Motorama 2012

One of the more popular events we organise involves us converting Olney Market Place and the surrounding streets into a youngster's dream and the more mature persons nostalgia trip. 

Well at least that was the theory in 2011 when we had over 135 classic cars booked into our Motorama and knowing that we inevitably have a number of cars turning up on the day, a bumper turnout was assured - or so we thought....however,

Mother Nature had different ideas

The otherwise reasonable weather of the week beforehand suddenly took a turn for the worst on Sunday morning and the showers at 8:00am rapidly turned into heavy rain and eventually a constant downpour. 

By the time of our 12:00 noon start, we were thinking a Boat Show would have been more appropriate but despite the rain, we were delighted when over 70 vehicles eventually turned up to turn a potential washout into a real success.     

Instead of being spread around the wider area however, we decided to throw out our planned layout and concentrate all the vehicles within the main square with only a few special cars being located outside of the main market place.



Umbrellas Rule - OK!  

It was great that we had so many visitors braving the weather and turning up to see the exhibits which was vital if we were to raise funds for our charity account and registered charity in England and Wales (261017).    Whilst a large sum is raised in advance by sponsorship we still needed to encourage visitors to buy a programme, take part in our raffle or simply make a donation if we were to feel that all our efforts were worthwhile.   Remember, making use of otherwise public areas prevents us from charging an entry fee so we do need to have a good turnout of people willing to take part in many of the 'side events' which accompanies Motorama if we are to raise the funds we need to make it a financial success.

We weren't disappointed thanks to that wonderful invention, the umbrella, and many hundreds of people braved the elements and dropped in which saw us filling our buckets with more than water.   For a few days, we were drying out the cash and counting it with the aid of blotting paper making it the first time our treasurer had found himself in the business of Money Laundering whilst still being on the right side of the law!

The Car Show

The cars taking part were competing for trophies in a number of classes which were judged by a team of independent judges.  In addition, all visitors to the event were able to nominate their favourite car as the "Public's car of the Day" with the winners, runners up and third placed owners receiving their trophy from Sandra Dibling, fundraiser from MacMillan Cancer Support who joined us on the day to make the presentations.

All in all, despite the adverse weather, it was a great day with some superb vehicles and Motorama is now firmly fixed as one of the major features of Life in Olney and an extremely popular event for the car owners who find the ambience of a town centre car show unique to say the least. 


Our motorama photo album  carries some more shots of the event but if you would like to see some superbly detailed photos of some of the days exhibits taken by local photographer, Kevin Viney, please have a look at the website of Kevin Viney Photography .   We would like to thank Kevin for taking these photos and allowing us to show them via our site.

Now what about this year?