DriveTribe Live 2025
Sat 30th Aug 2025, Bicester Heritage
Sat 30th Aug 2025, Bicester Heritage
21st September 2025
DriveTribe Live 2025, what a day! The stunt show was a particular highlight at this year’s event.
Our day started early, not as early as previous years, but still early enough for it to be dark outside. As we live in the Midlands, the Bicester Heritage Centre location is much closer than the previous two years at the Haynes Motor Museum.
Getting into the venue was super easy, with the entrance clearly signposted. Having attended previous events where it took us four hours to get from queuing to parking (Shedfest 2024!), it was a welcome relief that the queue moved at a steady speed, taking a total of 10 minutes maximum from the entrance to parking.
With this being the first year of DriveTribe Live at Bicester Heritage Centre, and having never been to an event there, we decided to arrive a little earlier to find our way around and ensure we didn’t miss anything on the day’s packed schedule.
Richard Hammond was due to give the welcome address at 10:30 a.m. It didn’t start at exactly 10:30 a.m., but it was only a few minutes after. The stage was set up in an aircraft hangar, as you can see from the image at the top of the page. Unfortunately, it became apparent quite quickly that it was very echoey, making it difficult to hear what was being said. We could only catch a few words from each sentence. When someone spoke at slightly above a normal pace, it became almost impossible to hear.
After Richard Hammond’s welcome address, it was the turn of Izzy Hammond and guests to take to the stage to talk about women in automotive. There were speakers at the back of the hangar just outside the public entrance. Due to not being able to hear the welcome address, we decided to listen to this talk outside the hangar. The sound was much clearer, and we could easily make out what was being said, with the only downside being that we couldn’t see the host and guests, turning it into a bit of a radio show.
Once Izzy Hammond and guests had finished their talk, we looked at the rest of the day’s schedule and decided we needed to get food before the live stunt show, as we wouldn’t have time afterwards. With only a 30-minute to one-hour gap between each scheduled talk or event, there were often only a few minutes in between each one.
Because of this and the fact that it was difficult to hear the talks inside the hangar, we decided to miss the “Old Top Gear” chat to get food and secure a good spot for the stunt show, which was due to take place at 12:30 p.m.
After grabbing some food, we headed over to the “Live Action Arena” to take our place. We had to walk quite a way to find a space at the barrier, but it was worth it. The stunt show was truly entertaining. Hosted by Richard Hammond, who was narrating what Paul Swift was doing.
The stunt show started with Paul Swift driving what looked like a London taxi with Richard Hammond as a passenger. It sounds boring, I know. However, this was not your ordinary London taxi. It looked like the shell of a London Taxi had been put onto a drift car the way it was going around the arena. There was plenty of tire smoke as it raced from end to end doing doughnuts. Richard Hammond left the taxi feeling quite sick afterwards.
The next part of the stunt show involved Paul Swift doing a handbrake turn to “park” his car between two other cars, with the gap getting smaller and smaller. From our angle, the last one looked impossible and required absolute precision. Maybe it’s all part of the show to build intensity, and it worked. Paul Swift, however, pulled off the maneuver with inch-perfect precision.
To finish off the stunt show, they got into what I recall was a Ford Ranger, or something along the lines of a Ford Ranger, where it was driven on two wheels. To accomplish this, a ramp was driven up on one side of the car, with the car then driving the length of the live action arena on two wheels. At one point, I thought it was going to go all the way over, but it was driven perfectly, keeping spectators on the tips of their toes.
Once the stunt show had finished, it was announced the “YouTubers Chat” was about to start on the stage. We decided to get as close as possible to the stage to see if that made the echoey sound less prominent. We were about three rows from the front when the talk started, and it did seem to improve how much could be heard. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t clear, and you really had to concentrate on what was being said.
There was a talk after called “Guess The Engine,” which ended up being part of the “YouTubers Chat.” It involved the sounds of engines being played through the stage speakers, with the YouTubers and the audience taking turns to guess what car the engine noise belonged to. It turns out my knowledge of what different car engines sound like is not very good!
As that was two talks rolled into one, it left a bit of time before the next talk, “Automotive Journalism, Past, Present, Future” with Richard Hammond and Tiff Needell. By this time, our legs were getting a bit tired, so we decided to sit down in the aircraft hangar while waiting for the next event to start. As we were sitting down, I noticed a man walk past who looked familiar. It turned out to be Tiff Needell walking to the stage.
The last talk on the schedule was the “Awards Ceremony & Finale,” where Richard Hammond handed out awards after ranking cars from the show-and-shine competition and picking out his favorite car from the display car parking area.
The event finished by 3:30 p.m., with everyone heading to their cars to go home. Exiting the venue was just as easy as getting in. We were forced to turn left as we exited, which meant we had to go up to the roundabout to come back around. But if this is what keeps the traffic flowing when leaving, that five-minute detour is not a problem.
Overall, the day was really enjoyable with some good talks, and the stunt show was a particular highlight. If DriveTribe were to host the event at Bicester Heritage Centre again next year, I would strongly advise they move the stage outside, like they did at the Haynes Motor Museum, as it makes the people on stage so much easier to hear.