► Petrol & Pride: the LGBTQ+ car meet
► We visit its inaugural show at British Motor Museum
► Around 180 cars and hundreds of attendees
Hundreds of members of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies attended the first Petrol & Pride on 25 July – the inaugural car show designed to celebrate inclusivity and diversity in the UK car enthusiast scene and automotive industry.
Why bother creating an event specifically for the queer car enthusiast? Because, despite progress towards acceptance of the queer community, safe spaces have been increasingly under threat and animosity towards it hasn’t gone away.
Trans rights are being ferociously (and unfairly) scrutinised, and the homophobic discourse that has surrounded cars like Jaguar’s Type 00 concept has been horrifying – it shows there’s still a long way to go.
But, as a gay man attending with my fiancé Ryan (pictured above), Petrol & Pride was heartwarming and life affirming. Anyone was welcome to the event, but it felt like a real safe space for the queer community – and one that allowed us to thrive and enthuse about the exact thing that brought us all there.
The idea came about from Darren Styles and Cliff Joannou – publisher and editor of Attitude magazine respectively – as well as Wayne Bruce, head of communications at Bentley.
Its organisers say it’s been set up as an event ‘for all car enthusiasts that are members or allies of the LGBTQIA+ community to show our collective love for and pride in both our cars and each other.’ The enthusiast meet-up, held on 25 July, was the first of its kind – filling up the car park of the British Motor Museum which just so happens to be in Gaydon. Geddit?
Around 180 cars showed up to the meet, with many attendees enjoying the sun and getting to know each other. Cars from across the spectrum were out on display; everything from a fabulously clean Audi 80 to a BMW Z1, Lotus Excel and more. Former Bauer Automotive writer Tom Wiltshire attended in his very clean Peugeot 106, while myself and Ryan turned up in my new Toyota GR Yaris long-termer (more on that in the months to come…). We spent the day meeting new people in the industry as well as avid car enthusiasts – and spent the afternoon catching up with friends and exploring the museum.
Many car manufacturers attended officially, too: Aston Martin and Jaguar were present, as well as Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Skoda, Volkswagen, Genesis, Peugeot, Scania, Renault, Dacia and Alpine. Lister Cars turned up with its CEO Lawrence Whittaker driving an LFT-666 that was wrapped in the event’s branding and Bentley (naturally) was in attendance – so much so that its CEO Frank Walliser arrived in an Orange Flame Continental GT Speed.
As well as free museum entry, a team of judges handed out rosettes and prizes. The most ‘butch car’ went to a Lava Orange 911 GT3 RS (with a super rusty Pontiac Catalina coming a close second), while the car with the best story went to an orange-wheeled Vauxhall Frontera that had recently been resurrected after it was left to rot in a pentioner’s garden… and only just managed to skirt through its MoT to attend the show. The most ‘gay’ car? A metallic yellow VW Golf Mk3 Cabrio.
I’ve loved cars my whole life – an interest and passion that absolutely anyone can have – but Petrol & Pride made me happier and more comfortable to be myself than precious few other public places ever have. Here’s hoping it’ll return next year, bigger and friendlier than ever.