Review of Stoner Supercars and Classics weekend 2022

Stoner Supercars and Classics weekend took place on Saturday May the 21st and Sunday the 22nd 2022.  We attended the event on the Sunday and it was a glorious day with wonderful weather and a good selection of classic cars and supercars.

This was definitely a bigger event than in previous years. Previously here just been supercar Sunday, but this year it was renamed as supercars and classic and took place over the weekend, so two days of supercar on classic car utopia.

We decided to take our Lancia D24 (below) and we were delighted that we were asked to place it on the central lawn in front of the house. What a wonderful start to the day.

Lancia D24

Other Cars that we loved that were on the front lawn:

Mercedes-Benz 190 SL

This is an absolute beautiful example. Speaking to Jeff the owner, who I’d met previously, it’s his pride and joy, as many classic cars are for their owners. He told me that the car in his ownership has has a respray and recently all the chrome has been done. Bravo Jeff. A lovely car, and one of my all time favourite Mercedes-Benz. What a beautiful looking car.

Porsche 356

I just love the paint work and colours and detailing on this Porsche. Very very cool.

Lamborghini Silhouette

Just a unusual and different looking car. It’s the first open Lamborghini and the rarest classic Lamborghini, as only 52 were made between 1976 and 1979. There are apparently only two on the road in the UK. Bravo to the owner.

Jaguar C-Type

This Jaguar was not an original car, but stunning nonetheless lovely detailing.  This car was it Ecurie Ecosse LM-C, a homage to cars raced by them in the early 1950s.  Stunning. So cool.

Ferrari 330 P4

This Ferrari is a reproduction, but a fantastic car for sure.  It sounded great. Respect to the owner.

Later in the day I met a previous owner of my Lancia D24 (below), what a wonderful chat I had with Len and the history of the car and his tips and guidance were great.

Then to some of the Supercars that caught our eye:

What about this event….

Well it’s a show that is still in its infancy, so developing and has lots of potential. With the event being over the weekend I felt there were not as many cars on show as maybe there could have been, as owners will have brought their cars on only 1 of the two days.

The Charles Stanley Supercar Paddock apparently played host to an absolutely stunning array of cars, but I was unaware of where this was. I walked the entire venue 2-3 times, and there did not seem to be a dedicated supercar spot, nor clear Charles Stanley branding.

Steve Rider was compere. He likes the Lancia, and we talked over the car and his right hand drive Fiat 500 (iconic). A nice chap with a passion for cars. However, I felt the event organisers did not make the most of him during the day.

The event seemed to be well attended, food and drink in ample supply, included a dedicated bar (which I do not remember in previous years), however, when I compare this event to the many other car shows that I attend there are lots of points for improvements for next year, which in my helpful way I will pass these thoughts onto the organisers and see if any get taken up.

Points for improvement

Email Newsletters

Plenty of pre-event email newsletters about the event if you sign up to the newsletter. If you actually click on some of these email hyperlinks they take you to pages with no information (so broken links) which is not good. Certainly not a good user experience.

Programme Schedule

There was no map, no schedule, and communication of the days events were non-existent. There was a stage, speaker system, but you could not hear or see this unless you were within 50 metres of it. I’d suggest having an online page with all the info. for the day, a QR code on display around the venue pushing visitor here. Also to have speakers around the venue so you can hear the talks, schedule announcements and compere.

Phone signal/ Wifi

There was zero phone signal on site, and Wifi was intermittent, and only on when near the house. So the event missed a trick on this, so social media posting would not have been as abundant as it could have been. Each to improve this.

Moving Motorshow

The organisers tried moving a few cars around to make it a bit more interactive for visitors, but that didn’t really work. Cars pootling at 3-4 mph isn’t really what car classic cars and certainly supercars are all about. They also tried to get the Thames Valley Ferrari owners club to rev their Ferrari Engines, but unless you were in the vicinity of the PA system you’d not have known this. Work to be done here.

More retailers

Only a handful of retailers here. I’d like to have seen 30-40.

No hospitality for the car owners

Look after those that bring the cars, and they will return. There was the option to buy either a £25 or £100 hospitality package, but all the people I scope to were not impressed with what was offered, i.e. for the £25 for got a bacon bap, then had to make your own tea or coffee. The little things and all that.

My suggestions

Have a compere or interviewer that interviews the car owners near their cars. London Concours does this really well. Car event visitors find facts about the cars and their owners interesting, well at least I know I do.  This could be done with the cars on the main lawn, a 5 to 10 minute talk with each owner about their cars. I think that could be great, a nice 30 minute to 1 hour event on the day schedule.

Have awards for the cars.

Quite a simple thing to do. You could have a panel of 5 to 10 respected car people/enthusiasts who could award a gold, silver and bronze car of the today. You could have a visitors car of the day.

Have a car register, “Friends of Stonor”

It’s a simple thing to do. For all the people bringing cars and showing their cars at Stonor, the organisers can keep a list of those owners and their cars. The organisers can then email and keep in contact with the owners, maybe arranging special get togethers, tours, drives out, put together themes for the days for the show etc.

All in all I liked this event, it gets a 6/10 from me. The weather was great. I met some great people, some friends. Lots of nice cars seen, and it’s local to me. It will be interesting to see how this event develops over the years.