Drove my Plus up to Bruntingthorpe proving grounds today to meet Autocar for the photoshoot in a feature they are planning for the 7th or 10th February 2010 - Unconfirmed as yet

Day started at 7:30 am - with a drive up to Leicester. Once there (9:20 am) I had the chance to meet the other guy's in the shoot. The cars present were .....

2000 - Fiat Coupe 20VT Plus (modded with custom cat-back)
2005 - Renault Clio 180 RenaultSport (modded with sport cat and custom stainless)
1999 - Peugeot 306 'Rallye' (Standard)
1998 - Honda Integra Type R (Standard)

Started with a sit down and a chat about the cars with the article writer (a girl called Vicky, "what a girl?" I hear you cry - she knew her stuff!), then a chat about how the day would run and the positioning for the cars for the various shoots to be held - drawn by hand

The shoots were...
- Rolling 4's
- Rolling 2's (Fiat & Integra)
- Test driver by article writer
- Fast speed cornering shot
- Best interior for interior driving shot - (guess who won
- Static interior, engine and body
- Static mug shot by car
- End of day chat and finish




Best part of the day? At the end, we needed to head back from one end of the runway to the exit - the other end. Somehow it was decided that we should have a drag race (ala top gear). We lined up, Stu the photographer gives us the 1,2,3 ... and we went. Of course the coupe won by a huge margin ..... losers and if I had my Steely it would have been by even further

Got to say that most of the day we were standing around doing nothing but talking amongst ourselves, but they were a great bunch, so the day flew by really! We also took it upon ourselves to park the cars (while not being tested/used) to park them under a 747 that happened to be there! (Photo's below)








End of the day, Autocar filled our cars up with fuel and off we went.

We end up with a free copy of the mag and a copy of the photographs (this is the interesting bit to me)

All shots taken by me - not the photo guy. Hence why the coupe is the man focus is most



Last one - Is this the ugliest plane in the world?

great stuff patch, and a great advert for the top model of the marque....

Great stuff - looking good

And, yes, that plane sure is fugly.

Sounds like a really good day Patch.

Nice bit of memorabilia.

When does the article get released?

Looks like you had a great day Phil, some great shots there

Thanks all




Read the first post Insy and all will be revealed

Sorry. Lazy Fridayitis has set in!

Will make sure I buy a copy on release.

Looks good Patch - you had your cam-cover re-crackled?
Is that one of them Guppy planes - agreed Fugly

Has this article been released? I keep checking Autocar every time I'm in Morrisons but not spotted it yet!

No, there is a delay, I posted an email I got in the original photoshoot thread.

All I know is that will be featured 'soon' at the moment Vicky, the journo, will email us when.

I am growing impatient too!

Car looks great Patch, credit to you

Any update on the publishing date yet?

Nope ..... I'm getting pretty annoyed with this lot too, day off, let them drive your car, hang around for hours on end

I keep on looking each week (and reading the section that says 'next week') and it's never mentioned

every week I am looking in the magazine section at the local tesco express, in the vain hope it might be there

At last, we have some news! (all be it from a little pressuring by my good self!)

Email response below
________________________

Hi Phil,

Yes, sorry it’s been a bit of a wait for this. It’s going to be published in the 30th March issue, and the Fiat gets a very favourable review in it!

Hope that’s okay – I’ll get some copies of the mag, and some of the pics sent out as soon as its published.

Vicky

___________________________

Result, well done. I will definitely get a copy of the mag.

sounds like a cracking day! good pics too, so you won the drag, are you running standard, or are you modded ?

It was running bog standard. How boring!

impressive though....it still beat all the others!

Phil, did you have a Flea map on the car at the time of the shoot, or was that after? (I see it's not mentioned on your post)

That came after Duncan I did have a Longlife 2.5" cat-back on though! Forgot about this

Very very nice - will keep my eyes open for new Autocar's..

Car looks fab Patch and well done for stonking them all in the drag lol!

What plane is that by curiousity?

I don't know Did, but Nello thinks it's called a 'guppy'

I think it's the plane they use to transport wings

I went there last weekend to have a look around. The Super Guppy was originally designed to support the Apollo space program;
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Graphics/B377SG/index.html