About Us

The story of our beautiful exhibition began 65 years ago, on the outskirts of Manchester. At that time, only very few people could afford to assemble and prepare show cars for exhibitions. A car was considered a luxury and only the wealthiest families had more than one car at their disposal. That is why at first we could not collect more than 100 participants for a long time (although in the early years there were no more than 30), and most cars were not particularly outstanding in appearance or technical characteristics. They were mostly production models that were improved in some way by the owners. It went on like that for over 8 years, but all that time we never thought for a second about stopping the show or taking a break for a few years. Instead, every year we gathered more and more car owners around us, who were eager to show their creations to the world.
This tenacity paid off – the press started to write about us, people started to discuss our activities, which, in turn, attracted the attention of many car enthusiasts from all over the world, and they began to participate in the show more and more often. Very quickly the list of our participants was expanded to include European car owners, and later – American car owners.
Since then our popularity and status has only grown. We added new events to our show and made it even bigger every year. Since 1980, the number of participants and the number of visitors has steadily increased.
Ten years ago we held our first exhibition rally opening, which subsequently evolved into practically a stand-alone show with tens of thousands of spectators. In recent years our rally is even broadcasted by several channels, and among the participants there are more and more often not only semi-professional drivers, but also international stars.

Over the 65 years of its existence, the Rushden Cavalcade has evolved from a small collection of cars parading down Rushden High Street to a massive exhibition and rally that kicks off the season. It features more than 1,000 different exhibits from around the world and is visited by more than 25,000 people each year. There’s plenty to see and do, from traction engines and vintage cars to fun fairground rides and trade booths. Fun for the whole family.

This event is hosted by the Rushden Historical Transportation Society to raise funds for the development of the Rushden Transportation Museum under the society’s management and to expand the society’s railroad activities. The museum has been in a state of disrepair for a long time and the local government has repeatedly considered demolishing it. But thanks to our activities and our visitors we were able to raise funds to restore and repair the museum. Since 2008 it has continued to work and now it is a pleasure to visitors with many interesting exhibits from the world of cars and transport, bringing money to the city budget. We are proud of this fact and are ready to share this pride with you.