This a usually a great event with a huge display of vintage, classic & rally cars and also the well attended BHPNI show and shine competition. As always there will be some stage action in the guise of demonstration runs through the forest stage and thrill rides.
This year's theme is 20 years of the Lotus Elise.
As always there should be a huge turnout of Minis including a good number of famous rally prepared motors. Also included in this year's line up is the 1980 Unipart Rallycross Metro;
A few photos of it back in the day. I'll be at the show with my rally Mini so will get a few photos of the Metro in its restored state.The Metro came to the attention of the motoring public in 1980 with its launch at the Motor Show in Birmingham NEC on 14th October and was meant to complement and eventually replace the ever popular Mini.
Trevor Reeves had regularly and successfully used Minis to great effect over the years, and on hearing of the launch of the Metro, approached Safety Devises to see if they would be prepared to develop the new car for rallycross.
As a result of discussions it was agreed that work would begin on the development with the finished product being made available for the car launch - thus Project Metro was born.
Two standard Metro bodyshells were made available by the factory and working night and day Safety Devises technicians, using only the front two bulkheads from the standard cars, built a spaceframe clothed in fibreglass and fitted an engine supplied by Trevor Reeves.
The brakes came from the Austin Maxi, with double wishbone front suspension, a four link beam axle at the rear, and 9x13 inch Minilite wheels finishing off the beautifully prepared car weighing only 560kg, just in time to be shipped to the NEX where it received rave reviews from the motoring press.
However it wasn't until 1981 that the car was brought back into the Abingdon workshop to prepare it for its first outing at the Lydden Hill Easter rallycross, where it was debuted by Trevor Reeves.
This was the start of a number of outings for the car in the hands of Trevor before it eventually ended up on these shores after being bought by Jackie Harris who used it successfully on British and Irish Championship rounds.
It then came into the hands of Armagh Mini enthusiast Davy Aiken who began the long and painstaking process of restoring it to the excellent condition we see it in today and remains as the only works rallycross Metro in existence and possibly the last competitive works car to come out of Abingdon.
