It’s a fact that over the past few years cruising has suffered with bad press and a hike in fuel prices meaning attendances have been poor on all but the widely and heavily publicised ones, and more than a few ending prematurely due to minorities spoiling the fun resulting in police presence.

But whilst town and city meets have a constant battle to become as popular as the hype of events a few years back, one specific type of cruise has always been popular and had a strong following; the likes of Southend, Blackpool and Yarmouth all run with huge turnouts and when we heard of one taking place in Scarborough, having been before we knew we needed to make the trip!

So, what is so special about these particular events? What is it that makes them successful and busy? For us the answer is obvious, it’s the seaside! Having a cruise along the seafront gives cruisers that ability to make a day of it, take the family or a bunch of mates and turn an event that would usually last a few hours into a nice summer trip out. So, that’s exactly what we did, headed up nice and early where we soaked up the sunshine, gorged on freshly caught fish and chips, spent all our money in the form of 2ps and got sand in our shoes from the beach!

The main work publicising the cruise was done on Facebook by the teams at Scarborough Cruise and Fast-Car Cruise with the extra boost coming from news that magazine; Totally Modified would be there to cover the action. It just shows the power of social networks within the scene, with almost every space along the sea front being grabbed really early on leading to a nice long stretch of modified metal on both sides of the North Bay Beach Road.

The weather allowed everyone’s car to gleam, with some really special cars making the trip and hoards of people attracted down to have a look, and I’m not just talking about those with a modified car, families taking advantage of the long bank holiday weekend and folks on holiday also appeared to have a good nosey around in the sunshine too.

Onto the cars, and for me there was a stand out car amongst a crowd of really smart rides, the Series 1 Escort RST with a full Cosworth conversion including 4WD drivetrain! The car was immaculate, caged up, paintwork underneath that you really could eat your dinner off and sounded amazing as it rolled up and down the front before parking up. The only real fault I could pick with it was the crowds round it meaning I was struggling to have a look myself, amazing car!

Other cars also caught my eye on one of my many wanderings up and down, often dicing with death as I dived backwards and forwards across the road to check out the rides. Another engine conversion that grabbed my attention was that hiding in a 6N Polo, the polished and chrome parts caught my eye and on further investigation I found a 1.8 20V Turbo lump hiding in there. With a nice chrome cage the only hint to its claimed 250+ bhp.

Turbos were also found in other vehicles you wouldn’t normally expect to find them with Corsa’s and Novas both making an appearance with the addition of a blower, but one of the coolest had to be the Renault Extra Van packing Renault 5 Turbo power, very cool!

The Modified Nationals team were also there, with the bright green demo S14 pumping out tunes and the Babe Squad handing out flyers for their big show at the end of this month. Yorkie’s Saxo has undergone a colour change, from the light baby blue to a fresh minty colour and drew lots of attention, probably a trend he will have to get used to as he will also be at Modified Nationals with the new Acclr8 project!

A Trio of Evos were parked up towards the end of the row, with a blue, white and red one in an almost Japanese line up of the Italian job except the red one was one of the very special Tommi Makkinen edition cars, surely on everyone’s dream garage list!

Stance wasn’t ignored, a blue Civic coupe was parked right on the deck courtesy of hydraulic suspension and both a Mk4 “Bolf” and latest Jetta were both showing unbelievable fitment, both of the static variety and for those fans of the slightly older generation; Mk2 Golfs and E36 BMWs were present.

For fans of the bodykit, there was plenty of that too with one of Elite Bodyworx latest creations being a big arched white Saxo attracting attention along with a mad green Calibra and Clare Scott’s wild Rieger Escort Cabby!

Seaside cruising is the best, keep an eye on the guys in Scarborough or hook up with your local hotspot for all the info and of course we will try to keep all our fans in the loop on facebook.com/garageawesome. We had a fab day out, defiantly worth the trip and the future of cruising will be pushed forward by the guys at the seaside! Top work guys!

Words – Ollie // Pictures – Ollie

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