A Day Out at the Sir Jackie Stewart Classic

Local car enthusiast group, the Border's Vintage Automobile Club, celebrated their 50th anniversary this year and decided to put on a very special weekend, at Thirlestane Castle set in Scottish Borders. The castle's grandeur is apparent from the moment you enter the magnificent eagle gates, proceeding along a winding drive through the estate to arrive at the front of the dramatic fairy princess, red sandstone castle complete with turrets and flags blowing in the breeze and the sun beaming down.

Motoring entertainment on the day included timed speed runs by Scottish racing greats such as John Cleland and appearances of the Red Bull F1 car along the track which could be heard from the neighbouring town of Lauder. This is the first show for 2 years and had over 20,000 visitors over the weekend and with over 1,200 veteran, vintage and classic vehicles on display from all over the UK. The BVAC is one of the largest car enthusiast groups in the Scottish Borders and they started with only a handful of members, growing to today boasting over 200 members.

This year gave a taste of the best of Scottish produce with the likes of Belhaven Brewery, Tunnocks, and many more Scottish delights. Of course, we had to sample some of these treats ourselves!

Tartan really became mainstream due to pop culture in the 70's when Johnny Rotten was spotted wearing a tartan suit and the Bay City Rollers were at the top of the charts. It is said that this led to a demand in tartan upholstery. With so much interest in car upholstery recently, we wanted to make sure we were on-site and available to provide advice and show off our beautiful range of tartan fabrics suitable for car upholstery. Probably the best well-known car to be upholstered with a tartan twist was the MK1 Golf GTI, newly named and therefore the designer wanted to link the car style to Scotland, the home of golf. This is also where the golf ball shaped gear stick originated. Many other car companies joined this trend including Porsche who even today offer classic plaid cloths as part of their Porsche Exclusive program.

Inspiration doesn't need to end in the car, we found that a lot of our customers like to have matching accessories to the tartan in their pride and joy vintage or modern cars. With tartan being so versatile, almost anything can be made to match your paint colour or tartan car interior, from dashing Flat Caps that Sir Jackie Stewart is often seen wearing (Stewart Hunting Ancient is that green one you might have spotted), to luxurious Cashmere Scarves, the classic tartan travel rug, or even matching Dog Collars for your favourite pooch taking up the back seat. The possibilities are endless.