So what is Autoshite and what is Shitefest all about? The forum's ethos is hard to define but it sits on the fringes of the classic car movement and encompasses aspects of bangernomics and what the Germans call Youngtimers. Some members have cars that are true classics but it's mostly about unloved everyday transport of the recent past, with cars present dating from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Shitefest first came about in 2012 and is a very informal gathering where forum members get together to admire each other's cars and have a good time, usually with at least one optional visit to somewhere nearby of transport-related interest.
Day 1: the madness begins
I arrived just after lunchtime on Friday in pouring rain to find a rag-tag selection of cars including a home-made FSO camper, a Maestro van, a Toyota RAV4 and an assortment of Citroens, and a small group of forum members taking shelter under a gazebo. This was the first time I had met most of these people as I only knew them as forum users, but after a brief introduction I soon felt welcome and joined in the conversation, which for those who know of my anxiety issues meant a lot. Within ten minutes of turning up I managed to fall out of my chair when it sank in the mud, which provided a good laugh and broke the ice nicely! The rain stopped after a while and the sun came out, but another heavy shower later on sent everyone scurrying back to the gazebo, which by now was virtually full of visitors, and this set the pattern of the weather for the weekend. |
| Friday afternoon in the field of dreams. Just a taste of what was to come. |
Things took a surreal turn mid-afternoon with the arrival of the Scottish Volvo Massive, without Volvos but with a huge yellow double-deck bus all the way from Glasgow! A dog-walker was passing as it arrived and the look on his face turned from confusion (surely that can't be a bus?) to amazement (yes it is!), before his jaw hit the floor when told where it had come from. Many interesting conversations ensued, discussing the practicalities of owning a preserved bus and taking it on a near-400 mile journey at less than 9mpg. Amazingly, if licensed as private this 10-litre beast costs the same to tax as my dad's 1.6 Zafira, and it will cruise at 60-70 on the motorway.
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| Toyota Lucida Estima Charme Pleasure Wagon with Joyful Canopy. Yes, that's its real name! |
All that rain had turned the entrance to the field into a mudbath so almost every car required a push but there were plenty of willing hands on site. The trickiest was another long-distance traveller in the shape of a Lexus LS400 from far-flung Aberdeen, a massive RWD V8-engined automatic barge that I can say from experience is also extremely heavy! Autoshiters are a laid-back bunch - no one refused to have a go at entering the field in case their precious cars got muddy, and everybody mucked in to push. In case you're wondering, we didn't attempt to put the bus in the field and left it on hard standing as pushing that would be a bit beyond our capabilities.
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| This thing is HEAVY and no good for off-roading! |
Shitefest is also about buying, selling and swapping car-related stuff - parts, magazines, tools and so on, plus plentiful supplies of vegetable oil for that part of the membership who run old diesel cars on this fuel. My own offering of toy cars from my youth was soon set upon by an eager crowd and most of them quickly found enthusiastic new homes so very few were brought home again. These had been sat under my bed gathering dust for years and would otherwise have been thrown out so it was fantastic to see them being enjoyed by new owners, who were soon playing with them like excited children.
Living only a few miles from the site meant I could retire to the comfort of my own bed (although I didn't get much sleep thanks to the excitement), but most visitors slept on site in tents, caravans or in some cases their cars, so the party went on into the night. I missed the evening's entertainment of getting our host's JCB started and hopefully using it to improve the ground conditions. By all accounts it was great fun but met with little success on the road-building front as the mud just kept getting worse.
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| Autoshite Construction, how can we help? |
Day 2: playing trains
I returned bright and early Saturday to find even more overnight arrivals, including such delights as a UMM Alter and a completely standard-looking Hyundai Stellar that hides a secret of a Rover V8 under the bonnet. Some opted to stay in the field of dreams but for the rest it was all aboard the big yellow bus for a trip to the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway - the original intention was to convoy down by car but given the state of the ground it was decided to use the bus instead. This was one of the more bizarre experiences of my life, travelling through my home town on a Scottish-owned bus with Glasgow on the destination display! |
| We arrived in style on the big yellow fun bus! |
The museum volunteers are a great bunch who provided us with lunch and a train ride and were quite happy to let us roam the site, clamber all over their rolling stock and play with the signals. If you thought the bus was heavy engineering, it's nothing compared with a locomotive: their sheer scale is just mind-boggling and one of these things was running an 85-litre V12 developing about 1800hp. Even though I'm not much of a train fan I wasn't going to pass up the chance to drive a loco, which turned out to be one of personal interest: the ex Wolverton Works Class 08 shunter 'Haversham' that was probably there when my late grandfather worked at Wolverton. That was certainly an experience I'll never forget and completely unlike anything I have ever driven before. 'Woollarding' is a thing on Autoshite, a tribute to former Top Gear presenter William Woollard's signature move of standing with one foot on the bumper, and the opportunity for a group Woollard of the loco wasn't to be missed.
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| Choo choo! Meet 'Haversham', the loco driven by Autoshiters. |
Yet more shiters had turned up while we were playing trains so on returning that evening we found the site full to bursting with cars spilling out onto the lane outside. Proving the Autoshite ethos does embrace proper classics, these included a brace of Rover P6s, a Marina and a rather fine Wolseley Six, plus the unexpected bonus of a Bond Bug. Autoshite is a diverse community and there are no rules on what is and isn't allowed at Shitefest, and by my reckoning we had over fifty vehicles coming and going during the weekend. My own transport of choice was my dad's faithful 1999 Vauxhall Zafira, possibly the oldest one left on the road, and although this was gently mocked at first by the end everyone loved it.
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| That's no ordinary Hyundai Stellar. |
At 9pm came the highlight of the evening - the drawing of the raffle, Autoshite-style. One lucky(?) shiter would be driving away in a stunning Lada Samara. A rather Heath Robinson contraption had been created by jacking up the Lada, writing the entrants' names on its front wheel and rigging up a stick as a pointer, then giving it some revs and seeing where the wheel of misfortune stopped, much to the amusement of the assembled crowd and the consternation of the winner, who ended up A-framing his lovely Cortina home behind his new acquisition. The gods seemed angry at the result as the sunshine instantly disappeared to be replaced by a fierce thunderstorm, and after 12 hours at the event I decided to call it a night.
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| The beautiful prize car and its wheel of misfortune. Who could resist the chance to win such a fine machine? |
Day 3: fond farewells
Given the terrible state of the field I was very worried about how challenging it would be to get the cars out, especially those towing caravans, and was prepared for another morning of pushing, but I arrived on Sunday to find the field almost empty and the remaining mud-splattered cars parked on hard standing ready to depart. With long distances to travel to get back for work on Monday, many had already left in the early hours, but with the sun shining a few stragglers hung around in the lane and took the opportunity to try out each other's cars. |
| Poor Maestro was so clean when it arrived. Never mind, it's only mud so it'll wash off. |
One by one the guests departed and soon it was time for me to go too, after bidding a fond farewell to my new friends and wishing them a safe journey. Everyone seems to have made it home safely, although not entirely without incident, and there are many memories being shared of this fantastic weekend. If there was an award for the shortest distance travelled I would have won it, but for long journeys even the Scots were eclipsed by the intrepid member who lives in Bulgaria and not only got there by a combination of flights, walking and hitchhiking but arrived two days early!
Huge thanks to our hosts Chris and Claire for organising all this, the volunteers at the railway, David for bringing the bus and driving us to the railway, and all those who attended and made the event so memorable. The timing was very fortuitous as it allowed me to get away from all the hysteria over politics and football and spend some quality time indulging my passion for old cars with like-minded individuals. The whole experience still seems a bit surreal - what a brilliant weekend!
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