Dubfreeze

Stafford Showground
20th February 2005

  
After a long, show-less winter, the troops were desperate to get on the road and begin another new year of the dub calendar. The first event of 2005 was the aptly named Dubfreeze show up passed Birmingham at the Stafford Showground.
Waking up early at Slugga's place in Basingstoke, we were soon on the way with Pola & Lee from No-Rice in the back. The 2-hour journey passed without incident and we were soon pulling into the showground car park behind a gorgeous beige Beetle. Once parked-up, we joined the queue of frozen punters waiting for the doors to open at 9am. I was regretting my choice of clothes at this point, longing to have a massive wooly coat and hat, but stuck with my sweater and hair! However, once through the doors, the hot blast of air hit and the wintry day outside was forgotten as the hall full of displays and trade stands came into view.
As one of the first into the venue, the obvious task at hand was to quickly look round the auto jumble for any bargains. After debating whether some new cut-price bucket seats for the racer were in order, I was tempted by a good-as-new leather Porsche wheel (admittedly, purely as an eBay-bound investment). Sadly I couldn't quite muster the £40 asking price, so instead I settled for a pair of chrome Beetle door-pulls, complete with their bling surrounds.
Happy that we hadn't missed any give-aways, we headed upstairs to find Rev. Geoff on the V-Dubs United stand. After stopping to chat for a while, we continued our route round the show. With the cabby finally getting under-control, I was enjoying not having to be on the lookout for parts all the time and could take more notice of all the beautiful polished air-cooled wheels for sale. There were plenty of Porka rims on display, each gleaming under the hall lights.
Next stop was the show & shine competition. Although mainly an air-cooled event, there were both air & water classes in the event. The stand-out cars for me were an immaculate deep-red split-screen bus on polished Fuchs and chromed engine, a bright orange Porsche and a rat-look Variant complete with side-mounted air-conditioning unit and fluffy dice!
For the water-cooled fraternity, there were a couple of very clean mk1 cabriolets, as well as two new Beetles. One was black with purple graphics, and the other was orange with a custom brown leather interior - the winner of the water-cooled class at VW Action the previous year.
Having used a huge chunk of camera memory on the show cars, I wanted to get back out into the car park to find some of the un-sung treasures of the show. However, with the temperature hovering around zero and a biting wind, no one fancied being out in the cold for too long. So, with the heating cranked-up and cameras at the ready, we took Slugga's Focus round up and down the aisles of cars, stopping to get pictures whenever a worthy one was spotted…
…And spotted they were! The car park turned out to be a hiding place for some of the coolest vehicles at the show. Several campers stick in the mind - most notably the tiger-striped bay, complete with sun visor. Additionally a pale-green mk1 Polo pimpmobile and a bouncing Americana air-ride beast definitely caught the eye!
With our need for a show satisfied, we headed to the nearest pub to fill up on much-needed food. Luckily for us, the carvery was just about to pack-up, so massive plates of meat were consumed, along with dessert, and some goading of Pola who clearly had the hots for the cute girl serving us!
Words & pictures by Tris.