his year’s Classic Motor Show felt like the first ‘full fat’ event since 2019 – there was no show in 2020 because of Covid and the event last year, while it did go ahead, felt like a quieter affair as the shadow of the pandemic still hung over things. We didn’t run Car of the Year during 2021, as at the start of the year the country was still in lockdown and it was unclear whether shows would be back to normal or not by the summer. Indeed, the year’s inaugural event, Wheels Day, wasn’t held in 2021 and early summer events like the Beaulieu Rod and Custom Show saw participants coming out, masked-up and blinking in the light, like troglodytes mixing with other humans for the first time in what felt like years. It was all very strange. Thank goodness then that 2022 saw an end to all that and normality returned to car shows and the American car scene in general. It was as if people were desperate
