Bicester Heritage: The young and the slammed
Tuthill's Porsche 911 RSR paid homage to the IROC 911s with its funky paint
Bicester Scramble has changed considerably over the last decade - as has the site. We perform a sitrep
New-build housing estates to my right, Porsche 911s in front of me and a bright yellow sign on my left reading ‘Bicester Scramble pre-bought tickets only’. I must be en route to Bicester Heritage’s first event of the year.
That sign really means ‘sold out: don’t waste your time unless you’ve already bought a ticket’. I’ve been to one Scramble before: the very first one. That had around 300 people at it; today it’s more like 7000.
A few things have changed, other than the queues to get in and out. For one, there’s new stuff. Previously it was bunker this, hangar that, but now manufacturers such as Alpine and Polestar have big showings. You could even take a Polestar 2 for a test drive.
The largest, most palpable difference, though, is the age of visitors. There's a torrent of young people in every direction, a cascade of zoomers in baggy jeans and mullet haircuts with their phones (naturally held in portrait format) out, snapping away for Instagram, TikTok and BeReal.
I’ve been to hundreds of classic car shows in my time, and this isn't generally how things are done. A typical Sunday-morning run involves middle-aged men, fried food in a roll and deck chairs.
How has Bicester substituted panama hats for Crocs? If anyone knows, it’s CEO Dan Geoghegan. He's the mastermind behind the Bicester Heritage site and was responsible for acquiring this former RAF base and transforming it into the 444-acre car theme park here today.
When I sit down with him in the central clubhouse, he attracts people like Twitter users to an EV fire – well-wishers, colleagues and irritating journos alike. It brought memories of the often-spoofed West Wing TV series featuring Martin Sheen walking through a corridor with a fleet of people vying for his attention.
“Under-30s are about one third of ticket sales," says Geoghegan.
"Go around a corner and it’s a complete surprise. I see things on Instagram later in the day that I’ve missed. It’s almost too big to fit into a day now.
“Social media clearly appeals to a younger audience, and we do that very well. And while the show has grown, we’ve done it by intensifying the quality, not dumbing it down.
“We’re also a very young team at heart. There are 500 people on site [more than 40 companies call Bicester Heritage home], and 150-200 of those employees are apprentices.
"We also support a charity called Starter Motor [which endeavours to get the generation of young people driving, maintaining and enjoying historic cars]. It’s an attractive place to work.
“Why go to a shed on an industrial estate when you can enjoy the vibrancy of a vision?”
We’re interrupted by his wife and 12-month old whippet. Surrounded by heavy classic car tomes and his faithful dog, he looks as though he has made a second home here.
*What does the future look like for Bicester Heritage?*
There’s still a lot of work to do at Bicester Heritage, as Geoghegan explains: “Our next step is the 15-acre innovation centre, which we will start building this summer.
“We’re curating a site which sets to disrupt. We’re looking for innovation leaders. We want to create a campus that creates a synergy a cluster can offer.
"We’re in the Oxford-to-Cambridge corridor, and Bicester is growing. Those people need jobs, and we can provide them.”
Dan remains tight-lipped about which companies will move in, but you can expect them to be futuristic and have an automotive base. Think drone companies, component manufacturers and fossil-free fuel makers.
Future plans for the site also include an experience quarter, a wilderness quarter, further work to the hangars and a 200-plus-room hotel, and Bicester Heritage even has permission to extend its track to a 3.5km circuit. Bet the neighbours in the new builds will love that.
Its transformation from an old RAF base to an event hub, test track, industrial estate and place to be seen at has come in less than a decade.
But what about the Scramble, the event that helped put Bicester Heritage on the map? Is it doing enough to entice this generation and the next?
On my way out, I bump into 19-year old Jay Eaton. He’s here with his similarly young friends. He tells me he found this place via social media and YouTube and he finds it more relaxing and varied than the Goodwood Festival of Speed. He said he would be coming back again, and I suspect he won’t be the only one.