My Trip to the Vag-Opel Show (Pic heavy)

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:00

I took a trip with Astra Owners Club this weekend over to Ninove in Belgium where they hold the Vag Opel Show. We have a relationship with them where by we come over and support them at a show and they do the same for us. This year they attended the Performance Vauxhall Show and we took 14 cars over to return the favour. This is the second year in a row I've been and it wasn't a disappointment second time round so I thought I'd share a few photos. I found myself almost embarrassed over the state of a lot of the chavmobils that attend the shows in the UK.

I don't necessarily like some of the styling involved but the workmanship is way above what we get in this country. They go in for a lot of smoothing, airbags, big rims and airbrushing.

Outside our hotel in Aalst.We attracted a bit of attention from the locals

The show

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:01

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:15

Cobra-UK said:
There are some nice cars there, there are also a lot of Vauxhalls

Funny that!

I was surprised we didn't see more Skodas. I only saw the one. It was mainly the Astras, Golfs and Audi A3/A4s.

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:56

kieranv said:
there are a lot of people on this forum with terrible taste, the vast majority of those cars come under the ooft category

I'm sorry I don't know what an ooft category is?

As for deleting the photo, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 19:17

I didn't post these in the hope that everyone would love the cars themselves because I think some of them are awful to look at. It was the quality of the fit and the paintjobs that caught my attention. They do things very differently abroad and if anything I wanted to encourage those who are into modifying to look further than their local halfords for inspiration.

Minxy · 21 Sep 2009 at 19:33

Lucero said:
A leather wing mirror. Serious?

The roof was also leather. Both to match the interior.

I get around : The pink thing is a little chevrolet.

Minxy · 22 Sep 2009 at 19:10

Captain_Slick said:
All of those cars are awful. What a wasted journey.

Not in the slightest. I'm in the bodyshop trade so for me it was an education. I like seeing what the trends are on the other side of the channel and the work quality. It makes you realise how little imagination most people have when modifying cars in this country.

To those who make comments about them not having style...I'm sure they think the same about us. The difference is that a lot of the work that I saw at that show was custom, something that is seriously lacking in the UK. The vast majority of stuff over here is bolt off-bolt on straight out of a box.