Around 2500 cars were on display at this year’s Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional, but just fifty were positioned around the ornamental fountain in front of Grimsthorpe Castle – a chosen few painstakingly selected months earlier as the most exceptional of the unexceptional, to compete in the Concours de l’Ordinaire.
While the fifty cars are chosen by the team at Hagerty UK, judging for the concours is undertaken each year by a team of… well, I was about to say experts, but perhaps enthusiastic amateurs is the better term: people who absolutely understand what’s great about FOTU, the cars and the people that make the show what it is, and are diehard, incorrigible petrolheads to the core.
On this year’s team you’d find Steve Cropley, journalist for Autocar since 1991 and an automotive writer since 1978. Steph Hoy, best known under her brand and YouTube channel ‘idriveaclassic’. Richard Bremner, with four decades of car writing to his name and before that a stint at Austin Rover. Jesse Billington, staff writer and photographer for Classic Car Weekly. Gary Axon, journalist and Goodwood PR manager. And Jon Bentley, TV presenter and producer who worked on Top Gear, Fifth Gear, and The Gadget Show among others.
Then there’s me, making my judging debut at this year’s FOTU, but very familiar with the show, having attended every event at Grimsthorpe Castle, and having contributed to its promotion and the car selection process back in 2021 and 2022 as the former assistant editor on this very website.
Still, it’s one thing writing about FOTU after the fact, congratulating the winners and picking out highlights from previous shows, and quite another to take on the daunting process of whittling fifty cars down to a top three – a trio that hopefully fit the spirit of the event and one that sets the tone for future competitors and attendees. So… how does it all happen?
Thankfully, most of the judges already know each other from various events and other Festivals of the Unexceptional over the year, so little time is wasted with pleasantries over breakfast, and instead we start formulating a basic plan for the day. This year we’ve decided to find a baseline car, something that represents FOTU from the moment you see it, and then decide whether subsequent cars can better it or fall short.
The scoring system, out of 100, isn’t what you might call scientific, but it at least gives us some idea of where everything ranks so we can deliberate it later with some degree of efficiency. Cropley comes up with the smart idea of putting extra points in the margin if a car has a particularly great story behind it – the idea being that even if the car itself isn’t the best on the field, a compelling ownership tale can drag it back into contention.
So one by one, we make our way around the entries. Not all cars are accompanied by their owners, so during the course of the day we try to revisit cars we didn’t quite learn enough about earlier on. Squeezing seven judges around a car can also be tricky sometimes (and a little intimidating for some owners), so while one or two conduct an interview, a few others might poke around inside the car, or catch the attention of the next owner down so they’re ready when we all move on.
Favourites begin to emerge pretty quickly, but it’s clear even after seven or eight cars that the story is just as important as the metal and plastic. Our eventual second-place car, Matt Swinn’s Toyota Previa, immediately caught our attention for being an immaculate example of the kind of car that often got used and abused in period, so it was always going to score well, but it got even better when we heard Matt’s story, and that this seemingly immaculate car is still put to work hauling musicians and instruments around for his band.
Other cars blew our mind for their condition despite their age or mileage, while others still were simply survivors: one of our ‘commended’ cars was Jack Duxbury’s Ford P100. These Sierra-based pickups got driven into the ground as hard-working vehicles and quickly disappeared, and while Jack’s car was definitely rough around the edges, he was managing to keep it alive, welding in new metal himself to ensure it survives well into the future.
Another of our commendations included Maia Egan and her brilliant little Fiat 127. Maia was clearly nervous to chat to the judges but soon relaxed, and her commitment to the car, her first classic, was based around her love for it after an aunt had owned one many years before. While past family ownership was instrumental in Maia’s choice of car, it felt as much like the start of a new story being written, with many years of enjoyment still to come.
Marwin Jansen’s Kia Clarus Wagon was another favourite. The serial collector of rare and unloved cars travelled from the Netherlands for the show in a car that’s rare over there and never even came to the UK. We loved that he’d not only replicated the car’s stripey seat trim with a custom-made polo shirt, but had also created goodie bags full of amusing Clarus-themed ‘five senses’ bribes, including waffles to represent taste, and feeler gauges to represent touch. Naturally, we refused to be swayed by such underhand tactics, even if they were hilarious and very tempting, but we’d also love to see more of that kind of creativity at future events…
The judges ended up spending around two and a half hours before lunch and then another two hours afterwards wandering around each car and speaking to the owners, before returning to the Hagerty Driver’s Club tent to deliberate on the results.
While our scoring system meant certain cars immediately put themselves forward as candidates, choosing a top three certainly wasn’t easy. Eventually we ended up deciding not just on a podium, but also five cars to commend (including the P100, 127 and Clarus mentioned above) that were simply too good not to bring everyone’s attention to.
By now you know the results: Third for Jake Seddon’s 2001 Ford Focus, second for the Previa, and first place went to Gordon McNeill’s 2001 Volkswagen Polo E. Gordon’s story was another one still being written, with 20 years of ownership behind him but a lifetime still to come. It stood out as a real contrast to the stories we hear so often at FOTU, where a car has been passed down through the family, or bought to replace one sold many years ago. It was a tricky call, because the 176,000-mile Polo had peeling lacquer and wasn’t as immaculately-kept as many other cars in the Concours, but nothing better represented the spirit of why the show exists.
It was a tough call to make – as anyone who was at this year’s FOTU will tell you, the quality of the unexceptional metal on display was outstanding. But it’s telling that, despite our different backgrounds and preferences for individual cars, we were in almost unanimous agreement about the vehicles and owners that should rise to the top.
Was it hard work? Well, it was a long day in the sun and most of us skipped lunch to fit in all the cars, but it’s difficult to call a day spent peering at cars and talking to their brilliant owners a tough job. That’s why several of our judging team have done it for multiple years running, and it’s why no doubt some of this year’s team will be lighting up Hagerty’s inbox asking to do it all again next year.
Have you ever entered the Festival of the Unexceptional, or is there a car in your garage that deserves a spot on the Grimsthorpe lawn? Tell us about it in the comments below.
