Andreas roars into Pageant of Power

Property's petrol-heads were out in force last night for the noisy spectacle of the first Liverpool Pageant of Power organised by Grosvenor and Cholmondeley Castle.

Andreas Panayiotou, whose Ability Group owns the Hilton at Liverpool One, was there with four of his big boys' toys: a rare Ferrari Enzo, a convertible Rolls-Royce, superfast Bugatti Veyron, and a white Lamborghini Diablo.

Panayiotou told Place he was impressed with the turnout at the event, where an estimated 20,000 people crowded around Chavasse Park, Albert Dock, The Strand and Mann Island to watch the two-hour show of supercars old and new, alongside power boats on the dock, acrobatic planes and helicopters and military vehicles.

Also taking part was self-confessed car fanatic Neil Lamont, of Cheshire-based surveyors Lamonts, who took a spin in friend Will Onions' Ford Escort rally car during the parade along the closed-off Strand. Onions runs Capital Construction Management based in Shrewsbury and is a keen amateur racer.

The event was the brainchild of Guy Butler, Grosvenor projects director, and James Hall of Cholmondeley Castle, which has its own annual pageant of power every summer.

Butler said the privately funded event required £110,000 of sponsorship and would probably be repeated next year. The sponsors of the event included several property firms: Curtins Consulting, Flanagan Group, Mason Owen, WSP, Rapid, Liverpool One, The Mersey Partnership, Bentley, Liverpool Vision, Breitling, One Park West.

Among the VIPs enjoying the occasion was Steve Parry, vintage car collector and head of Neptune Developments, as well as guests from developers Rumford and Argent and many of Liverpool's agents.

The event included the Liverpool FC superleague racing car, a Le Mans-winning Jaguar, a fire-spitting vintage Bentley Napier, a JCB dragster, as well as modern and classic motorcycles and a Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank.

• View spectators' photos of the event at the Skyscrapercity website here