RADwood made its glorious return last weekend at Bicester Heritage celebrating classics from 1980 to 1999
Saturday, August 20 saw the reappearance of RADwood on the classic calendar, now under new management – historic vehicle insurer Hagerty – and with a new home at Bicester Heritage, Oxfordshire.
Think of RADwood as the trendy cousin to Hagerty’s Festival of the Unexceptional, a traditional static show with the emphasis on 1980s and ’90s machines. Models that appeared on your bedroom wall, or were conceived during the money-no-object ‘bubble economy’, are welcomed. Sporty or slow, well-known or obscure; if there’s any hint of aspiration or ‘lifestyle’, it gets a parking pass.
At the heart of the latest RADwood was a 50-car, nine-category Show & Shine concours, with period dress, modifications and ephemera actively encouraged. Top honours (‘Raddest in Show’, presented on a gold Sega Megadrive cartridge) went to Eddie Rattley’s 1985 Nissan Pulsar EXA Cabriolet, the only example in the country, which deeply impressed judges Paul Cowland, Jon Bentley, and Dominic Taylor-Lane.
RADwood’s UK show is a sister event to the brand’s lineup of shows and displays hosted across the US, including those at Laguna Seca, Chattanooga and Detroit Concours.
