Recap: January 2026 - Part 1
Our story begins on January 11th 2026 at Bicester Scramble. Having bought our Fiat Seicento in April 2025, we had a lot of welding work and a few suspension and brake upgrades completed. We attended Fiat and Friends at the British Motor Museum in August, which was great to see the love for our little red car and meet other Fiat enthusiasts. We also took the car to a few meets at MK Cruise, Caffeine and Machine and Garage Midnight Bagel Run (that is a story for another time). Here we found that people who know about the Fiat Seicento or those that just saw this tiny red car, loved it. We wanted more appreciation for the car, but finding the right groups was hard, and I certainly hadn’t entered into the car groups in a big way. Being a female with a male partner, it can be quite difficult to break through into car events, as you find many people avoid talking to you as ‘you’ve been dragged there by your boyfriend’, even though I also drive this car and have a vested interest in automotive sports and cars in general. It doesn’t matter that this was ‘his’ choice in car!
This is where Bicester Scramble changed everything. Having been to Scramble in the previous October, and not really enjoyed it, we decided to take a chance on the January one. Maybe we just had a bad experience the first time around. I think that must have been the case because when we arrived, we were chosen for the StarterMotor’s Golden Ticket lawn. The guy on the gate loved our little red car and was so excited to see it driving around. We were equally excited and a little in shock to be awarded this ticket. Us in a tiny red car, that has been farm welded and still needed some TLC, given a winning ticket to display our car! Displays are normally for cars of great interest, value, variety and cult following right? We couldn’t believe our luck.
As we parked up, a Fiat Punto arrived next to us. Brilliant, another Fiat enthusiast in a more “normal” car! Making us feel much more comfortable and like we deserved to be there. We had a good chat with the guy, sharing our love for our cars. We were then approached by a few other people, reminiscing about when they had a Seicento in their late teens and how glad they were to see one still on the road.
This is where my world changed for the better. One of the other exhibitors approached us as they spotted I was a female interested in cars. This is when they introduced me to Be Right Back UK – a car group for women to get to meet and know others who like cars or work in the industry. A safe space to meet and talk to like minded people, where you don’t need to have the flashiest car or know the ins and outs of how your engine works. The lovely lady who introduced me to the group had only been a recent member herself, so it was great to see how much of an advocate she was for this group, being in a similar situation to myself. Plus she has a green 90s Suzuki Vitara with a Godzilla wheel cover and Gameboy speedo…what’s not to like about that!
We left Bicester Scramble feeling very pleased with ourselves, excited for the next chapter with the Fiat and intrigue for this new female only car group.