imperial war museum | Mario the Multipla

Yesterday we decided to have a day out in the ‘big city’. Having worked (and commuted) for twenty years I now work from home so it’s quite a shock to the system to go back. After a remarkably easy drive up which only took just over an hour we parked within walking distance of our destination with no problem, I find it amazing that on a Sunday parking is so easy and free! We strolled over to the Southbank where the Classic Car Boot Sale was being held.

At the entrance we saw this lovely VW bus and bumped into an old acquaintance who had previously purchased our old Citroen H Van. He had his lovely Renault Estafette on Display, although it is currently in disguise as an Italian! Having been a fire engine in France for nearly thirty years it was purchased by a film production company in 2012 and transformed into a Ferrari Team Vehicle for the movie Rush. Now ‘probably the most famous Estafette in the world’ it has had it’s interior converted into a camper while retaining it’s film role livery.

The Classic Car Boot Sale is put on by Wayne Hemingway’s ‘Vintage’ team who put on ‘Vintage at Goodwood’ several years ago. I was a little disappointed in the number of cars although there was possibly more than you realised as they were tucked away and often covered in goods for sale. A lot of the merchandise was in gazebos rather than with the cars but it was interesting to poke around for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately we didn’t find any vintage ‘must haves’ (well only a fabulous fur coat but that was over £400!), generally the prices I saw seemed quite reasonable, I was quite surprised as I thought the location would have ‘upped’ the prices. It does annoy me though when traders don’t have their goods priced, I’m sure it looses them lots of sales. It was a fun morning and we chatted to some nice people, especially the team who run Eroica Britannia – a vintage cycling event we were hoping to go to but which unfortunately clashes with James’ rally.

There was quite a varied but slightly uninspiring collection of cars, rather worryingly we were both rather drawn to the Austin Allegro, I think in my case mainly down to the rather fabulous ‘Marioesque’ colour! One area had been set aside for food traders, most of these were also cooking and serving out of period vehicles, there were so many Citroen H-Vans that I shouldn’t think there can be many left in France, it’s a shame we got rid of ours as there must now be a good market in supplying them to the catering industry. At least they were all selling interesting food rather than burgers. One lovely example had distressed wood paneling which looked really good.

Unfortunately the day was also very cold and it started to rain just after one so we didn’t want to hang around for too long. The show was on for two days and I think Saturday would possibly have been the better day as the weather was much nicer and I would guess that any real star buys would have been snapped up early on.

Following is a photo record of the morning… Once it turned to rain we left the Southbank and walked back to the Imperial War Museum, where we spent an interesting couple of hours wandering around the displays. As this is predominantly a car blog I’ve included a picture of the rather superb Humber Staff Car. I was hopping to see the new exhibition on wartime fashion but as we’d been walking around for several hours I didn’t think I could do it justice to the entrance fee and so left that for another time.