BMW Show at Santa Pod 2014

A week has flown by since Players 8.0 and brings us to the BMW show at Santa Pod. It has been 4 years since members of the PBMW Forum and Custom Cars have attended this show. This show has clashed with Players and the last attendance back in 2010 leaving a little to be desired, Players has been heavily favoured for variety, volume, trade stands and general vibe and atmosphere.

This year things are little different with the show date being moved and not having presence for the last few years it was a good time to attend and finish off the year.

For those that don't know Santa Pod hosts a drag strip for those wanting to test their 1/4 mile times or earn drift points with their dedicated drift area.

First started 9 years ago, the show was quite big, well received and had many forum clubs attending the show. The last few years haven't seen big numbers and has gone down a bit of a downward trend, partly due to show clash, lower numbers and has had disappointing comments and reviews as a whole within the BM community. With an unusually warm late September day this year did appear to have a better turnout even with the increased ticket entry price.

In attendance were Custom Cars, E30 Zone, M3Cutters, BMWForums.info amongst others displaying various BMW's models.

Mike known as Mykez on E46 Zone owns this E46 and recently installed his air suspension setup, with classic BBS wheels it was sitting pretty at the show.

Tates E92 M3 was looking good as ever in the show and shine area.

This Imola Red E46 M3 was simple but effective with a perfect drop on Rota wheels.

It was good to see some classic BM's on show and this E21 was nicely done.

Dips from Custom Cars M3 was very well received at the show and with a new addition to the car sitting on a set of rare fully polished 18" BBS RC wheels. Going an inch down in wheel size has given it even more lows and with a nice bit of camber it attracted many admirers throughout the day. Look out soon for a PBMWForum feature blog.

The E60 M5 is an impressive machine and although some may not like the Chris Bangle styling of the car it still looks good and doesn't really need much. With the right choice of mods however and it can change to something a bit more eye catching like this Interlagos Blue example. Featuring custom Iforged 3 piece wheels, a CSL-esque custom bootlid amongst other trick styling it looked visually impressive.

Throughout the day various BMW's were testing out the strip from stock cars modified to full on dedicated drag racing cars including the infamous Santa Pod jet engined race car.

There was also a show and shine area with trophies up for grabs with PBMW Forum regular Kos who also runs C-Unit http://www.c-unit.uk.com/ winning best retro car with his stunning E24 635i. A congratulations to Kos for a thoroughly deserved win.

The show had some decent cars on display with reasonably priced food that was available on the day. However I do have some reservations about the longevity of the show. Trade stands were lacking and £18 entry is quite steep when you compare similar ones throughout the year like the BMW festival at Gaydon or the Uxbridge Auto Show which provide better value for money then what this particular show has to offer.

Although moving the date is a welcome change and perhaps has helped with getting some numbers back for the show, the organisers behind this should consider dropping the price down. Cars make shows and having spaces filled will likely bring back people to the show. At £18 I can't see many returning next year and a bit more variety with the trade stands wouldn't go amiss either. With a few tweaks this show could once again be the show to attend in the BM calender.

Picture coverage from the show can be found on our forum, www.pbmwforum.com and our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pbmwforum

Picture credits goes to Aaron Smith and Cameron Dpraser.

Players 8.0 at North Weald Airfield

The annual Players Show has been running for a number of years. Players 8.0 is hosted at the North Weald airfield in Essex bringing in a huge variety of cars with all tastes and styles catered for.

As was expected there were queues to enter the venue early in the morning. We arrived around 8.15am and didn't get into the grounds till nearly an hour later. This I hope is something that the guys at Players can hopefully address for next year by getting cars into the show a bit quicker.

With this show there is no real sort of forum or club stands where you request a spot for X amount of spaces so it is just come in together as a group and park up in a spot. As the grounds are big there is no shortage of space and you can pretty much rock up and have your car on show.

Custom Cars were in attendance and had got a very good spot near the front with a wide range of BM's.

This E36 owned by Kash had a new addition sporting the classic timeless and sought after Hartge Design C splits and looked every bit perfect with them on.

This drop top M3 owned by Elkerimo looked on point with its AC Schnitzer type 2's. Measuring at a whopping 12x18 and a cheeky poke it looked epic.

Tej's Santorini E30 M3 featured in Performance BMW magazine was looking graceful as ever and those Type 1 AC Schnitzer splits make this car.

The infamous 6 owned by Kos from C-Unit made its much welcomed appearance after a long lay off and was good to see it back on the road.

Dips from Custom Cars bagged E46 M3, recently added a new front splitter giving a more aggressive look and finishes off the front end so well.

Shaun's E92 is always impressive and recently changed his wheels to these beauties.

Taking a stroll through the concrete area there were a huge number of cars but they were a little too cramped and bunched together which meant you couldn't really properly appreciate looking at these cars. Trying to take a decent photo was not easy to do and looked more like a car park then a proper display of cars.

Onto the hangers there were some great cars displaying on show like these ones below. Only gripe being the cars that were placed at the back rows either side were hard to see and again anyone trying to take a decent photo would have encountered difficulties.

This Polo was recently resprayed by Dips from Custom Cars and looked visually stunning.

This E28 took the centre of the hanger and rightfully so, pure class.

It was good to finally see the Players widebody art car on display. A car you need to appreciate to see in the flesh.

This particular VW was certainly something else. "Pipey McGraw" who previously owned the Performance BMW magazine featured slammed E46 M3 with Fluid Motor Union stacks now owns and has extensively modified this pretty unique car. Literally slammed on a VW Beetle chassis and MK1 Golf body with a rear mounted rotary engine it got a large amount of attention.

Nicks E30 M3 on form as always.

All in all aside from the few things mentioned which I hope Players will sort for next year it was a very good day out. With plenty of cars on display and decent trade stands it certainly is a show to put in the calendar for next year.

Picture coverage from the show can be found on our forum, www.pbmwforum.com and our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pbmwforum

Also check out our Instagram and follow us @pbmwforum

BMW Car Club Festival Gaydon 2014

Every year the BMW Car Club host the annual BMW Festival at the Gaydon Heritage Museum. This is the biggest meeting of BMW's and features some of the finest metal on display.

I have attended this show for many years now and never really disappoints with the wide range of BM's from OEM's to modified to classics, there's something for everyone.

Start of the day wasn't great with a bit of lashing of rain it didn't put off many of the BMW purist in us to miss out although numbers did appear to be a little down from previous years so clearly the rain did put off some. It was lucky that the rain was only temporary and from about 10am it had eased off and it was on to enjoying the show.

There were various forum stands on display from the likes of Custom Cars, E36Coupe Forum, E46Zone, TotalMCars and others.

Starting with the Custom Cars stand headed by Dips who is well known and respected in the BMW scene had an impressive and arguably best stand at the show for sheer variety and quality. There was various models from E46 M3's to E36's, E30's, E39's etc.

As owner of Custom Cars, Dips never fails to disappoint each year displaying a fine show car that he has recently worked on. The latest project is his E46 M3 convertible which drew in a large number of admirers. Resprayed in individual Ruby Red and lowered on air, it is truly stunning.

Tallis's E36 M3 vert. Another car that's received a lot of attention and will be featured soon in Performance BMW Magazine.

Steve (M3smudge) Star Wars themed Carbon Black E46 M3 is well known and looked great as always sitting on 18" Alutec split rims with neat little touches that make this stand out from the crowd.

Another well known M3 is this Steel Grey and Cinnamon leather combo beauty owned by yours truly sitting on a rare set of 18" custom sized Oz Mito Type 1 splits along with its carbon fibre themed engine bay.

E36's were out in force on the Custom Cars stand:

There were also a decent showing of E30's including M3's and the famous E30 S54 M3 fully restored in Inka Orange, sitting on Compomotive wheels and dumped on air owned by Nick Sahota which recently got featured in Performance BMW Magazine.

Bhups E30 328 looking clean as on 17" Style 5 splits.

E92's are fast becoming the choice of being modified and these certainly don't disappoint.

E91 touring that was featured in the Fast and Furious film.

E36 Coupe forum had some good examples with the well known Joey special and Turko's interesting and cool plasti dipped M3 sitting on Oz Mito type 2 splits

The car club registers had some fine machinery on display with some of the old school BM's being a popular choice for modifying. The particular E21 below is on air with tasty splits. The square headlamps maybe sacrilegious to some but we think this is cool.

More old school BM's from the likes of 1602's, 2000CS, E9's E28's etc.

This Z1 looked truly stunning on a very rare set of Hartge design C split wheels. Those in the know will know these are about as rare as you get as Z1's use the awkward 4x100 pcd pattern.

The Scottish BMW region had some very fine examples on display with a few of these.

Finally TotalMCars had a large turnout of M3's on display with some nice examples ranging mostly E46's and E92's dominating their stand on the entry road known as the spine road. But this didn't over shadow some other M's on show like Katie's Imola Red Z4M lowered on concave AC Schnitzer type 2's it certainly stood out on the stand. Other notable M3's were Louis E46 Carbon Black vert on a rare set of 19" Hartge design E splits which looked on the money and Steven (Nevets) orange themed M3 with an interesting set of Porsche wheels which has divided some opinion but I think works well.

One thing that was noted was the lack of trade stands compared to previous years which I hope the BMW car club can address next year. With the slightly lower numbers this still was a good turnout and remains as the best BMW show. The organisation with sifting the cars through this year was a lot better too with the Marshalls doing a great job minimising the queue going in.

Here's to next year and for a bigger and better show.

Picture coverage from the show can be found on our forum, www.pbmwforum.com and our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pbmwforum