A wonderful garden party interrupted by some vintage racing

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I could not describe it better than the speaker at the Prescott Hill Climb, a wonderful garden party interrupted by some vintage racing. This VSCC event was held on the first weekend of August, the weather was lovely and the setting superb amidst the hills of the Cotswolds. Prescott is home to the Bugatti Owners’ Club, which has been running motoring events on these grounds since 1938.

Prescott Hill Climb

For a visitor it is just an array of small scenes. The owner of the GN Special doing some last moment frantic fiddling at his car while his wife sits next to the cool box reading a book, the elderly couple in their folding chairs with matching hats watching a Vauxhall 30/98 flying by, the children playing tag and of course the lining up of the cars at the start. All this accompanied by the encyclopaedic knowledge of the speaker in his Oxford English.

On Friday, the competitors and visitors assemble and the party starts at the campsite. Trailers, vintage cars and tents alternate in a combined smell of delicious petrol fumes and barbecue smoke. On Sunday, the orchard is reserved for the vintage cars. Families gather with their picnic baskets and enjoy. It is the quintessential British Sunday outing, where one meets old friends, making new ones and eats Sunday roast.

It would be going too far to name the winners of all 16 classes. We will content ourselves with the overall winner: Ian Baxter in the 1937 Alta 61 Single Seat.

Of course. You want to arrive in style. And the British narrow and winding roads are just the right setting for my Lancia Lambda.

Words and photographs by Bart Kleyn.

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