Autosport / Pistonheads show.

Right time to start catching up with what I've been up to already this year...

The Autosport / Pistonheads show was held in Birmingham at the NEC from the 14th to the 17th of January 2010.

The theme of the show if you haven't guessed it already was mainly an automotive one, however there were some fantastic engineering focused stands on display throughout the arena. 

Mark On Europe (My brothers company) was exhibiting there, & therefore I was invited to go along, help them with enquiries & of course take some pictures of the event :)

I was also lucky that the day I went was one of the press days, so it was not too busy. 

The Mark On Europe stand was alongside our friends at Caterham Cars UK, & we were directly alongside their CDX track ... so hearing took a while to recover! 

Those profesional drivers of theirs are seriously talented! I also reckon a little bit mad ;) 

I really enjoyed having a good wander around the NEC during the show, checking out all the great stuff that people were displaying, whether it was racing teams, part suppliers or simply engineering stands.

 Even got to see my first LFA, which back then was a pretty big thing, even though the guy on the Lexus stand ruined my illusion when you told me it was a non working replica... lame....

Radicals also always have me fascinated, stunning machines and even more so when you think they are road legal :-S Tad scary! Not that I think I could drive one to the shops and back... well I'd give it a go! 

Other great cars there were a collection of Formula 1 cars, & for me it was the first time I had seen the Brawn GP Formula 1 car up close, impressive to be in the presence of the world champions car.

I also had an opportunity to check out the new Mugen Civic, which was still unreleased in the UK at this point, the attention to detail on certain elements of the car was nice to see, such as the gauges in the photo. but to be honest does it really justify its own price tag??? I'm not entirely sure to be honest.

One of the most impressive things I saw during the show, was the painting with with the aid of remote controlled cars.

I later found out after the show that this artist was on Flickr. 

Ian Cook is the artist, and is working name is  "Popbangcolour" & as I mentioned he creates his paintings using radio controlled toy cars and other toy car wheels and so on. 

His Flickr group showing off more pictures of his work can be found here.

Awesome show though & I definitely look forward to hopefully being able to attend next years one!