Buntingford Classic Car Show, September 2025

The Buntingford Classic Car Show happens every year at the beginning of September. Local motor enthusiasts bring their freshly polished and newly upholstered vintage vehicles to the High Street for people to file past, taking pictures, eating a newly defrosted burger and pretend they know what they’re looking at. It’s a place to see and be seen. 

With this visual diary, I wanted to capture the people I found at the car show, and what the demographic tells us about Buntingford as a place. Some worthy context is that in the week leading up to the event, like many towns across the country, Buntingford saw a large number of St George’s cross flags erected as a demonstration of a sense of national pride, closely linked to anti-immigrant sentiment and political affiliation with far-right party, Reform UK. This town recently voted a Reform candidate as councillor. In Buntingford, however, many named the car show as a reason for displaying the flags outside their homes. “No, it’s not anti-immigrant, of course not. It’s not because we’re far-right, of course not. You’re tainting us all with the same brush. It's for the car show. It’s because we’re proud of where we live.” 

The car show has been and gone. The flags are still flying. 

This project seeks to document the people I found at the car show, touching on ideas such as the self-proving archetypes of English towns, the generational divide and the idea that sometimes cars, like pets, can look like their owners.