It is the 1965 Morris Minor Traveller Hearse that truly lingers in the memory. The British Classic Motor Show boasted exotica from the Jensen 541 to the Aston Martin DB5, but not even the Coleman Milne bodied Ford Zodiac Mk IV on the Classic Hearse Register stand has the quite jaw-dropping grandeur of funeral transport where there was space for just one mourner sat tandem fashion behind the driver - and where one end of the coffin would rest near to the glove box.
The Minor Hearse was possibly the pièce de résistance for one of the major events of the calendar. For the true classic car enthusiast, the NEC show not only marks the unofficial end of the season, it is the automotive equivalent of a glutton being given a limited number of hours to run riot in a confectioner's wholesaler. With 230 stands and 1400 cars to visit, a certain amount of pre-planning is essential. Should one start at the cardboard cut-out of Roger Moore, signifying 50 eyebrow-raising years of the P1800 at the Volvo Enthusiast's Club stand, or perhaps the most logical first port of call should be the E-Types or the Mini Coopers, to pay homage to their 50th birthday?
The best way for the car enthusiast to visit the Classic Motor Show is alone, for non-enthusiasts can find the conversational buzz distressingly akin to a lost Pinter play - “column shift, blah, blah, blah, MacPherson struts, blah, blah, blah, Mk 1 taillights, blah, blah; blah”. Strange as it may seem, there really are people who neither rhapsodise over the Vanden Plas Princess Three-Litre nor ever wish to do so. Occasionally you might catch a glimpse of haunted face of a NCESO (non-classic enthusiast significant other) as he or she is dragged off to appreciate yet another exhibit, but the vast majority of the visitors were scrutinising the cars with a mixture of awe, nostalgia and rapid mental overdraft calculation.
Then there were the cars that once populated the nation's car parks, but now barely survive in single figures; the yellow Chrysler Alpine GL, one time Car of the Year, or an immaculate red Alfasud Super four-door sedan on the Alfa Romeo stand, which has to be one of the few surviving examples of one of the great family cars of the 1970s.
The same club had also managed to source what is possibly the last roadworthy Arna - a Datsun Cherry with Alfa Romeo badging and build quality - and achievements of a similar magnitude could be found at the stands of Club Peugeot with their pale blue 403 Break and of the Fiat Motor Club GB, who had managed to trace one of the Stradas (“Designed by computer, built by robots!”) that was not enjoying a new career as a range of saucepans.
For a classic club to arrange a stand at the show takes a vast amount of planning and co-ordination, plus a considerable commitment for its members, while the achievement of the Victor club in having three FE Estates in exactly the same colour on their stand is akin to tracing three Bugattis in terms of sheer rarity.
Alex Lee on the PC-UK stand had single-handedly restored the only known police Mini Van, and in the Rootes Group zone of the show a Dodge Spacevan Caravanette was there to evoke a thousand memories of dismal 1970s camping sites, dining off Fray Bentos tinned pies and endless holidays in the rain.
Many of the clubs took justifiable pride in displaying some incredibly rare machinery, from the only Opel Commodore A Coupe in the UK or a Ford Consul-Cortina Mk 1 Super Estate resplendent in its Dynock plastic “wood” trim. The Gay Classic Car Group stand had the former Iraqi ambassador's Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and, in another hall, there was Clive Nelson's incredible Talbot Matra Rancho, the pioneering soft-roader that looks - and drives - like a Simca 1100 welded to a greenhouse.
Nearly all these cars had been restored to a standard beyond their original showroom state, not for the money, but for the pride of ownership. An Austin Allegro Equipe was so magnificent that it was hard to imagine just why buyers in 1979 largely spurned its metallic silver (decked out with tasteful orange and red stripes) elegance.
And then there were those cars that were a testament to the owner's powers of endurance. Owning a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing may take a combination of wealth, skill and more wealth, but to follow the example of Eastern Bloc automotive fanatic Sam Glover requires guts, determination and vast quantities of stamina. His Dacia 1310 Sport had visitors staring at it with much the same open mouthed expression as one who has inadvertently caught sight of The Jeremy Kyle Show for the first time. The Sport is an awesome vehicle. Based on the Renault 12, it was Romania's answer to the Ford Capri, which makes you wonder what the actual question was.
Some of the exhibits gave visitors moments of almost unbearable Proustian nostalgia, from the splendid Vauxhall Cavalier stand with gentlemen of a certain age muttering phrases such as “1981 LS” and “1900 GL” or the realisation that the launch of the Austin Mini Metro was over 30 years ago. Mass-produced 1970s and 1980s cars were attracting considerable attention, from a gleaming white Sierra XR4 and the Beta Berlina on the Lancia stand to the solitary Morris Ital SLX sedan, once a convenient joke for hard pressed comedy writers, but now occupying a place of honour at the Marina Club.
As to the greatest car in the show, there can be no question that it was the black 6/90 Series III on the Wolseley Register stand. The criterion for this tough decision is that I happen to like them and, around the show, some 47 000 visitors, from teenagers to pensioners, were making similar judgements. This year's show was a special one - the first Classic Motor Show appearance of a Morris Minor Hearse named Trudy. Events are rarely better than that. - The Independent