► A Wilton Classic and Supercar show preview
► Meet the man behind the show, see his car collection
► Lord Pembroke talks us around his garage
Imagine curating your very own car show. Everything from the choice of catering to the design of the posters is down to you. Every car on display is there because you chose it, and not because you’d taken the corporate pound and whatever cars the cheque-writer wanted to bring along. Being a petrolhead with means, some of those cars – Ferrari 288 GTO, Bugatti Veyron, Mercedes 300SL Gullwing – are from your own personal collection, but you’d tap up some of the key manufacturers for the latest metal too. This year you’d get McLaren’s new 570S junior supercar, the 675LT Long Tail and ballistic P1 GTR together, the first time that’s happened outside of Woking.
Lord Pembroke, who has spent most of the last year doing just that, is not what you’re probably expecting. The youthful side of 40 and dressed in an untucked shirt, jeans and a pair of Adidas trainers, ‘Will’ could easily mingle with the punters at this weekend’s Wilton Classic and Supercar show without anyone realising the deeds to the big house in the background have his name on them.
Lord Pembroke’s auto-biography
Trained as an industrial designer, he cut his motoring teeth with a 1.4 Puma, graduated to an R34 Skyline GTR, and for the last few years has been the owner of a spectacularly tasteful Bugatti Veyron, which lives in Wilton House’s permanent car museum alongside an eclectic bunch of cars including a Lamborghini Miura, track-ready Honda S2000 and the Porsche 956 in which Stefan Bellof set the still unbroken 6min 11sec Nurburgring lap record in 1983.
Bugatti, including Pembroke’s Veyron, plays a central role in this year’s 2015 Wilton Classic and Supercar show. Wilton hopes to have one example of every key model, including the hugely valuable, and just plain huge, 1930s Royale limo. Saturday is largely given over to classic cars, and Sunday, supercars, but other key exhibits include the Senna and Prost McLaren and Ferrari F1 cars that infamously collided in 1990 at Suzuka, effectively gifting the Brazilian that year’s championship.
What to expect at the Wilton Classic and Supercar show 2015
Although Wilton last year hosted a Group B-style rally stage, the show is generally a static affair, the draw being that you can get right up close and personal with the cars without having to battle through thousands of other showgoers, rather than see and hear them used in anger. But there are also workshop seminars, teaching everything from basic car maintenance to full-on engine rebuilds.
The show moves to June from its usual August slot for its seventh year running in 2015. ‘It started as a few friends meeting with their supercars at a pub owned by Chris Evans,’ explains Lord Pembroke. ‘But there wasn’t much space and I had a big garden, so I decided to continue holding it here.
‘I thought I better get some catering the first year so I brought in a sausage van and a burger can, but 5000 people turned up. I queued for 30 minutes with Nick Mason to buy a sausage – I don’t think he’s been back since.’ We’re told the catering provisions have improved immeasurably. We’ll find out for sure on Saturday 6 June when the 2015 event starts.
Tickets, more information
Wilton Classic and Supercar takes place on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 June 2015: www.wiltonclassicsupercar.co.uk for tickets and more details. And if you want to be reassured that this show is run by proper petrolheads, just check out Lord Pembroke’s daily runners parked on his driveway: an Alfa Romeo 8C and Range Rover Sport. Our kind of guy…
