MPH ’04

Exhibitions and trade fairs inspire mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, there’s the excitement of vast halls of interesting stands and exhibits to see and visit. On the other, there’s the dawning realisation that unless you’ve got a pocket full of cash there’s not really all that much to see.
Possibly one of the least exciting jobs in the world ever is being a “PR girl” at a trade fair or exhibition. It’s your job to smile, be gawped at by lascivious men, and hand out carrier bags of brochures. This, I imagine, can be depressing. And that’s why the woman sitting behind the counter at the entrance of MPH ’04 was looking particularly mournful, and was happy to let visitors take their own bags of goodies off the counter rather than hand them out herself.
An event like MPH really isn’t my sort of thing, but at work we’re a part sponsor so some tickets came my way, and with a spare afternoon with nothing else to do, I took myself off to Earls Court to see what the fuss was about.
Years ago, motor shows were notorious for their sexist outlook, with cars literally draped with bikini clad girls – well this was the motor industry. I never went to any of these shows, which tended to be held in places like Birmingham. The closest I ever got, was a Sunday afternoon highlights programme on the telly presented by someone like Noel Edmonds or Mike Smith. MPH, I was told, is different. For one thing, the motor industry for the most part can no longer afford vast stands dedicated to individual manufacturers. And indeed the only major manufacturer I saw with a stand to itself was Suburu. And they’re hardly mainstream. Instead, it was the likes of HR Owen, and other major dealers and leasing outfitters who took up the larger spaces. Other stands were mainly occupied by accessories stands – the more expensive kind of accessory. So there were massage chairs (a surprising number of stands offered these), GPS systems, and stands selling holidays to Grand Prix in foreign climes – well we’re not guaranteed a GP in the UK yet are we?
The main reason for attending was the theatre show in which we’d see various cars put through their paces in a large ampitheatre. But that wasn’t due to start until 3.00pm. I made the mistake of arriving at 2.00pm.
I can’t tell you how bored I was. In case you hadn’t quite realised yet, I’m really not a “petrolhead.” I simply don’t get excited by seeing shiny cars that cost more than a reasonable sized family home in North London. I don’t want a photo on my camera phone of me standing next to a Ferrari. And since I don’t own a Ferrari, I don’t want to by a Ferrari T-shirt either. And if I did own a Ferrari (I can tell you here an now, this will never happen), I certainly wouldn’t want a Ferrari T-shirt.
The clientelle at the show was, unsurprisingly male. There were a few women there, but I’d not be lying if I said that many of them looked like they spend too much time in the world of motorsports. That is to say, very glamourous and rather disinterested. That’s probably a massive slur on an entire sport. Sorry, not sport, hobby. If I may, I should explain that motor racing is a hobby. That’s why you’ll never see it in the Olympics. At its height, it’s an engineering competition. That’s why Formula One is so exciting. You see more overtaking at the Lord Mayor’s Show.
There was a distinct lack of what I’d call normal cars. Family saloons, small city cars. Well I did see a Smart car, and a mini – but that was a cabriolet. And someday could someone please tell me why I should care so much about Eddie Stobbart. They’re a haulage company right? As far as I can tell, their USP is that their drivers wear uniforms. Does anyone collect Exel Logistics toy lorries?
As is the way with these things, I had an initial scout around to see what there was. Then, when I got back to the start, it dawned on me that I’d seen most stuff, and there was now a full 50 minutes before I could at least be entertained in the theatre. A couple of stands had computer games which was mildly entertaining, although there were inevitable queues to play. Bose, that most over-rated and over-priced of hi-fi manufacturers, had a room where they could show off their audio wares. Again, you had to queue. You could also go into the paddock, but do be honest, I’d be happier hanging around my local garage watching MOTs happen than go there.
I nearly gagged when I saw the size of a Hummer. Some tosser was driving one around Golden Square a week or so ago looking for a parking space. His name was Nigel. How do I know? It was on his licence plate. Guess what – Hummers are really hard to park. It’s a bit like owning an HGV, except they serve some kind of purpose. Still, if CSI:Miami is to be believed, that’s what the Crime Scene detectives in Florida drive around in. The big downside with these is that I’ve seen Black Hawk Down, and they didn’t seem to fair too well in that.
The only moderately interesting stands were those devoted to stuff that had a marginal relevance at the show. So there was a stand devoted to CCTV cameras (well, you’ve got to look after your vehicles), and most interestingly, another selling small MP3 players. This was some South Korean outfit who I’d never heard of. They were probably doing the briskest business in the hall however, even beating the guy who was selling fake chamois leathers using traditional market stall techniques (for some reason he was using Somerfield No Nonsense Cola for all his demos).
Finally it was time for the show. We all got into queues the 20 minutes early as requested on the ticket and then they made us wait until finally letting us into the ampitheatre. It being a Friday afternoon, this was only two thirds empty downstairs, while the upper tier was not being used at all. Our hosts were Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell and Richard Hammond.
Now I must admit to sneakily enjoying some parts of Top Gear, while at the same time being largely dispirited by it. The banter’s entertaining, but I look at those who’ve trekked to the middle of Northamptonshire or wherever it’s filmed and think “why????” Clarkson can be an idiot with his deliberately non-green persona (scrap bus lanes, get rid of the congestion charge etc). But he can be fun. The other week he was quite a revelation on QI. So for something like this he wasn’t bad.
The show attempted to present itself as a kind of circus, so we had girls in top hats and tails, and not much more start it off, then a couple of acrobats in streamers. On the ground various cars and bikes did “donuts” and jumps in the relatively small area available. In between this sort of thing, there were semi-scripted bits of banter between our hosts. There were some reasonably spectacular performances from professionals who can turn cars on a sixpence, and perform motorcycle jumps of quite prodigious heights. We got the odd race between a couple of young British rally drivers, and also two of our presenters with special guests: X-Factor/Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell and celebrity restauranteur and mate of Chris Evans, Aldo Zilli. The bit when one of their stunt drivers did a bit of two-wheel driving and went through a small gap was very good, and even better was Tiff Needell attempting the same. First time around he quickly ended up back on four wheels. The second attempt saw him put the car on its roof.
The finale was saw a car being thrown from one side of the stage to the other where it crashed into a caravan that was there solely for that purpose. Quite a spectacular stunt that worked perfectly, which goes to show that with accurate weights, angles and pressure from an air canon, you can very accurately chuck stuff around.
All round the show wasn’t bad. Whether it was worth thirty quid (the nominal value of my ticket) was highly debatable, but it was fun nonetheless. Needless to say that with the show over, I scarpered pretty quick.


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2 responses to “MPH ’04”

  1. Disagreer avatar
    Disagreer

    Motor racing isn’t a sport, because it’s basically just engineering?! OK Formula 1 has turned into a big budget borefest. But that’s one hell of a brush to tar so many others with..from hill climbs, motoGP, the various forms of rallying (amateur and professional).. I’m sure they’ll all salute you!
    There are many formulas of racing where, thanks to things like rule restrictions (where everyone has to have identical vehicles) or simple budgetary constraints, the engineering takes a back seat to the skill of the driver. And many of these feature plenty of overtaking (take a look at a typical British Touring Car Race).
    Just my 0,02 Euros..

    M. – a “petrolhead”, apparently

  2. Adam Bowie avatar

    OK – maybe I am tarring everyone with the same brush! And yes I am really thinking of Formula 1. I still don’t really see any form of motor racing as really a “sport”, but yes of course there are classes of racing that use similar vehicles to compete.
    Actually I quite enjoy watching rallying (no thanks to the terrible TV coverage), although I’m not convinced it’s really a sport. It’s undoubtedly skillful, but then so are chess, darts and snooker. Not sure I want to see them at the Olympics though – and maybe that’s my arbiter of what really is a sport. But then even the Olympics has “sports” that involve judging.
    Motor cycling is also vastly superior to Formula 1. I guess it boils down to the fact that F1 is presented as the premier motorsport, and as such its a terrible advert for everyone else.
    I guess that I’m also prejudiced against motor “sports” because they seem to be realm of the privilidged, and that’s not fair on my part. You could say the same of yachting or polo. (Actually, now I think about it, I’m not sure that yachting should count either).
    So this all boils down to not being totally cut and dried either way!