Gambling; it’s something we all do from time to time, be it the odd flutter on the horses, a cheeky pound on the Lottery, your last dregs of change thrown into the local boozer’s bandit or a full on session at your local casino, but gambling on a cruise is not something we tend to do very often, so we decided we would!

The thing is, we heard about Street Scene’s Grantham cruise very late on, literally only a few days prior via Facebook, and if we’re totally honest, we hadn’t heard of Street Scene or know anything about the cruising habits of Grantham, so to us, it was a gamble to go out there!

My confidence in our decision to go was boosted by the way Rachel and her fella, Wardy, the organisers of Street Scene’s cruise, went about things. Constant messages updating convoy lists, endless promotion and very informative texts with the location and info regarding possible changes due to unforeseen circumstances.

I took a few cars along with me to sample Grantham’s cruising scene and we arrived a little early, so we waited, and sure enough, as per Rachel’s instructions, the convoys all converged on the location with the accuracy of a Swiss watch and almost in military fashion began to fill up the car park.

As it turns out the quality of the job Street Scene had done in promoting their event actually led to the car park running out of room a lot quicker than certainly I expected. We noticed convoys from Peterborough, Lincoln, Nottingham and Sheffield all turning out on a slightly damp and chilly Saturday night!

The first real action of the night came not long in, when Lincoln’s Police force turned up in a patrol car and a rather smart BMW X5; a vehicle that drew quite a lot of attention. Being used to Nottinghamshire Police’s zero tolerance attitude I expected the worst and began snapping away, but to my surprise, they were fantastic! They got out, they had a chat with people, had a look around some cars, had a few cheeky words with the odd cruiser regarding numberplates, but on the whole one of the best police forces I’ve ever come across and, in our opinion, the best way to handle a cruise!

Once the Police had realised that there wasn’t going to be a riot, or mass ethnic cleansing going off in the Matalan car park they headed on their way to leave the cruisers to it! This, of course, brought a little bit of ‘normal’ cruising action to the forefront, with various cars attempting to set fire to their own bumpers and onlookers, a big smokey burnout from an E36 BMW and some cheeky sideways exits from the car park back onto the main road.

With most of the well photographed and documented show cars tucked away, winter cruising allows others to shine and we found a few gems among the crowds including a stunning black Civic Coupe wearing tidy red Rotas, a very hardcore looking Vauxhall Corsa packing a full cage, fibreglass panels and a 2.0ltr engine on throttle bodies and a tidy red mk4 Golf, who has definitely managed to embrace the art of Stance.

Other notable vehicles that turned up included a lairy yellow Toyota Celica, a handful of Starlet Galanzas and Nissan 200SXs, a tasty black, Ronal turbo wearing Corsa, a fierce looking mk2 XR2 Fiesta, a sweet JDM inspired Polo and a mk5 golf with a Lamborghini twist.

All in all, our Gamble paid off. Street Scene have managed to put themselves and Grantham on the cruising map, and although Rachel is going to have to find a bigger car park for their next event, Street Scene seem to be on the perfect track to being one of ‘the’ cruises to attend in the future.
For further info, or to check out their forums visit www.street-scene.co.uk or keep an eye on our Facebook page by clicking the icon on the left.

Pic Credits – Ollie Novell

400.0