If you've never been to one of these shows, it's the place to go to find all kinds of quite interesting people. Anoraks on everyone, it's time to meet some types:

Rivet Counter

He's always dressed in OD and is often accompanied by his sidekicks 40's man and Noddy.

"No, no! The 1942 model had a contra-rotating differential on the drivers side wiper motor but that was only for even numbered models built in the second quarter of production. This is completely wrong - absolute rubbish."

Rivet counter can usually be recognised by the small flecks of dried saliva at the corners of his mouth.

40's man

40's man shares rivet counter's pedantry but tends to dress in a leather flying jacket with some flashy unit patches and a picture of some aircraft nose art on the back. He'll wear aviator ray-bans even at night and his biggest regret in life is that he was born too late for world war 2 and never got to play with all these toys for real with the government paying for the petrol...

40's man is unusual in that he brings his wife to MV shows. She is generally dressed as one of the Andrews sisters. 40's man and his wife are both expert jitterbuggers and although they sit not speaking to each other all night, they will leap up and 'cut a rug' together as soon as the band starts up.

Noddy

Noddy generally looks like one of the hillbillies from 'Deliverance' . He never speaks but nods vigorously in agreement with everything that rivet man says, he often wears a hat with lots of enamel badges and sometimes a combat jacket with cloth badges of his favourite marques. Noddy generally doesn't have an MV of his own, his job doesn't pay well enough for a start and then there's all them forms an' stuff...

 

Gruppenfuhrer...