The British summer is officially here! Well… almost, if you ignore the downpour of snow we had at the weekend followed-up by a load of rain. But the clocks go forward this Sunday, so as far as we’re concerned it’s the start of summer. Deal?

The weather might argue otherwise, but earlier in the month the UK Show Season kicked off with Ultimate Dubs – an event which has (unofficially) become known as the ‘start’ of the season even if it is a VW-specific show. That being said, it certainly didn’t put off a massive amount of non-VWs from attending both inside and outside the show…

Not just other Euro stuff, either. BMWs, Mercedes, Nissans and even the odd Ferrari. Ultimate Dubs is becoming more and more diverse as the years go on. In our opinion, this is only a good thing. The show remains VW for the most part, but with the odd infiltration of ‘rival’ marques it completely changes the pace and feel of the event for the better.

Because everything on display – for the most part – is built to an incredibly high standard. And if a VW fan can take some inspiration from a non-VW car on display, we say bring it on!

If there’s one thing we’d liked to have seen more of, it was fresh new cars on display. There were a handful of new builds, a decent amount of refreshed cars but an awful lot of the same show cars as displayed at last year’s events. Now March is pretty early on in the show season, so we’re hoping it’s just a case of there being a load of dedicated petrolheads slaving away in the garage for the next big event.

But criticisms aside, it feels good to be back on the show scene with all the familiar faces. 2018’s going to be a good year!