Shitefest take three

Back to the field of dreams

By now you should be familiar with our friends Chris and Claire and their field of dreams, location of this year's Shitefest. Having been a bit disappointed with the turnout at the first post-Shitefest get-together and with more vehicles in need of tinkering, they decided to open up the field once more to visiting Autoshite members while the weather was still good, so off we went again, this time in the Maxi with its huge boot filled with tools. Other guests were James (another local chap), Richard from Surrey and Hugh from Hampshire on Saturday, and on Sunday Anthony returned along with new face Julian from Stoke-on-Trent, so people were prepared to travel long distances to attend and were hopefully rewarded with an enjoyable weekend.

Tinkering in progress. Maxi makes an excellent mobile workshop.

Shitefest take two

A dirty weekend

Remember the amazing spectacle that was Shitefest about six weeks ago? We descended on Chris and Claire's field from all parts of the country, wreaked havoc and churned up their land, but far from being put off by the experience, within a week he had decided he wanted to do it again once the field had dried out as the poor weather and ground conditions meant we couldn't do a lot of things! So it was that this weekend the now bone-dry field of dreams once again hosted a small gathering of shiters and much mayhem ensued...

The holy grey grille

It's all about that Base...

It's amazing how certain car registration marks become memorable considering they're just semi-random combinations of letters and numbers. Take GVG 510Y for example. This may not be particularly famous and probably means nothing to most of you, having never been owned by a celebrity or featured on television, but the car spotting community on Flickr will recognise it immediately as a legend among them, and those lucky enough to have encountered it speak of it in hushed tones of reverence.

Why are those guys looking so happy to see a crusty old Sierra?

So what is the vehicle this ordinary-seeming numberplate belongs to? A priceless supercar? Maybe a unique prototype? A car involved in an historic event? Nope, to the casual observer it's nothing more than a grotty old Ford Sierra that looks fit for scrap and isn't remotely exciting, so what's so special about it? Well, it's the only known surviving example of the rare early base model with the unpainted grey plastic front grille, long thought to be an extinct or mythical beast that existed only in the brochure and was never actually built, so the discovery of this specimen in the wild a few years ago caused a sensation among those who appreciate the underdogs of the motoring world.

Shitefest shenanigans

I've just returned from a fantastic weekend at a festival in a muddy field attended by people from all corners of the UK and beyond. No, not Glastonbury - I'm talking about Shitefest, the annual get-together for members of the Autoshite.com forum. Past Shitefests have been held in Wiltshire, Yorkshire and Wales, but this year I was able to attend for the first time as it took place not far from home at a secret location in north Buckinghamshire.

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.