Coaching concours

20/04/2022 WebSupport Event, Features

Jonathan Welch reports from the 66th UK Coach Rally in Blackpool

The annual concours d’elegance that is the UK Coach Rally took place over the weekend of 9/10 April, with 46 entrants returning to Blackpool’s Promenade for the first time since 2019. The event took an enforced break in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but its return in 2022 was as popular as ever, with a strong line-up of well-presented coaches from operators across the UK. Entrants had ventured to the Fylde seaside town from as far afield as Aberdeenshire, Cambridgeshire, Cardiff, Devon, and Gateshead, whilst others came from closer to home with bases in Fleetwood, Preston and Blackpool itself. Vehicles presented ranged in age from brand new (at least one having been collected from the dealership immediately before the event) to 40 years old, all dating from the 2000s and later with the exception of two; Aldermaston Coach Lines’ very well presented 1993 Plaxton Excalibur and a smart-looking 1982 Plaxton Supreme belonging to Howard Snaith Coaches which took home the Top Plaxton trophy.

The event was first held in Clacton in 1955, and since then has acted as a showcase for the best of the best in the industry, being held at regular venues in Brighton, Peterborough and at Alton Towers over the years, as well as in London in 1957, before moving to its current northern home in Blackpool where coaches gather around the ‘Comedy Carpet’ on the Tower headland. This year’s event programme also paid tribute to the late Cyril Kenzie, whose coaches were a regular sight at the event, attending every one since its inception in 1955. Cyril himself won the Coach Driver of the Year in 1957 and 1965, and saw a number of his drivers take home the award in subsequent years. His Setra S215HD carried home the Coach of the Year trophy in 1982, one of the first European marques to do so after many years of dominance by the likes of Leyland and AEC.

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