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SOUTH EAST PAST EVENTS

SATURDAY and SUNDAY 5th and 6th JULY 2003 – KM PAGEANT OF MOTORING - THE HOP FARM BROMLEY PAGEANT OF MOTORING

The KM Pageant of motoring at the hop farm follows the Bromley Pageant show a week later. The show is organised by Transtar Promotions on behalf of the Kent Messenger newspaper group, hence the name KM. This is it’s third year and it is becoming a very popular venue for the car clubs. The hop farm is a very pleasant place to be. The car show is held right outside the oast houses and stables where the shire horses are kept. The farm is not a working farm anymore and is now operated as a family entertainment venue but in it’s hey day used to be a hop farm for the Whitbread Brewery.
This was a two day event but we had decided to go on the Sunday only as we prefered to have all the cars together on one day rather than split between the two days. There were no restrictions on the number of cars we could have at this show so true to this years form we had another good turn out of 9 cars including the exceptional red coupe owned by the late Janet Crook whose husband Eddie brought it along to see if he could sell it.
Our pitch was located on the edge of the show ground positioned between the Lotus club and MG club both of whom were at the Bromley Pageant the week before. First to arrive was Eddie from East Malling, Chris Falcke from Faversham with his sexy red dashboard and Pete Mason and Kel from St Mary’s Bay fresh from the Bromley show, shortly followed by Alan, (Orpington) Steve (Romford), David (Shepperton) and Dave Leyland (Croydon) in his red ‘Pretty’ as he calls it. Dave’s silver coupe has yet to be repaired from his incident on the Brighton Run. Then Nigel Eggleton arrived from Ashford with an unintentionally modified exhaust. One of the tail pipes was hanging at a 90° angle downwards. “They were OK when I left” he explained, but they must have fallen off on the way. Finally, Tony Whitfield from Crawley arrived to complete the line up.
Things were quite quiet during the day so this gave everybody the opportunity to have a good look around the rest of the show. There was quite a large display of new cars to look at, nothing special except maybe a Lexus sports convertible that Linda took a fancy to and the twin turbo, V8 Audi RS6 that took my eye. Not bad for an estate car but I gasped at the asking price of nearly 60 grand. Then there were the classic cars, mainly club displays, American, Italian, British, oh yes and of course Japanese, represented by the Mazda RX7, Honda Beat, Toyata Enthusiast clubs and ourselves.
Possibly the highlight of the show for many was when two identical Lamborgini Countaches arrived mid-morning. They rolled in together both with their doors in the air so they could see where they were going and parked within the club display area. The owners seemed happy to show people around the cars although not in them and they revved their engines creating a loud roar intermitantly throughout the day. This practice is not usually permissible but no one seemed to object.
A slightly poignant moment was at the end of the show. We had just collected our plaques and returning to our cars when we noticed two men standing by Janet Crook’s car. They had been looking to buy a MK1 for some time but had not found a decent one as yet. They just happened to be driving along the road behind the hop farm when they saw us in the show so on impulse they decided to come in and see if one was for sale. They bought it there and then without haggling the price. Although Eddie was pleased to see it go it was a rather emotional moment as the realisation that the car much loved and cared for by his late wife was about to go. Our best wishes to you Eddie.