Billed as the weekend to make 'Coventry city centre the Edinburgh Festival of cars', this inaugural event will showcase the long history of motor manufacturing in Coventry, where Peugeot played an important role, albeit for just a quarter of a century. With club stands, a cavalcade and the proposal to close the city ring road on the Sunday to allow invitation demonstration drives, this certainly sounds like it will be a great event. We plan to have a CPUK stand in University Square on the Saturday and Sunday for a static display of our older cars and we hope that club members with Peugeots that were actually built in Coventry will be able to take part in the drives around the ring road on the Sunday. See the Coventry Motofest website for further details www.coventrymotofest.com Please contact Doug Whiffen classified@clubpeugeotuk.org to book a place on the CPUK stand (Peugeots built more than 20 years ago) or to offer your Coventry built Pug for consideration for the invitation drives.
The weekend spanning the last few days of May and the first of June was the inaugural Coventry Motofest. A new event, I was keen to attend and promote a club presence as an event to promote and celebrate the city in which I live. In the end my hopes of a low key and easy club presence were changed a little as we co-ordinated with Peugeot UK, Citroen and the Citroen Car Club, with whom we shared the space in the city centre. We were allocated space in University Square, opposite the cathedral, and outside Coventry University. It turned out to be a good location space wise, but missed by some of the main crowds. Despite this the people who did come to look round the cars were friendly and seemed to be having a good time. As is often the case for two day events, the Saturday was less well attended, with my 304 the only classic Peugeot present, and the cloudy overcast day threatening rain served to keep the spirits of those present at bay. The Sunday was more popular, with members Chris Clements and Mick Huntley turning out in their immaculate 206 GTi180 and 405 Estate cars to add to the display, and even Simon Parker turning up for a few hours in the afternoon. Alongside us from the Citroen Car Club was Len Drew’s absolutely stunning DS as well as festival organiser James Noble’s CX Estate and on Sunday an SM and 2CV Safari! The event itself had a good feel to it, with car enthusiasts mingling with students and locals out and about for the day. There was plenty to see and do, with classic cars in the Broadgate covering all makes and marques, though as expected with particularly strong showings of cars made in the city, including a lineup of Standard cars outside the Flying Standard Pub! I particularly enjoyed the “short oval” setup in one of the car parks, with stock cars whizzing round creating plenty of noise and storm – check out the Facebook page for some videos of this! Half of the (in)famous Coventry Ring Road was closed on the Sunday with a classic cavalcade and various demonstration runs by some performance cars through the day, though I personally missed getting round to seeing any of it. All in all an enjoyable day was had by all who came. With the organisers looking to make it an annual event I am planning to return next year and I shall be pushing to get a club space in the middle of the other classic cars next year for the full vibe of the event – I hope to see some more of you there! 
