The hype for this show grew and grew all year round, and after seeing last year's videos and photos we knew we needed to attend this show our selves. So we booked the boat, booked the hotel and got the cars ready for one of the best UK car shows of the year. For this trip, team ILB consisited of myself and James Preston, Aaron Sloane, Tiffard Scott and Rodney McKnight. Robert Monteith also made an apperance with Kleen Freaks.

This was also the first time I'd be entering my own car into a show, so I was pretty excited. Making all the final touches to the car in the final week also proved stresseful. We fitted the new exhaust, lowered the front a bit more, replaced some destroyed top mounts, had the front bumper smoothed and resprayed and also handed the car over to PMG Autocare for a full detail - all in the last three days before we set off to the show. But we pulled it together with help from Pete & Richard at PMG Autocare and a few more helpful hands who popped in.

Arriving at the show on Sunday morning we were one of the first there. We parked up inside the main hanger, and gave the cars a clean. Then set about having a good look about the soon to be filled arena - which soon filled up. The main hanger was absolutely packed out with some of the nicest cars the UK has to offer. Outside there was even more cars, with them just going and going as far as you could see. There was ones there from all corners of the UK, France, Belgium and Spain. And in hanger two, Type Two Detectives brought along some of the finest air cooled VAGs I've ever seen.

The cars were on form, and so were the traders. With stands from Rotiform, Airlift, Wheel Whores, Type Two Detectives, Kleen Freaks, KW and Maxxis to name a few. We'll definitely need to come along with out trade stand next year.

As the day progressed we did the rounds. Trying to speak to as many people as we could, shooting some video and snapping some photos. We throughly enjoyed the show.

Players has an interesting awards system. Instead of handing out a 1st, 2nd and 3rd for different categories like other normal shows do. They award 10 people with a 1st place prize, which they call "Player of the year" award. For 2nd they give out a prize to 30 people they call "Winners"; and for 3rd place they give another 10 awards to the "Losers". No hard feelings though, as everyone with an award obviously has one of the nicest cars at the show. The traders then indivually pick their favourite car of the show. There is also an overall car of the show prize given.

And to top it all off, I managed to grab my self a "Player of the year" award for my Volvo c30.

A hugely successful show, with I'd guess over a thousand cars on show and thousands of people arriving to have a look around. We'll definitely be back next year, and recommend you to attend as well.

We'll have a video up in the next few weeks - so keep an eye out for that!

Photos by: James Preston
Show Organiser: Players Car Show
Words by: Adam McPeake
Location: Essex, England

Sections: #carshows

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