A feast of motoring from the pioneering days to modern times is planned for Regent Street in the heart of the West End this weekend
Pre-Christmas shopping in London’s West End will take on a different slant this Saturday (1 November) as Regent Street is turned into a huge – and totally free – motor show.
Cars on show will range from the pioneering vehicles from the dawn of motoring to futuristic machines from today and tomorrow, with plenty of alternative forms of power to the fore.
Hundreds of veteran cars, getting ready for Sunday’s annual Bonhams London to Brighton Run, will be taking part in the prestigious EFG International Concours d’Elegance. As well as petrol-powered vehicles, there will be veteran cars powered by steam and even a pioneering electrically powered veteran.
And while there won’t be any modern steam cars on show, there will be plenty of brand new, pure electric cars from the likes of Tesla, BMW and Renault. The Regent Street Motor Show is the place to see what 110 years of progress looks like. Among a host of latest models on show will be the groundbreaking BMW i3; Renault Twizy, Captur, Twingo and Zoe; Infiniti Q50, OX70 and Q50 Hybrid plus three examples of Tesla’s luxurious Model S.
Other modern car marques on show will include Mini and Morgan while there will be special tributes celebrating 50 years of the Ford Mustang as well as 40 years of the powerful Porsche 911 Turbo.
Fans of TV’s anarchic motoring show can enjoy the full Top Gear Experience while motorbike enthusiasts will learn all there is to know about an exciting new European classic and racing motorcycle festival, to be held next year.
Bikes raced by superstars Freddie Spencer, Christian Sarron and Wayne Gardner will be on show and the men themselves will be there, happy to sign autographs.
Now in its tenth year, the Regent Street Motor Show is a unique showcase of motoring from the Victorian and Edwardian eras to the modern day.
This ‘mile of automotive style’ sees the famous street closed to traffic from Piccadilly Circus to Oxford Circus for the day, so that enthusiasts, shoppers, London residents and tourists can pore over a huge variety of mouth-watering machinery embracing everything from motoring’s pioneers to the latest supercars. Last year it attracted more than 400,000 visitors.
Providing personalised information for all these visitors via an app on their smart phones, Regent Street's partner, autoGraph, is installing extra beacons on exhibits up and down the street. Content has been created to specially explain the exhibits based on the profile of the consumer – petrolheads will receive detailed technical specifications for the car; families with young children will get a cartoon and observations about the car suited to pre-teens. Where a car's owner is in period dress, fashionistas will get Edwardian fashion tips.
Beacons also will alert consumers to where they can buy programmes and, in the GP legends area, the beacons will be on the moving motorcycle exhibits so visitors will get fresh content as the GP machine is ridden past.
Regent Street will be demonstrating the latest technology in a fun and personal way, all driven by the consumer themselves, making Regent Street as smart as any website!
The Regent Street app, powered by autoGraph, can be downloaded from the iPhone App Store.
