Boring cars will always be best | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

I have been privileged enough to be one of the lucky Judges at FOTU for the last eight consecutive years, attempting the surprisingly tough task of choosing a stand out boringly ordinary car with a great backstory from a carefully selected Concours d’Ordinaire entry list of just 50 cars. The standard of FOTU’s unexceptional cars gets better with each passing year, making narrowing down that overall winner between us six judges all the more onerous, with both the vehicle age (the cut off being 1996) and the car owner’s age noticeably becoming noticeably much younger than in the inaugural years of FOTU, with more and more FOTU entries now dating from the 1990s, as entered by blokes in their early 20s.

With a record attendance of more than 1,200 unexceptional but fascinating cars parking up this year; the majority of these once being commonplace on British roads, but now sadly all too rare, certainly make for an arresting sight. For example, when do you recall last seeing an immaculate Talbot Solara, Hyundai Elantra, Fiat Strada or Volvo 345?  Exactly, they used to be everywhere, but have now all virtually disappeared. As an example, in 1977 thousands of Ford Cortinas were sold in the UK, but just a few hundred Ferraris. Today though, of those thousands of new Cortinas sold, only about 45 still remain on our roads, whilst a high number of hundreds of Ferraris from 1977 are now registered here, with many more being imported from Italy, the USA and elsewhere over the last 45 years or so.

To go to a major car show and not see any of the now ‘commonplace’ Ferraris, Porsche 911s or Lamborghinis from the last 50 years or so is surprisingly refreshing! Nearly every enthusiastic FOTU visitor I spoke to agreed that they would far sooner see a tidy Renault 5, Citroen GS or FSO Polonez than a ‘boring’ 911, which you can now see plenty of anywhere and at any time at virtually any other motoring event.

Of the 50 entries into the Concours d’Ordinaire at the 2022 FOTU, a handful of cars were potentially a little too exceptional to take the FOTU top honours, albeit still very rare. There was a delightful 1972 Simca 1501 Break, including its ingenious standard built-in metal picnic table (tres Francais), a sporty second-generation 1984 Alfa Romeo Giulietta and a 1978 Peugeot 504 saloon. Separate public vote awards chosen by the many Junior FOTU attendees (under 16), or a typical 1970s-90s ‘rep mobile’, such as a 1980s Ford Cortina, Vauxhall Cavalier, etc, also attracted great attention, with a tidy first-generation Nissan Primera winning this public category.

Special mention must be given to the lovely old ladies that purchased many of this year’s FOTU entries when brand new (many hailing from Somerset it seemed!) And looked after their cars, then thankfully finding enthusiastic owners, many males in their early 20s, who lovingly restored the cars, some very unlikely candidates for extensive and probably expensive rebuilds, such as 1990s base Renault Clios and Rover 200s. One young chap carefully revived a base (and naturally, beige) 1981 Austin Metro that was stored in a lock-up garage which flooded, the Metro then being swept away into a neighbouring canal, where it was rescued and plucked out of the water (against its insurance company’s wishes). A funky 1985 Toyota Sprinter Caribe (more commonly known as a Tercel 4WD closer to home), went one better, being recovered from the infamous 2002 tsunami.

Other gloriously unexceptional entrants included a special edition white 1990 Fiat Panda Italia 90, complete with its charming (and much sought) football plastic hubcaps, an immediately pre-205 launch 1982 Peugeot 104. Not to mention the ultimate unexceptional car, a 1980 Morris Marina 3 Saloon, destined for the Iranian market, but made all the more unexceptional by being converted by its current owner from Left Hand Drive (including the sweep away dashboard; a big job) back to RHD.

As nothing else like FOTU exists elsewhere in Europe, last Saturday’s event also attracted a handful of Continental entries, including a 1991 Fiat Tempra 2.0 SX all the way from Germany, a Belgian-built 1974 Mini Clubman 1100 (a model not sold in Britain), plus the blandest of all cars – a  1991 second-generation Hyundai Pony driven specifically to FOTU from the Polish capital city of  Warsaw, accompanied by his girlfriend and a box full of old cassette tapes for entertainment on the 1,200-mile journey. After the Prize Giving ceremony, the Polish Pony’s owner had to head straight off from the Lincolnshire event to get back to Warsaw to go to work on Monday morning.

The overall FOTU winner for 2022 was a truly unremarkable, but very original 1994 red Vauxhall Astra Merit, the ‘poverty’ specification model, in uncommon three-door form. The car was driven down from Edinburgh, where the Astra was first bought new by an old chap who didn’t use it very often and stored it away in a garage located opposite the current owners’ house, where he one day plucked up the courage to go and enquire about the Astra. An immaculately-restored 1985 Skoda 120L Estelle was rightly awarded the runner-up prize, the Estelle’s owner also having also saved a number of other Estelles from the scrap yard. 

Away from the 50 ‘official’ FOTU Concours d’Ordinaire cars, the sizeable Grimthorpe Castle car park fields contained over 1,200 more rare and ‘unexceptional’ cars. Personal highlights included a scarce 1993 Innocenti Small, the delightful final incarnation of the long-lived Italian Mini hatchback style by Gandini for Bertone, a Subaru Vivo T-Top – an uber-rare JDM import that I had never seen before in the metal – plus my absolute favourite of the non-Concours cars, a stunning 1973 360cc Daihatsu Fellow Max pillarless coupe. The event was worth the long trip up to Grimthorpe just to see this car alone. I am already looking forward to being involved in the 2023 FOTU.