Ultimate Stance 2017

Published November 23rd, 2017

Words and photography: Michal Fidowicz 

It’s way too easy to start this article off by going on a tangent about how much we’ve been up to this year, and the amount of miles we’ve covered, and so on and so on. We’ll save that for later. Right now let’s talk about Ultimate Stance.

The only time I’ve been to Telford before was for Ultimate Dubs earlier this year. I originally presumed that hitting the same venue twice in one year would make for a pretty boring time and I’d have a strong sense of déjà vu as I wondered around cars I’ve already seen multiple times before at previous shows.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself very wrong.

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I’ve got no clue what was different but the atmosphere definitely wasn’t the same as it was at Ultimate Dubs, both inside and outside. I don’t know, maybe they knocked down a wall or two or changed the colour of the carpets or something. Equally it could be my memory failing to keep me up to speed.

I guess the fact that the show wasn’t limited to just VAG cars played a massive part in preventing me from getting bored. I’ve banged on about this in endless articles but the key to a successful show is to have variety. A load of golfs lined up in a row is all very nice and pretty but it gets repetitive after a short while. Chuck a few Fords and Hondas in there, dash a few BMWs into the mix, a few American cars… you get the idea. In my opinion it keeps things fresh and there’s always something to learn from the way other cars are built.

The outside was packed full of interesting stuff, although I feel like it didn’t catch my attention as much as the Ultimate Dubs line up did. I don’t know, maybe the way the cars were parked was different. Also it didn’t help that it was constantly raining. With that said the quality of cars was still pretty interesting, and I kept being drawn to the Japanese cars scattered about the place. Maybe I have a jap itch somewhere and I’ve just not found it yet…

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One thing that left me scratching my head was the fact that there was a big chunk of the car park locked off with nothing in it. The amount of cool cars that turned up on the Sunday for the ‘general car park’ could have easily filled up that area and gave the them the attention they deserved, as well as giving the visitors something extra to look at. Also those people that made a weekend of the show weren’t allowed to leave their car in the general car park overnight. I can’t think of a reason as to why this was the case, and it really made life a pain in the arse for people like me who wanted to go out drinking on the Saturday and avoid driving on Sunday morning.

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There was a lot of cool metal that grabbed my attention inside the show. As you can imagine, standards were very high and everyone put in a lot of effort to get their cars looking as good as possible.

There was a friendly atmosphere in the air there was a very good variety of cars on display. Once again, the few European cars that came over for the show gave everyone a good taste of what the car scene is like across on the continent.

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… remember that Jap itch I mentioned earlier?

But don’t get me wrong, as you can see from the photos there was a lot of great cars which grabbed my attention from all areas of the automotive world. All in all, I enjoyed Ultimate Stance and I made a lot of good memories that weekend, which it what this car thing is ultimately about. Other than my comment about the outside parking I felt like the people behind Ultimate Stance put on a good show and did a good job of selecting the best stuff the UK has to offer whilst still keeping it fresh, which is hard to do when you’re the last show of the season. One thing I frowned upon though was the bloke giving out the awards, he made a totally unprovoked comment about the appearance of one of the lads who won an award and gave off a really weird attitude towards some of those who won an award. I’m as keen as most for banter, but there’s an obvious difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone. Anyway, let me leave you with some more photos of cars that really stood out to me.

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Right so I thought I’d save these photos for last because this hall, without a doubt, was probably my favorite display of cars I’ve seen at any show this year. I was truly taken back by the quality of cars, and they all complimented each other perfectly. I wish the lighting in here was a bit better so I could have gotten more photos.

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Even though show season is over, we’ve still got a lot content in the pipeline for all of you lovely people to enjoy between now and next show season. Be sure to follow our Instagram to keep with everything we’ll be getting up to, and as always thank you for reading.

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