Ford Fair 2023
Ford Fair is just one of those huge UK events that keeps us coming back year after year. It's all with good reason though - the Blue Oval badge is just as ingrained in British Car culture as we are.
It also has to be said that it's a massive show that packs Silverstone to the gills with plenty for fans of all types of cars. In fact, you'll find some of the very best builds here with a seriously diverse array of owners. It makes sense, too. People have been modifying Fords right here on our little island for decades and decades now, it's one of the more traditional modifying marques which tweaking Fords a bona fide multi-generational pursuit. Young or old, first time driver or granddad, it's safe to say that there's a dream Ford for just about every British car fan out there.
Anyway, like we said we love the show, and each year we come in as a sponsor to bring the people exactly what they want - a huge display of top cars and a whole load of top Detailing Products from our range. And all we have to do is get ourselves up to Silverstone and get set up, pretty simple, eh?
It almost goes without saying that once we're all set up on the stand, the next part of the puzzle is getting the display cars prepped and finished to perfection before the gates open to the public. As we set up rather early and had a little time on our hands this year, we also sent out our detailers and other AF team members with a whole stack of products to help any show cars owners that needed any advice or just a helping hand with getting their cars to a show-worthy finish. We're not just makers of the world's best detailing products you see, we're all about the car community, too.
Every year we lay on a massive car display, and this instalment for 2023 was no exception. What we like to do is bring together a collection of some of our favourite sponsor cars to show off the finest from around the UK, and there was certainly plenty of amazing cars from all parts of the Ford stable that turned up to show their support. With plenty from both the old and new skool ends of the spectrum, there was loads to ponder for showgoers and, dare we say it? One of the best displays of the whole event. Here's just a few of our favourite AF sponsor cars from the day…
We've said it before and we'll say it again, one of the biggest attractions at Silverstone is the big tarmac bit in the middle, something that the Ford Fair organisers always make good use of. As always there was plenty to watch with all the public track time on offer, but even so, one of our favourite parts this year was that they actually had a lot of drifting going on, too. We even got involved in the old skool sideways antics by sending out our SR20-powered Datsun drift car.
Yes okay, we know it's not exactly a Ford, but believe it or not it does share a few parts here and there with its Blue Oval badged brethren… and besides it's hardly a standard old skool Datsun GX1200 anymore, either.
Our very own Archie "the Crazy Drift Kid' was let loose with a couple of tanks of juice and few sets of tyres to see if he could wow the crowd with the Ford imposter. Which, unsurprisingly of course, our champion drifter did… and then some. The rubber destruction and clouds of smoke really spoke for itself here.
One thing that always keeps us coming back for Ford Fair is the sheer diversity of cars and other vehicles on display. The best bit about this massive show is that you never quite know what you're going to find around the next corner. What with a large part being the fields and fields of club displays, Old Fords, new Fords, modified Fords and a whole lot more from the "collectors' end of the market that seem to be rarer than rocking horse bowel movements always seem to be high on the agenda. So, while we haven't got the room to show you all of the thousands of cars on display, we can at least show you a few of our favourites highlighting the mix of styles… just take a look at this lot from all around the event.
In addition to accompanying our stand with a massive display, we also like to show our support for Ford Fair by sponsoring, and judging, the Ford Fair Selects competition. This special show and shine features 50 cars that are pre-selected by the organisers, leaving us the job of whittling down the winners, and of course handing over a large bag of AF goodies to each.
This year, much like the rest of the event, there was quite the diverse mix of styles, models and eras on display. This not only made the judging super tough, but to some degree just a case of personal preference.
In the end we picked Sophie Irvine-Dunnett's rapid little Mk6 Fiesta for our first runner up, John Maxwell's super-clean Fiesta ST2 for our second runner up, and gave the top prize to Jackie Mason's immaculate South African Mk2 Escort. All worthy winners we think you'll agree.
So, yeah, what with that lot it's pretty easy to see why Ford Fair is one of our favourites out of all the single marque and specialist events on the show calendar. If you were there, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and if you wasn't? Well, just be sure to join us at Silverstone for the next one. You can keep an eye out on the Ford Fair Website for updates.
Thanks to everyone who popped by the stand to check out the cars and pick up some detailing products, and an extra special thanks to all our AF sponsored display cars. For more top show reports you can check out the Shows section of our blog.