The one-off village car festival that snowballed in size

It started with a few dozen cars and was only ever meant to be a one-off village event.

"But because of the enthusiasm of the entrants, it has snowballed over the years," said Andrew Smith, one of the team who organise Sunday's Audlem Festival of Transport.

Twenty-seven years on, the event - staged on the Cheshire village's playing field - attracts hundreds of vehicles and thousands of visitors.

"We open the entry list in January and by April we have over 300; we are limited by the size of the playing field, we literally can't accommodate any more vehicles," said Smith.

The festival starts on Sunday morning with a procession from nearby Hankelow, before wending its way through Audlem, and organisers believe this is key to its popularity.

"That's what the drivers like, when the streets are lined with people, and they can wave and everything else that goes with it," said Smith, who is chair of Audlem Special Events Team, a group of 12 locals who put it on.

This year's entrants range from cars from the 1920s through to the 2000s, plus commercial vehicles and motorcycles, as well as a gathering of historic boats on the nearby Shropshire Union canal.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is also set to fly-past during the afternoon.

Vehicles normally come from across the north west and the Midlands, but Smith said the event's reputation was spreading far and wide.

"This week we had a very late entry from a gentlemen in Launceston in Cornwall, who is bringing up a Porsche for the day," he added.

Despite being involved in the festival since the start, Smith admitted he was not actually a car enthusiast.

He said: "It's literally a vehicle to get me from A to B, but we really enjoy organising this, and it's the feedback we get from the entrants as well that makes it all worthwhile!"

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