BEAULIEU AUTOJUMBLE 2008

Held  on the Events Field at Beaulieu Motor Museum.

The Beaulieu Autojumble was held over the weekend of 12th, 13th and 14th September. The Friday is maintained as a trade day (though tickets can be obtained if you ask the right people) so a group of us set out to attend the first public day on the Saturday.

As we were travelling from the Midlands an early start was necessary and by 9:00 we had arrived in the New Forest and the end of the queue leading to Beaulieu Motor Museum.

Waiting for the starting gun.

The traffic management at the event was excellent and the queue of cars rapidly made it's way into the car parks.

Once inside the grounds we joined the assembled multitude waiting for the gates to open and at 10:00 a cheer went up and everyone surged forward.

It had seen better days.

Rapidly making our way into the maze of stalls we passed a rather sad looking fire engine next to the Bonhams marquee. It never ceases to amaze me how these things turn up.

Autojumble stalls in the red field.

The fields of stalls are coded by colour and we had decided to 'do' the red field first as it seemed to have the greatest concentration of Austin Seven related stalls. So, having arranged that we would meet up again, if separated, at 12:00 for lunch we set out...

A Ruby with slightly rearranged bodywork.

12:00 came and we headed back to the restaurant. We had a look at the map to see how much we had covered and the scale of the event sunk in. We had managed to do a small corner of one of the fields and projecting our progress forward it was obvious that we would barely finish one field by the end of the day. But, not to be beaten we finished lunch and set out again.

Many familiar purveyors of Austin Seven spares were present, some of them having duplicate stalls in different fields recognizing that few people would manage to cover the whole event but not wanting to miss a sale by being in the wrong field.

Need a bit of fabric?.

Tim Hodgkiss's very popular stall.

After another few hours of browsing through the piles of assorted car bits we took a short breather and then went for a quick spin around the other fields.

Having a breather.

The range of things for sale makes for a somewhat surreal experience.

An insect like single seater.

There are things that you would never expect to see and a mass of things that defy identification. Some of the vehicles are definitely one-offs but there are a reassuring number of more recognizable models.

Austin for sale.

Another Austin for sale.

We decided not to invest in the catalogue necessary to gain entry into the Bonhams tent to view the Auction Lots but as the cars they had for sale tend to be of the more exotic variety we were probably not their target audience anyway.

Coachbuilders demonstrating their wares..

To stand any chance of doing the Beaulieu Autojumble justice it needs the full two days though it can take it's toll on your feet. We are now debating whether to have a Club stand at the next Autojumble, on the plus side it would give us a better chance to find what we are after on the minus side it would make the event that little bit bigger!