A walk around an Irish classic car show

[The Vicar]

I spent a couple of hours at a classic car show today in the midlands in Ireland. I used to really enjoy shows, but have lost interest in the last few years. With Ireland being such a small country you tend to just see the same cars again and again. Admission prices have gotten far too much in the last couple of years too. Pre-Covid and when I was still living in Ireland, admission tended to be €10 wherever you went. I went to another show last Monday and was charged €30 at the gate!

Anyway, todays show was in a nice country setting and admission was a fiver, so off to a good start. Here’s what I saw:

[The Vicar]

More.

This was really lovely. Nice low mileage example in original nick:

And continuing the Opel theme; just gorgeous!

I do like a nice, un-messed-with Capri:

 

[The Vicar]

Was surprised to see this in the spectator car park with the window left down:

And this. IMO the perfect spec ‘B. Late rubber bumper car in what most people might consider an unfortunate colour. I loved this:

This was gleaming:

Remember when everyone was having their reg number etched into glass!?

[hairnet]

All the opels oof

[hairnet]

The brown car youre fired

 

[The Vicar]

A couple of very nice Cortinas:

And a couple of nice Beetles too:

And a nice Escort:

This lovely old thing had apparently made a 70 mile round trip under its own steam! Made me feel guilty about not wanting to bring my much more modern (and probably marginally more comfortable) Domino down!

[The Vicar]

This was very cool:

And this:

I really had to admire this. A bog standard GT Turbo with an automatic gearbox!

Patina:

Two very different types of Daihatsu Charade:

[The Vicar]

These two were the stars of the show for me:

[The Vicar]

This was a lovely example of a late Seicento. Interesting colour and a tasteful job done on colour coding the hub caps IMO:

And lastly, a very interesting local Imp that has seemingly been on the road (or at least taxed) continuously since new:

[hairnet]

Black one is wicklaa

 

[The Vicar]

So that’s all. I photo’d probably 30% of the cars present. Spent a nice few hours chatting to friends, strangers etc and headed home. A good result. Maybe hope isn’t all but lost for old fashioned shows. 

I regret not bringing my Domino down. I wasn’t too keen on such a long journey in it though. I took this instead, which got me there and back in comfort and with no complaints:

And recent pic of the Domino:

[tooSavvy]

SWMBO & I dropped in on an IMP Club 'area meet', in Teesside, last month. Met up with my old mukka Alan Platten.

I haven't been near an Imp since, well near 40yr.... Forgotten how 'compact' they are 😯.

I'll play the 'age card'..... GM Auto = easy street 😉

🚙💨

[DSdriver]

Thanks for sharing 😀

My brother-in-law and a mate drove to the south of France and back in an Issetta bubble car wearing pith helmets, this was in the 1960s before he married my lovely sister. So there was no reason for you not taking your smoll car unless you had a note from your doctor. 🙃

On a side note I always thought that the red retroflective plates were much more relevant to the rear of a car then the horrible UK yellow ones, after all rear lights are red.

 

[motorpunk]

Thanks for the pics @The Vicar - Skoda for me and the grey Astra (Kadett) please.

Ignoramus here - what’s with the red/orange rear reg plates on some cars? Haven’t seen that before.

[Wibble]

The red rear plates bring back so many memories of Ireland in the 70’s and early 80’s, looked like a great show, thanks for sharing.

[Spottedlaurel]

That Commodore is wonderful!

Aside from the obvious grey import JDM models, what sort of percentage of them do you think would be original Irish cars?

[Bren]

Commodore was a beauty.

[The Vicar]

16 minutes ago, motorpunk said:

Thanks for the pics @The Vicar - Skoda for me and the grey Astra (Kadett) please.

Ignoramus here - what’s with the red/orange rear reg plates on some cars? Haven’t seen that before.

The red plates were just the Irish equivalent of a yellow rear plate in the UK. I can’t remember when exactly they came in (sometime in the 60s I think), but they were never obligatory. 

Until 1987 there was no specific rule AFAIK. You could have black front and back, or white, or white on front and red on the back etc. Between 87 and 91/92 they were white front and back (like the Nova/Corsa A in the photos), and from then on the blue EU strip etc became mandatory. I remember when the EU plates came in lots of people with older cars wanted to modernise their motors with new EU plates 😅

[The Vicar]

18 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

That Commodore is wonderful!

Aside from the obvious grey import JDM models, what sort of percentage of them do you think would be original Irish cars?

Anything with a ZV reg will be an import:

(The plate here is red, which is period correct for Ireland, but ZV is for classic imports)

Then anything pre-87 with the XX-YY-1234 format will also be an import. When importing a car over 30 years old one can choose between a ZV plate of the current format:

(This is the current format which was introduced in 1987. This Kadett is a 1977 car registered in Co. Donegal. The numbers aren’t sequenced)

A pre-87 original Irish car would have the old style format:

(IK and ZH are codes for Dublin. IC on the Beetle is Co. Carlow. EI is Co. Sligo; note how on the older Sligo car the letters come first. I can’t remember when but I think they switched to numbers and then letters in about 1970)

There are hundreds of different codes for all 26 ROI counties on the pre-87 format. Take the Capri for example:

Once they reached 9999 IK, it would start over at 1 AIK, and once that reached 9999, 2 AIK etc. 

After 87 it becomes a bit more difficult to differentiate an import from an original Irish car:

The Corsa is an original Irish car, but the 25 is an import.

Apologies - I’m a bit of an anorak when it comes to plates 😁 it all makes perfect sense in my head but might well be gibberish..

[junkyarddog]

Ducketts Grove,Co Carlow,for those interested.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckett's_Grove

 

 

 

 

[sheffcortinacentre]

3 hours ago, The Vicar said:

A couple of very nice Cortinas:

And a couple of nice Beetles too:

And a nice Escort:

This lovely old thing had apparently made a 70 mile round trip under its own steam! Made me feel guilty about not wanting to bring my much more modern (and probably marginally more comfortable) Domino down!

Like the Mk5 2dr.

What idiot took all the go faster bits of the escort. Nearly as bad as the one some Muppet had put a pair of rear doors I recently saw?!?!?

[motorpunk]

8 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

Ducketts Grove,Co Carlow,for those interested.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckett's_Grove

 

 

 

 

I took a Morgan there once, was doing the Gordon Bennett route, just saw it by chance and stopped for pics. Lovely place.

 

[hairnet]

Did ducketts a ling time ago

[sierraman]

What’s going on with the rear wing on that imp? 😂

[DSdriver]

52 minutes ago, sierraman said:

What’s going on with the rear wing on that imp? 😂

Moths 🤣

[Blue 850]

The red mk2 127 has mk3 1300GT running gear

[tooSavvy]

3 hours ago, DSdriver said:

Moths 🤣

Ha Ha.... One of the IMPs, at the meet, has mildly perforated rear arch lips >> I turned to Alan, pointing, and said "Metal Moths!"

🚙💨

[GeordieInExile]

Was the R4 one of the domestically assembled ones...?

[The Vicar]

21 hours ago, GeordieInExile said:

Was the R4 one of the domestically assembled ones...?

Good question! I’m not sure, but I think so. I don’t know if all Irish 4s were built here or if there was a period when they were built abroad. 

That particular car had a lovely patina to it

[St.Jude]

Love this.

Its a pity the Shamrock didn’t make an appearance.