We now enter the seasons where daylight lingers, less layers are worn, and of course when nearly everybody gets their pride and joy out to get their respective motors’ rubbers and fluids warm because they have been sat stone cold in the lockup.
The car show season kicks off unofficially at Castle Combe Circuit nestled in its home village of which it is named after, located in Wiltshire, UK. This track is quite a trek for someone who lives ‘up north’ so that is probably why I have never ventured this far before, but I can honestly say I did not regret the early start that Saturday morning. With a mix of ‘show & shine’ cars sitting pretty in their club stands and vendor tents, and track-ready monsters hauling ass on the tarmac, it was kinda like a small scale Goodwood, but instead of elite-level four (and sometimes 2 or 3) -wheeled weaponry, you have normal guys and gals who cherish their cars and just want to enjoy them however they like. Saying that, a Mclaren did show up, so…
Upon entering the circuit’s premises from across the road where we parked up the Demio in a grass field, I was drawn to this R35 and its clean and sharp look. The all carbon Knight Racer rear wing compliments the back end quite tidily, and even though its probably not all that functional, I can still appreciate the uniqueness of those bowed ends.
Innocent Blue Mica. I reckon the ability of the powertrain – from the looks of that single-turbo conversion – is nothing like the innocuousness of the name Mazda gave their colour option.
A stock-bodied S15 Silvia sporting the stylish Spec-R aero kit that could easily be mistaken for an aftermarket setup, especially with the rear-wing’s extravagant design including its integrated third brake light. The late 1990’s to early 2000’s gave birth to some of the most modern and fresh looking Japanese cars, that even to this day, pushing nearly 20 years old, still remain youthful in appearance.
Questionable styling on the rear end of this FD RX7. The rest of it including the fine details such as the metal flake paint and FEED carbon door handles add to the Mazda’s already characterful presence. The Scoot ‘Viper-style’ bonnet rounds it off nicely aswell. Very 1990’s Japan feels when I spotted this.
Ahh, the LanEvo IV. These generation of rally-bred beasts always make me swoon and I put it down to two things: the aggressive look without very much sharp lines on the car, and the analogue nature of the chassis, which in fact weighs ~1260kg in RS trim, which is unheard of in the modern gizmo-filled AWD performance cars of today!
These E30 M3s do give off a cool vibe, I will have to admit, even if I am more swayed by the 190E. You could tell the owner really treasured his Evo II model, as he had the boot stuffed with detailing kit which he obviously uses well enough to make the purple body gleam when the sunlight beams off the paint.
White on white RX7 looking healthy with its Borg Warner snail sitting snug in between the engine and chassis.
Walking through the paddock area, we stumble upon a set of rough looking, but well put together drift machines, mainly Silvias and Skylines, the odd Soarer, and then one brown coloured FD sat in the corner patiently waiting to rip up the course.
Dressed to impress 
Makes me wonder what Mitsubishi could have produced if they tried to rival and match the GC8 2-door saloon…
The ER34 Skyline you see above is easily ranked highly in my books for best in show. Very well executed, but I find it hard to imagine making a 4-door R34 ugly to be honest.
I am consistently irritated/saddened by the lack of well-built and styled Mazda 3/Axela MPS chassis, in the UK especially. I know of a few cool looking ones overseas, but never have I ever encountered one over here that hasnt been wrapped awfully or specced with distasteful wheels/aero. The limitless potential of both generations of Mazda’s hot hatch have been suppressed, I feel.
If I remember correctly, this fronter had a GTR badge on the front grille, but the rear tells us otherwise by the looks of the chrome ‘Skyline’ badge found on non-GTR R34s. Sorry to rant, but replicas do irk me a little bit.
The greatest FF to ever wear the red H badge 
Rays’ wheels from their Volk Racing line standing proud at Coordsport’s booth. Those new TE037 top-left in bronze are the company’s latest lightweight alloy wheel made from duralumin aluminium alloy, mainly suited for “high power, heavy weight premium sports cars” as its written in the brochure. The largest size 19inch model weighs a smidge over 8kg!
Another highlight of the show was this early generation VW Scirocco. I love the look of headlight deletes, do you reckon new cars would look cool with this mod? I wish I got more shots of this raw beast but thats my retrospective bane in life as a photog. Shame I did not see it out on track either.
Come on Mazda, give this thing some fighting competition from the Motherland! Don’t let Toyota with their FF Corolla beat you to it! 
The trusty Demio filthier than ever. Quick snack break and lens swap. 
This E46 in Alpine White wowed me, which isn’t difficult when I am met by one of the best M3 models to come out of Munich. Someone is ballsy/experimental when fitting current-gen M4(?) wheels to the predecessing coupe. It surprisingly suits the car almost perfectly, going to show how timeless this BMW is.
Import plates on a UK car? Yeah I can dig that 
Autoboost your style and street cred with a legit replica Japanese license plate 
Unsure of what bodykit this S15 has been dosed with, but it works nicely indeed, especially with that two-tone paint combination of brown and black. 
Twin Tourer V models, the big body mafia-mobiles. 
The M4’s behind survived just about when the ABS-less Mini locked up the front brakes 
Now this is where the action takes place. Castle Combe is actually bigger than I imagined, and lapping the grounds’ perimeter is atleast more than a couple of mile. Sessions were split into the standard ‘Run What Ya Brung’ format and drift demonstrations performed by those more familiar with track work. Its refreshing to go to a show where you can see cars in motion, thats when they come alive in a sense.
I’ll let the photos do the talking.
He/she was not slowing this down for no one; not even the latest RS in Ford’s lineup. 
Kanjozoku Spirit (?) 
Comment what you think Pocari Sweat is. No cheating via Google. First to be correct gets a bottle, haha. 
Total track usage 
So, thats your lot. Making the trip down south was worth it, especially when it can get tiresome seeing some of the same cars when attending shows in the northern part of England. I suppose it also gave me some practice taking panning shots, obviously I have loads to improve on in terms of composition and tracking, but for my first time these came out better than I expected. Stay tuned for future posts and let me know in the comments what your favourite car was out of the set!
Thanks for reading if you stayed this long!
志向 