THE finest collection of pre-war cars gathered in Gloucestershire will be at Prescott this weekend when the Vintage Sports Car Club stages its annual Prescott Hill Speed Climb.

There will be everything from Austin Sevens to the charismatic ERA single-seaters, with virtually every English sporting car from those far-off days in a very full entry.

It is one of the most popular and unchanging events in the old car calendar and drivers will compete on Prescott's original 'short course' as they have done since 1938 when the event was first held.

Mac Hulbert from Aldsworth combines a busy European motor sport season with the demands of his academic post at Columbia State University in New York City, and drives the historic ERA R4D which held the outright Prescott hill record from July 1939 to May 1948, and at present holds the VSCC Open record.

Cirencester's Colin Lambert will drive his 1930 Brooklands Double-12 MG sports car, bought "in a million pieces" ten years ago and rebuilt. "It's a great meeting and the idea is to beat your handicap time, as the results in each class are decided on handicap, not necessarily on fastest overall. So every driver has a chance, and of course we all try to beat our previous best time."

Other local rivers include Geoff Smith (Longney) in his quick Frazer Nash, Mike Dawson (Cirencester) in a Morgan, Derek Howard-Orchard (Cheltenham) with his historic Talbot 105 sports car, John Muschamp (Cheltenham) driving a Frazer Nash/BMW 315, Richard Scaldwell (Moreton-in-Marsh) in the GN 'Red Biddy', Carl Gray (Tewkesbury) at the wheel of the unique Hardy Special, Rebecca Gunn (Tewkesbury) driving the MG Q Replica, plus Mike Marshall (Gloucester) in his Bugatti, one of ten of the charismatic French cars competing on their home hill.

Saturday is practice from 9.30am with the event on Sunday, starting at 10am.