Words & Photos by Henry Phull
Last weekend I returned to Stonor Park, just outside of Henley-on-Thames, for this year’s VW Expo hosted by The Association of British VW Clubs (ABVWC). Stonor is one of those shows where you can fully expect a chilled out day. The weather, however, was all over the place. Luckily the ground wasn’t too soft (getting stuck in mud at a car show can be a worry to some!) so the turn out was still generally quite good – but I imagine the temperamental showers throughout the day did still put a few people off. If you’re looking to see some of the cleanest Volkswagen and Audi show cars, Stonor Park is definitely the place to be – with a welcoming mix of air-cooled and water-cooled cars which makes a change from the usual shows that are strongly opposed to one or the other. It’s like one big happy family at Stonor. Allow me to take you through my show highlights…
OZ Futura’s on a Vento front-ended Mk3 Golf is a classic look and always works well, just like this 4-door example.
Der Steiner Rad’s on a Mk1 Scirocco, certainly different but I rather liked this look!
Nathan Kirk’s bagged 6N Polo certainly stood out from the crowd, sitting incredibly and tucking a set of 17″ T5 steels all round.
Mark Allen’s Mk4 Golf estate with Bora front-end conversion just made it out with his recently rebuilt Porsche splits, and managed to take away 1st place in Modified Water-cooled.
Loved the 80’s look of Nick Collin’s Mk1 Golf on three spokes, makes a change from the generic Mk1’s I tend to see.
I’ve always fancied a clean Mk2, Stonor as usual had a fantastic turnout of clean examples, like this Edition One G60 below on BBS RS’s – beautiful!
The RS’s were working equally well on this stunning 16v GTI on air.
Further into the park there was a strong presence of air-cooled Volkswagens, including this super clean Karmann Ghia on Method Race Wheels.
My Beetle of the show had to be Mark Sketchley’s 1957 Oval running a pair of Hayburner fender skirts which totally transform the car.
Back to water-cooled now, with Luke Gaiger’s Mk1 Golf with an Air Lift suspension and BBS RS combo.
I was great to finally see Paul Harding’s Mk1 Golf finished and on a show field, the car was looking mighty impressive.
I managed to capture Carl Levy’s Mk1 Caddy in the tiny bit of sunshine we got, those clay-brown centred BBS RM’s really popped.
It’s not often you come across a Porsche 356, let alone TWO…
Callum Brook-Jones’ Mk2 Golf on Bullet One wheels. Loved the colour of this thing.
Again switching it up from the BBS look, these ATS Cups suited this Mk1 perfectly…
I remember distinctly seeing this mezmerising bagged Audi 100 at last year’s show, and it was my favourite car there. Surprisingly I never bumped into the car since. A whole year later and it was still very close to being my favourite again.
Thom Airs’ Sea Blue ’66 sat well amongst the line up amongst the line of Beetles. I’d love to see some widened rear wheels on this.
It’s been a while since I saw Haps Gill’s Mk5 R32 Golf, probably Ultimate Stance if I remember correctly. He’s now changed the colour again and added a gorgeous set of CCW LM5T’s. Definitely the best this car has looked.
On the HD Autos stand this 6R Polo sat on the floor with Air Lift suspension tucking some eye-catching Porsche Cayman wheels all round. Bagged by our friends over at Studio Incar.
One proper 80s looking Mk2 Golf! Still always nice to see stuff like this.
Who doesn’t have time for a super clean Audi 80 Sport… Lovely.
I’m one of those people that can’t stand Bentley wheels on VAG cars, but I’ve found an exception! Colour coded, they really do look amazing on this bagged TT.
I’ll finish my round up with Oxford Car Audio’s awesome Audi S5 demo car on Air Lift struts, AccuAir e-Level management with VU2 and tucking some huge 21″ Avant Garde F541 3pc wheels. Check out the boot build too, featuring 4 Alpine PDX amplifiers, twin VIAIR compressors, diamond white leather, black alcantara and routered aluminium and perspex!
So there we have it, another VW Expo done. It was a shame about the weather, but this is Britain and it’s certainly not going to stop everyone! I saw a lot of cars there that I’d never seen before, which always makes a nice change from my usual show outings. Our next stop is Goodwood on June 13th for Players Classic, don’t miss it! See you there.