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I've been organising group drives among friends, and members of Pistonheads.com's lively forums, for a few years now.  What started out as a couple of local Elise and Caterham owners blasting to the coast for fish and chips on a weekday evening has become an altogether more organised and spectacular beast...

This year, in conjunction with my new friend Will Herbert, the 18th Earl of Pembroke - a Veyron owner - I planned to hold a supercar meet at his stunning stately home of Wilton House, not far from Stonehenge in Wiltshire.  However, Will and I have a certain enthusiasm in common.  New, big ideas kept springing up, and back as early as March 2009 I fired off an e-mail that read something like this -

"Will - let's get 100 of the craziest supercars all together in one place.  Let's go for a cross country hoon, from London to Wiltshire.  Then, let's play on the Hillclimb course all morning.  We'll do all that in secret but, when we get to Wilton House, let's make it an open event, maybe lay on some extra special goodies in a VIP tent for the drivers.  And while we're at it, get Pistonheads to have a massive Sunday Service meet in the back field."

Ambitious?  And then some.  Bear in mind, I'm not officially an event organiser and this whole thing would be put together in my own free time.  When Will replied in agreement, but with the suggestion that we also raise money for a local children's hospital charity (www.starsappeal.org) that he fronts, I realised this HAD to be the big one.  We set a date - August 9th - and I put all the wheels in motion.

I won't go into specific details about what it takes to arrange for over 100 supercars to meet up before breakfast time on a Sunday, for Aston Martin Racing to lend us the DBR9 race car, to arrange private and free use of an MSA approved Hillclimb course (with marshalls, ambulance, tow-truck, insurance issues) and so on because it can all be simply summarised as a lot of bloody hard work.

Nevertheless, the day came, and at 04:00 my alarm went off - completely unnecessarily, as I hadn't even got to sleep.  I jumped hyperactively into my trusty steed (my much loved Lotus Elise) and headed up to London to the start.  The picture on the right shows what awaited me as dawn broke over Hyde Park.

My Lotus though, much as I love it, was a little out of its depth.  I'd arranged instead for an alternative for the day - Ecurie 25 supercar hire club generously let me play with one of their Ferrari F430 Spiders, so I gave a friend my Elise keys (I still wanted that for the Hillclimb) and took my place behind the wheel of the Fezza.  Roof down, as I'd pre-ordered the good weather, and with the Italian national anthem playing loudly on the stereo the time came to lead the pack through central London.

The walls of Knightsbridge reverberated with a grand symphony of exotic exhausts and thunderous engines.  Weary, lost and leftover souls from Saturday night's festivities looked on in a mixture of bemusement and exhilaration as we screamed passed.  F50, F40, GT40, LP670SV, Diablo SV, Viper GTS, Aston Martin DBS, all filled my mirrors as we convoyed out to the M25, and then the M3.

The banality of the 50mph M3 roadworks was quickly made up for by the pause at Fleet Services - meeting up en route was a more convenient option for some, so we arrived there to meet Peter Saywell and his custom Zonda, the Enzo, a splendid green Mosler, a Farboud GTS, Morgan Aeromax, several more Lambos and Ferraris... there really were too many to list.  Fortunately, my handy camera phone can show you -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpgS8bEXLfs

From there on, it was open highway all the way to Wiltshire, and nature took its course as you'd expect.  There are some great stretches of road on the A303 and on a clear morning, we each enjoyed our cars and the spectacle in our own ways.  I was at the wheel of an open top Ferrari, which means only one thing - "poser".  So, it was on with the shades and wave at the cameras!  Like many others though, there were times when the lurid greens and yellows and and blues and reds and oranges stretching out, like my very own rainbow in front of me, proved too tempting to my right foot and I took the opportunity to give the 430 a proper seeing to over the rolling countryside.

Our destination was Gurston Down Hillclimb course, tucked away on inconspicuous farmland but nonetheless a serious MSA approved competition venue.  After completely filling the car parks, signing on and a quick briefing, I wasted no time in abandoning the Ferrari and jumping straight in the Bugatti Veyron, giggling at my own jammyness.  

We rumbled up to the start lights.  I've been out in the Bug before, but on this occasion it was unknown territory for Will and he took it 'reasonably' slow on that first outing, though the brief moments when he did plant his foot were a neck straining reminder of the Veyron's utterly mental nature.  Next time round, feeling more comfortable, Will went for a full launch-control start.  I was unfortunately no longer his passenger.  Mind you, anecdotal post event reports suggest a certain little black Lotus was going fastest of all through the corners anyway...

I'd been concerned that on the day there would be too many cars and too much queuing, but it all seemed to flow seamlessly with no wasted time between the succession of gratuitous burnouts, squealing starts, and the return of each pack of cars.  Honestly, if only we could have stayed all day!  And best of all, nobody stacked it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r49AyTLigxc

From Gurston we paraded to Wilton House, a few short miles of B roads away.  I'll make this a public apology - I'm sorry, Wilton, for completely blocking your roads that morning!  Will and his team had been publicising the event locally for some weeks, and via Pistonheads I knew I'd got the word out pretty well too, but we didn't know to expect a few hundred members of the public or even a couple of thousand.  What was immediately clear was that we'd done a good job, as in fact around 6000 people showed up!

One special attendee springs to mind though - he'd called me to confirm, twice, that he'd be coming along and would join us at Gurston Down, but I'd kept it a secret, just in case. As we left the Hillclimb he was nowhere to be seen.  Only when I arrived at Wilton (at the back of the pack) did it transpire that 'that Nick Mason fella' was parked up at the other end of the display with his McLaren F1 GTR!

Well that pretty much made my day.  Will treated Nick and I to a personal tour of his House, and from a window (opposite a beautiful Rembrandt) I got my first look over at the PH Sunday Service in the field opposite.  Blimey, that was busy!  300? 400 cars?

Later in the afternoon, four lucky boys and girls won a dream ride in the Veyron, Murcielago Roadster, Carrera GT and SLR 722S, and I'm sure they'll not forget that in a hurry.  It's nice to be reminded that this life of endless hoons and unlimited sports cars is not the norm!

In the VIP marquee, after being shown a moving film about the work of the Stars Appeal charity, it fell to Lord Pembroke and I to make a couple of short speeches.  With the grandeur of the occasion, the wonderful people that came along both as drivers, passengers and supporters (did I mention Tiff Needell dropped in too?), it really did feel a true honour to say my bit and my thanks.  I'm absolutely thrilled to have been able to put this event on, and all the 3am e-mail sessions were totally worth it.

I'd said on a number of occasions that I wanted to recapture the excitement of being a young lad seeing a supercar for the first time, and I for one am happy to say - I did.  With the British Motor Show dead and buried, and events like Goodwood FOS and Salon Prive getting rather expensive, I hope I've give something to the next generation of petrolheads.

The question remains though, and I'm asked it several times every day at the moment...

Next year?


P.S. PLEASE see this video - it's the OFFICIAL DVD trailer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnvMvnSonPw