This year’s Driving Day was the third and most successful at our new venue – the wonderful Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset.

In all, 38 cars from 25 brands were available to drive at the event – a unique date in the automotive calendar.

This year’s Driving Day was the third and most successful at our new venue – the wonderful Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset.In all, 38 cars from 25 brands were available to drive at the event – a unique date in the automotive calendar.

This year we welcomed more than 30 guests and the vehicles available included models from event newcomers Omoda, BYD and INEOS.

Most brands were able to spare personnel to attend, but where that wasn’t possible, cars were sent ahead on transporters. Stellantis (a Jeep, DS, Vauxhall, Citroen, Peugeot and Fiat) and BYD (Dolphin, Seal and Atto 3) were examples.

Ford, Genesis, Honda, Kia, Mazda, MINI, Volvo, Subaru, Isuzu, Maserati, Range Rover, KGM, Toyota, Lexus, Porsche – and event sponsors Suzuki – drove down on the day.

View all the images from our Western Group Driving Day ’24 – CLICK HERE

Guests took advantage of an excellent selection of roads and were able to enjoy free access to the Haynes Motor Museum’s remarkable collection of around 400 cars and motorcycles.

As usual, handmade Bristol Glass trophies were awarded for the most driven car of the day and the participant who drove the most cars on the day. The ‘Car of the Day’ was the potent Porsche 911 Carrera T, while the ‘Driver of the Day’ trophy went jointly to Ford’s Andy Benson and Len Keen.

A charity raffle was held, along with an auction for a limited-edition bottle of Scottish whisky, donated by Genesis, and a signed England rugby ball, courtesy of Honda.

We were delighted with the response from manufacturers to this year’s event and the feedback we’ve had from guests has been really positive.

As ever, we’d like to thank Simon Perry of IDPR for managing the day for us with his usual professionalism. We would also like to thank Alun Parry and Jess Grimditch of Suzuki for their sponsorship this year.

Ultimately, we couldn’t stage our annual Driving Day without the support of manufacturers. Obviously not everyone can make it, because there will always be factors such as clashing events, but we hope even more will be able to make it next year, and we plan to keep staging this event for many years to come.

Following this year’s success, we’re already looking at a provisional date of Thursday 5th June for the 2025 Driving Day – again at the Haynes Motor Museum.

Gareth Herincx / Chairman