Coventry Motofest 2015

Coventry Motofest 2015

The first Coventry Motofest was held in 2014. It was such a great success that the organisers decided to hold another one in 2015. But not just more of the same, a bigger, better Motofest, with more stands and more sponsor participation.

Motofest is advertised as a three day event, this year from 29th to 31st May with the ‘mega’ day being the Sunday. I went along on the Saturday because the weather was forecast to be better on that day and so it turned out. Sunday afternoon’s weather was quite good too.

I didn’t go to last year’s event so it was all new to me. The first thing that struck me was Jaguar’s involvement. Coventry is Jaguar’s home city of course although it does not make cars in the city now. However, it has been recently announced that Jaguar have set up a ‘Heritage Workshop’ on the old Browns Lane site in the city. The plan is to restore customers ‘historic’ cars and also to build new versions of Jaguars racing models. The first of these is a ‘Lightweight E Type’ In this way the company’s connection with the city is strengthened. Jaguar have realised, as did Mercedes Benz (the Mercedes – Benz Museum Stuttgart – fantastic!) before them, how important it is to utilise its illustrious past as a unique and valuable marketing tool.

I don’t want this to be seen as a piece of Jaguar advertising, I have no connection with the company whatsoever; in fact it is one of the few U.K. car manufacturers that I haven’t worked for. The reason I have spent so long on talking about Jaguar is just a reflection of how big its presence was at this year’s Motofest. I was impressed and felt proud, as an Englishman, that we can not only look back upon great achievements in the past but we can look forward to a great future too. Thank you Mr. Ratan Tata.

I can see Motofest becoming a regular feature on the U.K. motoring calendar as Goodwood Festival of Speed and Cholmondeley Pageant Of Power have.

This Jaguar involvement is reflected in the photos I took –