This show is held annually on the first Sunday of July on the grounds of Terenure College near my home. The host club is usually the Irish Jaguar and Daimler Club, also to be found on Facebook. Over a thousand cars are present from all over Ireland.
Some of the stands (‘stand’ here means a roped off area of a field) feature one make clubs, whereas others are for regional clubs covering different makes. Classic and Vintage car collecting has really taken off in Ireland in recent years, particularly in rural Ireland and shows occur right throughout the Summer season. At rural shows tractors and farm machinery are to be seen with great enthusiasm for makes such as Massey Ferguson and Fordson etc.
The first car shown below is a Bentley from the early 1950s. This car is the property of a friend of a friend. I really like the two tone paint finishes from that period and this one shows off its coat perfectly:
Another earlier restored Bentley from 1924 is shown here. Beside it is the proud owner in semi-period costume. The habit of dressing up in period clothes to match one’s car has not taken off here in the same way as it has at events like the Goodwood Revival. There was, however, somewhat more evidence of dressing up this year than in previous years.
The show covers all categories of road vehicle , including this tram which was originally a tram trailer in the UK but was converted into a replica of a Dublin tram. This tram has featured in a number of films set in the early part of the 20th century.
American cars are a popular category every year. The large gold Cadillac shown below looked like a beached whale standing in the middle of the show grounds.
Another American car was this lovely Plymouth Coupe (called a ‘Coop’ in the US). I have used the silhouette setting in Silver Efex to show the outline of the car and also to eliminate background clutter.
My own favourite cars include British sports cars from the 1950s and 1960s. This pair of an MGA and an Austin Healey 3000 look absolutely stunning together.
Here's another Austin Healey, a 100M
I mentioned one make clubs earlier and one stand that I always visit is the Mazda MX-5 Club stand. My younger daughter recently sold her MX-5 with some regret but she now finds her new car much cheaper to run. This photo shows members getting their prized cars ready for the show.
Another stand featured miniature cars. Bubble cars have really take off as collector’s items in recent years:
Motorcycles also feature at such shows and there were some stands just for bikes. The photo below shows a lone magnificent Harley Davidson parked behind the Morris stand. These would not normally be natural bedfellows but both makes have their attractions.
As this year is the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, there was a stand with featuring some vehicles from that time. This also included vehicles associated with the First World War.
The first of the vehicles from this period is a Napier 3 Ton Truck. This features some people in period costume, both military and civilian.
Below are some photos of a famous Rolls Royce Armoured Car which served first of all with the Brtish Army during the War of Independence and was then handed over to the Irish Army after independence. Its history is set out here.
It remained in service for many years but now it has been magnificently restored and maintained by the Irish Army.
This part of the historic display featured a St John’s Ambulance which was based on the Model T Ford. The display included a stretcher and period medical boxes as well as a field hospital in a tent.
This Rolls Royce from 1914 was donated to the British Army by Sir Stanley Cochrane of Dublin soft drinks firm Cantrell and Cochrane. It served during the war bringing the wounded between the front-line and hospitals. After the war Sir Stanley found it was too long for his garage (perhaps the garage had shrunk during the war!) and so he decided to sell it. An undertaker bought it for use as a hearse but he did not like the starting procedure so he sold it on again. After many years the car was restored and it often features nowadays at car shows in Ireland. The cut-out image of the WW1 tank at the rear is, of course, appropriate because of the distinguished military career of the Rolls Royce.
The show includes a lot of stands selling cars, parts and auotomobilia. On one of those stands I found and bought a copy of book from the 1950s with photos of sports racing cars taken by Louis Klemantaski using mainly Leica cameras. Here is Klemantaski himself on the front plate of the book using his Leicas at a motor race. That was a man who did not have to worry about the speed of his autofocus and could still get great photos!
The photos in this article were taken using the Leica Wide Angle Tri-Elmar (WATE) on a Fujifilm X-Pro 2. I find this to be an excellent and easy to use combination, giving an effective focal length range of 24mm to 31.5mm.
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