The British Motor Show is the best-value motoring day out – by a considerable margin

Mike Rutherford thinks the British Motor Show has plenty to offer petrolheads of every age – and a ticket won’t break the bank

I seriously wonder if car manufacturers, train operators, opportunist politicians and others charging inflation-shattering prices for their goods and ‘services’ will ever understand that – increasingly and idiotically – they’re pricing their customers out of the market.

It’s not that consumers don’t want to buy new cars, travel on rush-hour trains or get a foot on the housing ladder. Instead, it’s more a case of them being financially prohibited from doing so – regardless of how hard they study, work and save. They’re innocent, hopelessly stuck victims paralysed by a new British ‘system’ that denies them the spending power their parents had in decades past.

When I was in my late teens/early twenties, my modest salary as a junior reporter was enough to get me a mortgage and the ability to purchase a one-bedroom flat just outside my home town of London. Armed with little more than loose change, I used peak-time trains to travel to/from work. I chopped in my high-mileage VW Beetle 1303S for my first ever brand-new car – one of the last of the Mk1 Volkswagen Golfs.

But the idea that the average, new-to-the-workplace young adult of today has the disposable income to do anything similar in 2024, is tragically unrealistic.

The following examples illustrate the point: The Office for National Statistics estimates that in mid-2024, “average weekly regular earnings” for people of all ages (not youngsters) are around £643 per week (just over £33k a year). At the same time, one-bed flats on the outskirts of London can cost a quarter of a million pounds or more. The median price of a new car is in excess of £42,000.

If you need to travel after 9am on a Wednesday this August, your 126-minute (allegedly) London to Manchester train journey will cost you £184.70 one way. That’s circa 90 quid an hour. And if this doesn’t sum-up modern Rip-Off Britain, I don’t know what does.

Parents are also having a desperately hard time financially. If they’re looking for a day out on a total budget of, say, £50, Mum and Dad plus a couple of children might be able to stretch to sitting on a wall scoffing fish and chips and supping sugary drinks from cans bought at the chippy. But there’ll be little, if any, cash left over for anything else.

Alternatively, a family (two adults and two kids) day ticket for this month’s action-packed British Motor Show can be booked for £47. A £3 show guide is an optional extra. For their total investment of 50 quid, they’ll get eight hours of entertainment, education and enlightenment – everything from on-stage celebs to supercars being driven in anger by world-class drivers; career sessions; test drives (even for some under-17s), displays of cars yet to be seen in UK showrooms or on UK roads… you name it. There’s also a green picnic area for those who bring their own food and drinks. And all-day parking is free.

If the £14,995 Dacia Spring EV is the new-car bargain of the year, the British Motor Show – at £47 for a family ticket or £23.50 for an individual adult – has to be the best-value day out. By a considerable margin.

Have you attended the British Motor Show in the past? Tell us about your experience in the comments section…