Stapleford Park, 9-10 July, 2016

The premier national event on the Ferrari Owners’ Club calendar, the annual concours, sponsored by EFG International, took place over the weekend of 9-10 July, at Stapleford Park close to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, with participants enjoying fine weather throughout the weekend, despite forecasts to the contrary. This was the second consecutive year that this venue hosted the event, and the architecture of the Grade 1 listed country house formed a fine backdrop to the proceedings. Saturday was arrival, set-up, cleaning and polishing day, with the Bonhams sponsored dinner in the evening, followed by dancing until midnight for those who still had some energy after preparing their cars earlier in the day.

Considering that the gathering clashed with extremely popular Le Mans Classic event in France, plus the British Grand Prix a little further south at Silverstone, another popular classic meeting at Chateau Impney, and two major non motoring gatherings in England, the Wimbledon tennis finals and the Duxford Air Show, the overall attendance was good, albeit with predominantly modern variants of the marque. Local official Ferrari dealer, Graypaul Nottingham had a fine selection of Ferraris in their display, including a new to the UK GTC4Lusso, whilst nearby there was the EFG Special Car Display, which amongst the models on display included a pair each of 330 GTCs, surprisingly with consecutive chassis numbers, and 365 GTC4s, together with a pair of “Chairs and Flares” Dinos, a 246 GT and a 246 GTS. Adjacent to this display was the Oracle Finance promoted V8 Timeline display, featuring examples of all the 2 seat variants from the 308 GTB through to the latest 488 GTB.

The two concours lawns were on the opposite side of the house, with entries spread across 13 classes, although 2 had no entries, reducing the number to 11 on the day. A bonus for attendees was the display of a 250 Testa Rossa, chassis # 0752 TR, courtesy of Lord Bamford, which was displayed adjacent to the club’s welcome centre at the end of the main lawn. By mid afternoon, the class winners were called forward, and lined up along the centre of the main lawn, for the presentation of their prizes, and the announcement of the Best of Show award, which went to the 250 GT Lusso, chassis # 5339GT, owned by Dave Back from Surrey, which had been a class winner at the Salon Prive Concours in 2015.

Keith Bluemel
07/2016