IF YOU MISSED the Classic Motor Show at the NEC, well, you’re going to hate what I’m about to say. You see, it was the best show I’ve ever attended at the NEC – and yes that is the sound of me inserting and twisting the knife...

    By now some of you will probably be familiar with the Charlesworth dictum: go to an event too many successive times and you’ll be struggling with your own complacency. This time though, I’m really glad to say that the 2009 CMS was a superb exception – it was bigger and better and I’ve got the blisters to prove it.

    I attended the Friday between 9 and about 5pm, and even then I didn’t catch everything. I missed the live events, the pride of ownership and I’m really miffed at having missed the bike hall, but by then my shoes had turned into cheese graters (and I’d also been stupid enough to park in the West Car Park which didn’t have a shuttle bus service) and I was in danger of turning into a whimpering blubbering wreck!

    That’s what I didn’t see, so let’s get on with what I did... Oddly enough, despite being very familiar with the NEC, this year I did get a bit disorientated, not just because the halls were packed with what felt like more stands than ever, but possibly because I’ve never seen so many people turn up on a Friday. There really was a fantastic buzz to the show, which does make me wonder if people have finally had enough of the news being full of doom and gloom.

L to R: Superb Citroën concepts and rarities were on the CCC stand. Here we have a C-60, Bijou and C-10. Above right: Projet L from 1971.

    Where to start? One of the most impressive show stands had to be the Citroën Car Club’s which packed all manner of LHM-suspended oddities guaranteed to entice chevron-obsessed anoraks such as me. Yes there was a Mehari, a Bijou (there’s one just around the corner from me) and a GS Birotor (driven one) which are all fine curios, but the stars of the stand had to be the exhibits from Citroën’s Conservatoire.

    You’ll probably have seen one of the early 2CV prototypes before, but the 1956 C-10 ‘Coccinelle’ (or Beetle) was designed to fit in between the 2CV and the Traction Avant/DS. Powered by a flat twin-cylinder engine and featuring partial gullwing doors and hydropneumatic suspension, this stunning piece of futuristic design was axed in favour of the more conventional C-60. This was also on show and looks like the lovechild of an Ami 6 and a DS. The C-60 was eventually canned because it was costing too much to develop.