When I was writing the blog for Players Classic I was tempted to include this too, however, the guys and girls behind Accents and The Drivers Collection put on such a good after show meet up that I felt it deserved its own post. I have been in the car scene for well over a decade and in that time, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of amazing people, especially through Makea. However, I am fairly anti-social and usually witness events such as this unfold on peoples Instagram stories rather than being a part of them so when the guys reached out to invite me along, I jumped at the opportunity.
For years now I have been a huge fan/supporter of what the guys at The Drivers Collection do with their personal cars, their show, merch and more and KJ at Accents is absolutely killing it both with designs and the brand vibe. You only had to walk around Players to see all the Accents show plates that summed up, the very much deserved, support that Accents gets.
Beach Road Relax and Refuel, probably the only exciting thing to ever happen in the very sleepy village of Pagham, just a few short miles from Goodwood and Chichester, saw some of the best cars and people get together in an unlevel (and incredibly dusty) chip shop carpark. We rolled up and parked in a nearby mechanics forecourt next to a shell of a french BMW E21 and wandered down the street to where a few cars had started to gather in this desolate wasteland of a carpark. The guys had reached out to the owners of the chippy about using this land to host a meet and I’m not entirely sure they knew what they were agreeing to because car after immaculate car rolled up and soon it was packed out (including the queue for the chippy).
The best thing about an invite only meet in a sleepy town is that you can curate the cars that turn up and the guys did good! Some of my favourites from the day at Goodwood rocked up and it gave me an opportunity to talk to some people. Finally getting to chat to Graeme (@cynical26) who now owns the E28 that featured on our Ikea tee and meet Samm (@sammjoey) and Cam (@kamikazi_mk2) in the flesh after conversations on the internet. Events like this is what car shows miss, the personal interactions that are usually drowned out by lairy music or the sheer number of people.
Before I get further into the cars, can we just address the issue that the guys managed to get around? Now as a southerner that managed to move a little further north, let me tell you, southerners don’t do fish and chips right, gravy improves them no end but trying to find gravy in a chippy any further south than the Watford Gap is nigh on impossible, but would you bloody believe it? Pagham chippy served gravy! A very fitting result considering The Drivers Collection northern homeland.
Back to cars, I mentioned in our Players write up that I didn’t get a chance to snap many photos of Dom’s Mini (@doomatt) so that was top of my list to shoot, but seeing all these other gleaming show winners left us spoiled for choice!
Being able to shoot more of Finley’s mk2 (@finnerz) is always a win, so many details in this build making it a dream! Since I first saw this back at Tucked at the Museum, I have fallen a little in love with this kaido racer inspired build.
A long time favourite, Charlie’s RS4 (@charliedunn) was also there. I think it must have been Edition 38 2015 that I first laid eyes on this car on 3 piece copper Rotiforms and it’s been through a fair few sets of wheels and some colour changes too since then, but this current set up is definitely a winner.
I will leave you to browse some more photos from the event and you can follow the link here to see the rest of our coverage. Huge thank you to the guys and girls behind The Drivers Collection and Accents for having me along to take photos, eat chips ‘n’ gravy and chat shit with people, roll on The Drivers Collection show in September!
