An entry-level 1990 Toyota Starlet GL, for example, could do well here; two of its advertising boasts were that it had an interior fuel flap release and a stereo radio/cassette player. Whatever next!
And a Vauxhall HC1100 from 1970 proudly stated that it featured door armrests as standard. That would certainly help it to podium.
Reverse cameras, Bluetooth or mag wheels would clearly earn demerit points in this competition which bills itself as the only event “to celebrate the brilliance of basic and find majesty in the mundane”. You’d probably be foolish to enter a car that didn’t have wind-up windows.
The venue seems to emphasise the British humour; for the 2025 competition the mundane motors finalists lined up outside the grand and elegant Grimsthorpe Castle for the Concours de L’Ordinaire. I’ll wager there were little crust-trimmed cucumber sandwiches.
The 2025 overall winner was 22-year-old Simon Packowski with a 1992 Skoda Favorit Forum which is so basic it doesn’t even have a radio. Skoda has certainly lifted its game these days; just ask the head honchos at the New Zealand Police Department.
My earliest memory of a Skoda was about 1965. A friend’s parents had one and I swear my memory is not playing tricks when I say the speedometer readings looked to be hand-drawn. In pencil.
Second place was won by a 1999 Ford Mondeo and third by a bright yellow 1979 Citroën Visa Club. In the articles I read, there was surprisingly no mention of a grey Lada. Or a Reliant Robin.
If I still had it, I could enter my former Bedford van. I don’t recall the model name but it had sliding doors, a stubby protruding bonnet and engine access via the interior. The ride was noisy and uncomfortable but it could crack 0 – 50mph in a single afternoon.
As you would expect, my mind turned to other fields that could have their ordinariness rewarded. The world’s most unremarkable Christmas cracker joke could be a goer. Why is it getting so hard to buy advent calendars? Their days are numbered.
The world’s most ordinary invention? (It has no identifiable purpose.) The world’s most ordinary board game? (No dice, no counters. Just a board!)
There could be top 10 competitions: the top 10 most boring novels ever written, for example. My memory of stage 1 English at Canterbury University would lead me to nominate the epistolary novel, Pamela.
The trouble with my suggestions so far is that they tend to focus on the idea of the worst rather than celebrating the brilliance of basic and finding majesty in the mundane. I need to focus on the heroic plodders in our world, those who get everything done but without fanfare.
I’ll have to rethink.
My research has uncovered what might not be a solution but it does at least provide a tidy ending. The cartoon I found has a man (possibly ordinary) at the concept desk in a film company.
He says to his interviewer, “I have a new super hero idea. I call him Ordinary Man. Whenever there’s trouble he runs into a phone booth and calls the cops.”
