Ultimate Dubs 2017

Published March 16th, 2017

Words and Photography by Michal Fidowicz

It’s been way too long since our last show coverage. In fact, the last major show we attended was Players 10 which was roughly 6 months ago now. You can imagine how excited we were for Ultimate Dubs, and it seems we weren’t the only ones. Social media was going off left, right and centre in the run up to the show and it seemed like everyone was keen to get back to that show season grind. After all, for a lot of us car shows are an opportunity to not only meet new people, but to also catch up with those we might not get to see that often.

So let’s get straight into it – straight into all 250+ photos that are in this article down below. This is  Keep in mind that we’ll have a full film from the weekend coming out on our YouTube channel too in the very near future.

Part 1: The Convoy

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This was the first time William and I went up in convoy with people. We’ve done long journeys before, but this one was without a doubt the longest road trip-esque journey we’ve done since getting our driving licences just over a year ago now. Remember Will’s old Micra that blew up after Players? Well, that’s been replaced by a noble alternative indeed. Despite convoying along with the likes of Matt’s beautiful 7 series, Calvin’s A5 and Alex’s 413bhp S1… our new Yaris kept up the whole way.

Our whole Convoy lot were a laugh through out the whole trip, and whilst we expected the journey to feel like a lifetime we could have sworn we got up to Birmingham in 15 minutes.

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We pulled over at a petrol station at one point in order to group up with Sonny and his dad and a few more cars. This is where Calvin decided to remind us about his free scene tape…

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Part 2: Saturday’s Parking 

Since this was our first time at Telford’s Internation Centre we were a little puzzled with what was going on. We knew we wanted to attend the Saturday show as well as the Sunday one. After finding out that we had about 4 hours to kill before we were allowed inside the halls we decided to go into town to get some grub. The first place we went to asked us to leave because there were too many of us, and the second place had a go at Will for wearing a hat. Nice to know we’re more than welcome back in September when we come back for Ultimate Stance.

We promptly returned back to the car park, where I decided to do a round of the cars which had already turned up and snap up anything that interested me. Safe to say that first impressions were very good, and I was glad I wasn’t just surrounded by strictly VAG cars.

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I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the whole behind the scenes process of the show, and despite the car cleaning area being busy with cars constantly coming in and out the atmosphere remained relaxed.

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At this point we decided to search for the nearest toilet. After being pointed in the direction of Hall 3, we bumped into Jack’s Arosa hidden away near the main entrance to the show halls. The car is an absolute gem –  we’ll get back to it later.

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We also bumped into the Sourkrausts bug parked up round the corner from the venue. The whole Telford area was just swarmed with cool cars everywhere, making it quite clear that everyone and anyone wanted to make an impression. To put it into perspective how many cars were about in Telford, when I returned home from Players 10 last year I had about 850 photos to go through. When I got home on Sunday evening, I had a lovely 1,860 to get tucked into (I must admit though, sometimes I get a little trigger happy.)

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I absolutely love fans on mesh wheels. One day I’ll have my own set…

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This Cayman was without a doubt one of my favourite cars of the weekend. There’s something so perfect about the way it sits, and the yellow pain works perfectly with the silver Rotiforms. 10/10 job this one.

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Part 3: Inside Look

So technically, this is where the whole buzz of the show takes place. I’ve seen photos of the queues stretching outside of the building to get inside at previous Ultimate Dubs events so we didn’t take any chances and queued up for about 15 minutes before the tickets went on sale. Baring in mind we were getting tickets at 5:00 on Saturday, it only took about 5 minutes for the queue behind us grew by (and this is no exaggeration) about 20 times the size when we started queuing up.

So we were in, and then naturally we were surrounded by a lot of cars on… you guessed it, air and Rotiforms. But, but but, wait – Put down your pitch forks and just listen me out for a second. It’s easy to get carried and rant about this type of stuff, but if you take a moment to step back and look at the wider picture you realise that wheels and air can only make a car stand out so much. I can honestly say every car in the halls was so much more than just wheels and air. Take Bobby’s Rocco for example, the fella did his own boot build from scratch to start of with. He, split his Rotiforms himself and put them back together himself, his whole interior was redone in a lovely tone of brown leather mixed with wooden trims, and the car was repainted in a lovely non OEM shade of green. (He asked me not to say which manufacture the colour comes from, however it’s a brand with a rich history of… appliances ranging from reliable cars to reliable washing machines made in South Korea. This brand also happens to begin with the letter D and end in eawoo, but I’m afraid I can’t say more than that.) Seriously though Bobby, you’ve done a cracking job, and you definitely deserved that top 25 spot.

We’ll have plenty more of Bobby’s Rocco to show you in the near future over on our brand spanking new Showroom section of our website – Shout out to William for doing bits with this website by the way, I feel like it’s Christmas all over again.

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And then you also had the total other end of the spectrum, like Jack’s lovely pre facelift Seat Arosa sporting our very own Large Candy Banner. Jack wasn’t actually given an indoor spot before the event, however his handsome looks and luscious hair meant he could flirt his way in on Saturday. In all seriousness, Jack has knocked it out of the park with this car, it’s the perfect blend of a small static car with fitment just aggressive enough. Having seen the pictures of the state Jack found this car in (pretty much a barn find) and baring in mind this being his first build, I’m blown away by the quality of it all. I’m excited to see this build grow, and I’m sure we’ll find some time to shoot a Showroom feature of this sometime this year too.

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Without a doubt my favourite stand in the Halls was the EuroSpotter stand. The cars they had on show were exactly how I’d have them if I was to build a new TT, or a MK2 golf let’s say. They also had products I’d be more than happy to wear, and the lighting in their corner was just perfect. I’d love to go and get coverage of their show for you guys, however being based in South London it would be rather costly and I’m not sure if I’d be able to get the time off work. I’ll try my best though.

 

With that said, I think all halls hosted a nice array of cars and there wasn’t a single car that I thought to myself “well this shouldn’t be here.”

 

 

It was at this point we realised it was 9:00 and called it a night at the International Centre. We grabbed a Dominoes on the way back to the hotel, put on our dancing shoes in preparation for Vagroot’s night out and regrouped with everyone at a Wetherspoons Pub near the International Centre. From there we drank on into the night.

 

Part 4: Sunday Morning 

 

We woke up surprisingly fresh. It could have been a mixture of Sonny and Will dragging me home earlier than I wanted to, or the fact I ate half a cold pizza when we returned back to the hotel. Either way I was glad I didn’t feel I just hopped off the Jäger Express by the time we got back to Telford’s International Centre (which by the way was now three times as busy as on Saturday.)

I spent most of Saturday shooting the outdoor parking and filming for our UD film, so until that’s out I dont’ have much to say other than roll on the rest of the photos.

 

 

Part 5: The Return Leg Home

It was my first weekend away for a car show, and the first of many many to come. The rest of the lads behind Candy and I are excited to see what this year hold in store for us, and we’re hoping to attend a majority of the shows this year. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and YouTube (links over on our Social page) to keep up to date with what we’re up to.

As always, thank you for reading and see you in the next article.