not the ‘60s muscle car, but the rebadged, booted Mk3 Astra Belmont! This might not sound exciting, but someone loved that car enough to ship it all the way from the USA and register it here! And for comparison, there was a right-hand drive, UK Belmont next to it.

Matt was so impressed he chose it as my car of the show, each of them picking something to award, an almost impossible task as every car there was interesting or special in some way, the other difficult choices found Ian picking a rare 4 wheel steer Mazda 626 and Steph chose a stunning and immaculate salmon pink Vauxhall Cresta and the overall show winner we agreed on was Gentil Costa’s lovely orange BMW 520, a long term restoration project which needed an engine swap and almost didn’t make it sue to a failure the day before.

As well as the plethora of fabulous cars to explore and creators to meet, and perhaps the best way to recap and experience are the YouTube videos of the event, was the stage, itself a classic Ford truck, where Practical Classics editor Danny Hopkins hosted chats and panels all day so even if you didn’t want to walk around the show could come to you!

Ian from Hubnut, Steph from I Drive a Classic and Matt, from Furious Driving are very proud of the inclusive nature of the show, they know people love all kinds of cars and want to share that passion for every facet of automobila, and people can be as different as their cars and want to make it a welcoming environment for everyone, so the Friendship Corner Facebook group is an online continuation of the world of Rustival, and in the real world transforms into the Friendship corner gazebo, where Carly from Hubnut welcomed internet acquaintances and turned them into real world friends, which really is the spirit of the show.

Head to YouTube for Furious Driving, HubNut and I Drive a Classic to see the show walk around videos.