Warwickshire Rod and Custom Extravaganza / Hatton Park
By Paul Johnson


Hatton Park, Warwick was the venue for the ”Warwickshire Rod and Custom Extravaganza” over the weekend of July 18-19-20. It’s a venue which could be the answer to the age old question from the misses “what about me and the kids?” The weekend is held adjacent to Hatton Country World which has a more than enough to keep them all entertained while you enjoy the Rods and Customs and catch up with people that you haven't seen since, er, well, last weekend at Wet and Wild! There’s a shopping village with 25 shops, farm shop, tractor rides, antiques centre, soft play area, adventure play area, a factory outlet, pony rides, garden centre,  pets corner,  bar and café, you can even pan for gold! All this and Warwick and Stratford upon Avon are a couple of miles away. I’ll tell ya, it made a nice change from bored kids and wife all weekend.

Our weekend went like this. The camping starts Friday, but we decided to go down on Saturday, duly arrived and paid in, found a pitch and made a plan. You put the tent up and we’ll have a look round says the gaffer. So off they went. I got the camp sorted and went off to find them, and spent a couple of hours wandering around.

About 5.30 we all jumped in the Pop and went into Warwick to find a Mac’s, couldn’t find one, so stopped and asked a nice policeman who told us “we don’t have one round here” so we headed for The Waterman pub about 2 miles from the camp and had a bar meal. Back to the site, kicked a football about, threw a Frisbee a couple of times, and decided it was time for beer!

Off we trotted to the disco which had been organised and found that there was a kids wacky warehouse type place in the same room, so that was them sorted for the night, and me and the wife sat and had a few beers.

It was quite sedate in there, not as wild as some I’ve been too, but still enjoyable. All over by 11.30, but I’m sure a few carried on back at the field, we crashed as we’d opted for “the quiet end” of the field.

Sunday, up about 8.30 made a cuppa, kids got fed,

They disappeared around the farm again! I took the Pop onto the show field and said hello to a few people I knew, then went back and packed the camping gear away. Met the misses and kids for lunch, and went back to take some pic’s while they stayed around the farm, they were still smiling! Result!

About 120 rods, customs, yanks, and vans turned up for the day, something for everybody’s taste!


Two strip cars both built by Frank Griffin.
105E runs a big block Chevy and runs 9’s without gas!!


There were some realy nice yanks, including this Plymouth and T Bird.


(Left) Quality rods were also around, here’s a sample. Eric Hollins owns this neat 37 Ford Cabrio (Right) Very Nice Pop


Cool T


Best in show went to this awesome 57, belonging to Rock and Roll guitarist Tony Sheridan


And finally, a shot of my trusty Pop, fresh from the paintshop.

If you want a show for all the family, put this one on your Calender


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