I wanted to go to the FoS last year, but unfortunately the Friday my mates were going was on the last Friday of my Post Office training and although we finished early it was still early afternoon and not really worth going - if there were even any tickets left on the door.
This year it was all planned in advance and I swapped work hours so I could get the Friday off (cheapest day, at £15 - it's £40 on Sunday!). Got a lift with Keith where we met Andy (ex-work mate) in Midhurst - or just outside it 'cos traffic was horrible - and I went the rest of the way in Andy's Marcos. That's a convertible 4-litre V8 powered roadster type thing that bears closest resemblance to an older TVR. Very nice inside, real leather, proper wood and comfy with it. Just a pity we hardly got out of 2nd gear pootling through the traffic. Nice V8 engine note though. I think I prefer my Scooby sound, but this was faster. It's for sale if anyone's interested (mail me and I'll pass the details on).
The red arrows were there doing a display while we ate lunch and a hurricane flew around later on too doing aerobatics.
Most mainstream manufacturers had a presence there, plus magazines, some car clubs and a lot of old racing cars (Formula 1, rallying - eg. the Paris-Dakar, the first Scooby to win the WRC, 50s and 60s single/twin seaters, world-record breakers...).
They'd hung the world land and boat speed record vehicles up as the main showpieces in front of the house - the BlueBird, a fast seaplane and the jet boat that broke the record way back when (300mph).
All in all a great day, definitely worth the ticket price and I've seen and heard a lot of great cars. Walking right up to the windows on the new Ferrari 612 (4-seater! eh?!!) or a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, or the latests Aston Martin (DB9) or seeing the crazy Koenigsegg (sp?), or the newest Noble (M14) up close is an experience you don't get every day. Or anytime, normally.
I was also pleasantly surprised how much it wasn't rip-off prices for food too, although the programmes were quite expensive (a tenner). I'm definitely up for going again next year. There is a 'revival' day/weekend soon but that doesn't interest me so much. I like the old cars but I enjoyed the newer ones more (with the odd exception - Ford GT40, Ferrari GTO to name a couple).
There were some painfully loud motorbikes, their soapbox cart challenge (although you could hardly call them soapboxes, as a lot were designed by manufacturer teams and pretty hi-tech).
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