The Festival of the Unexceptional – a unique celebration of forgotten ‘ordinary’ cars – enjoyed a stellar 10th anniversary outing on July 27
A record attendance of over 2000 cars and more than 4000 guests of all ages enjoyed an extended feature-packed 2024 running of Hagerty’s Festival of the Unexceptional, with the Lincolnshire venue basked in sunshine for much of the day.
Hagerty created the first Festival of the Unexceptional back in 2014, when 300 cars were present at Whittlebury Park. Since then, the event has been held at held at three more venues and grown exponentially both in size and reputation, culminating with thousands of FOTU cars lining Grimsthorpe’s front lawns. Many had covered long distances to be a part of the 2014 event – we even saw Swiss, Dutch and German-plated classics make an appearance.
A packed live stage schedule included appearance from Jonny Smith and Richard Porter, a.k.a. Smith and Sniff, who hosted two rounds of live gameshows, plus a live podcast recording which attracted 100s of spectators. Classics World‘s Jeff Ruggles also appeared on stage alongside Steph Holloway of idriveaclassic YouTube fame, while event sponsor Sustain Fuels was on hand to answer any questions about using synthetic fuel in their modern classics. There were special guest cars too – not least the very last Rover Montego to be produced, supplied by the British Motor Museum, plus previous FOTU winners including 2014’s victorious Nissan Cherry Europe.
Right in front of house on the prestigious lawn, 46 mundane superstar cars took part in the Concours de l’Ordinaire, open to cars over 25 years old and judged by a panel including CCB contributor and Jaguar World editor, Sam Skelton. This is probably where the event’s evolution was most evident, with the 1970s Allegros and Marinas of the early years giving way to more ’80s and ’90s machinery. Highly commended were Lewis Dickson’s 4000-mile Citroën Visa, Christopher Lloyd’s Daewoo Lanos and Damian Brannigan’s 1993 Fiat Panda, while the Chairman’s Award was presented to Colin Corke and his Applejack Mk1 Metro, showing that persistence pays off after Colin had entered a car for the past eight years without winning anything.
One of our favourite stories, and one that reflects the wide range of ages at the event, was the Retro Repmobile Award, which was given to Luca Alpert and his 1991 Nissan Primera. Luca is 21 years old and had driven the car all the way from Hanover in Germany just to enter it at FOTU.
Second place was awarded to Amy Jaine and her 1998 Renault Clio, which was originally owned by her grandmother. It was destined to be scrapped as it was no longer used, but Amy rescued it, and now it is Amy who uses it to take her grandmother on days out – a wonderful story.
The winner’s trophy was awarded to Mitch Lewis and his immaculate 1982 Toyota Hilux. The car had been used on a fruit farm since new, but it remains completely original and is absolutely immaculate.
The extended event ran from 7.30am right through to 7pm, and remained busy throughout. It’s a show that continues to hit the spot, with an unrivalled devotion to the dull, and we’re reassured to hear that planning is already underway for next year.
