Why this year's Festival of the Unexceptional was the best yet

Find me another car show winner — if you can — where the victorious car is 25years old, has done 176,000 miles, was its owner’s wedding car and has been his daily driver ever since he bought it 20 years ago. The car I’m talking about is a 999cc, 49bhp Volkswagen Polo C owned by Gordon McNeill, winner at the 2026 Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional, held last weekend at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire. Not only has McNeill only ever had this one car, he and his wife swear they have no plans ever to buy another. So far the Polo has been to the Nürburgring, has lapped Silverstone, has run at Santa Pod and recently returned from a long holiday in Spain. In 20 years and 140,000 miles the car has had one valve job and one sill replacement, the second job so thoroughly botched by a “specialist” that McNeill himself took to studying car body repair techniques so as to manage the restoration himself. It's a dozen years since a bunch of inspired people came up with the idea for an entirely different kind of car show designed to embrace mundane, everyday and largely forgotten cars, called Festival of the Unexceptional. In its earliest days there was a big tongue-in-cheek aspect to the whole deal. The eligible cars, which had to be made in a rolling 30-year zone that began 25 years earlier (and thus advanced) by one every year, were deemed to have very little value and largely to be figures of fun. But in 12 years a remarkable thing has happened. The whole thing has become gradually more serious and worthwhile: I’ve witnessed the progression from the inside as a member of the judging panel of 8-12 people. There’s still a certain levity attached to the whole exercise — nobody’s trying to pretend that a 1995 Austin Maestro about to join the ranks of the great cars — but it has become clear that many of the eligible cars last and function much better than their ancestors used to, and that for many owners they have an emotional connection far stronger than any casually-bought classic car. Gordon McNeill is a prime example. This year’s event was by every measure the best yet. The weather was perfect for the 5000-plus people who arrived in more than 2000 cars, the biggest number ever that filled the long castle front avenue to capacity. The quality and relevance of many casual arrivals matched that of the 40 pre-selected finalists (parked as usual on the inner castle lawn). From these a first, second and third prize winner were selected, as well as a bunch of “special mentions”. Second place went to a beautifully-preserved but relatively high mileage Toyota Previa; third to a Ford Focus whose young owner had conserved the car in honour of his departed grandfather, the original owner. More than ever, the joy of ordinary car ownership was enormously evident. Many owners were in their 20s and 30s, attracted by a competition that involved cars they remembered from childhood, and could afford to buy and mend. The role of elderly drivers in preserving these cars of yesterday was also recognised: many an entrant brought a car stored for a decade after its owner had stopped driving and simply garaged the car. The condition of many cars was near-faultless, as was the research into their histories. Remarkable stories surrounded a huge proportion of the cars. Among stand-outs was a battered, basic-spec Ford Sierra 1.6 whose owner had two others but preferred this one because of the colourful life it had led: it had been stolen twice and broken into regularly as well, though all the thieves had only ever taken a screwdriver. Another entrant who brought a faultless, rare-in-Britain 2000 Kia Clarus from the Netherlands, found a new way of getting the judges’ attention by wearing a specially made t-shirt whose pattern echoed that of the Kia’s flamboyant velour upholstery. From start to finish this was a joyous event, remarkable for the youth of its entrants and the fact that the vast majority of those who came to Grimsthorpe “got” the rules of the competition and did their best to bring an appropriate car. Britain abounds with car meetings and competitions at this time of the year, but for sheer, unalloyed car love, I’d argue that Grimsthorpe beats them all.