Visitors to Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) waved goodbye to The Performance Car Show: Powered by PistonHeads.com as it closed its doors after two busy days. The show, which featured the cream of performance and sports cars, was enjoyed by tens of thousands of guests on 14 and 15 January 2012.
One of the show’s many highlights was the Porsche Club Great Britain display, which treated the show’s visitors to a display of members’ cars. Also on the stand was the Porsche RS Spyder Evo driven to class victory in the 2007 Petit Le Mans endurance race by Patrick Long, Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard, as well as the 911 Carrera taken to victory in the 2011 Porsche Club Championship by Mark Sumpter.
“It’s a brilliant show, I love it,” said Porsche Club Great Britain Chairman Alan Welshman. “We’ve had thousands of people at our stand this weekend; our area has been completely packed out on many occasions.”
The show has also been of interest to kit car enthusiasts, with exhibitors such as Hawk Cars and R-Tec Motorsports exhibiting in the Hand Built British Sports Car Pavilion. They were joined by SDR Sportscars, which showcased its WSR V-Storm, a new Subaru-based version of its flagship V-Storm range. The company put two of its V-Storms in the Live Action Arena, with 2010 British Touring Car Champion Jason Plato giving a demonstration of the 300hp machine in the UK’s largest indoor race track.
“It’s been great, we’ve met a wide variety of people this weekend,” said SDR Sportscars Director Simon Dickens. “People have been coming straight from the arena to have a look at the V-Storm. The interest has been incredible.”
The weekend’s dose of fun came through the Racing Bug’s stand, which featured a miniature race track that gave ten visitors at a time the opportunity to race each other with remote control cars.
BMW fans were catered for courtesy of a strong display from the BMW Car Club, as well as the first UK appearance of the new BMW 3 Series Saloon at the Autocar stand, where the publication’s road test team conducted several Q&A sessions over the course of the weekend.
Another highlight came at the show’s Supercar Paddock, where the public were able to get up close to a selection of the world’s finest cars, including the BAC Mono and Lexus LFA.
The Performance Car Show: Powered by PistonHeads.com was part of Autosport International, the world’s greatest motorsport show, which welcomed a host of stars from the world of Formula One, including Force India racer Paul Di Resta and ex-F1 driver David Coulthard.