It's time to get revved up for another jolly darn good weekend of fun with the start of the Classic Cover Brits at the Beach Festival today.

This year thousands of punters are expected to descend on Whangamata for the annual festival which celebrates the very best of British cars, motorcycles, food, music, fashion, culture and more.

The Classic Cover Brits at the Beach Festival returns to Whangamata this Thursday. Photo: Supplied

More than 350 vehicles have registered for the festival already, but organiser Colin McCabe says with cracker weather forecasted they're expecting many, many more during the festival.

'Everything is going as planned which is brilliant,” says Colin, 'even better for us, the forecast is for gorgeous weather and that always makes a huge difference on the numbers of people who head down to check out the festival, I definitely think spectator numbers will be up on last year.

'It also normally means a few more car registrations on the weekend, so my best guess at the moment is that there will be well over 400 vehicles that will take part.”

Some notable registrations includes a 1925 Austin 12/4 Tourer, a 1925 Rover 14/45, and a 1973 Jensen Interceptor – one of only a small handful left in New Zealand.

A major drawcard of the festival is the Grahamstown Gathering which is taking place on the Friday of the festival and will feature a parade of awesome vehicles, live entertainment and plenty of stalls.

And Colin adds that for this year's gathering they've had to close Grahamstown's main road for safety reasons.

'It is going to be absolutely brilliant this year, the road will be chocka with cars, maybe even more than we can fit in there,” explains Colin.

'We estimated it could hold 120 vehicles and may have been a wee bit generous. It looks like we're going to have that, maybe even more, so Grahamstown will be going off on Friday morning.”

Another drawcard is the Great British Village Fete which takes place on Saturday and is being sponsored this year by SunLive.

It features tonnes of entertainment, food, music and competitions, and proceeds from the fete being donated to the Whangamata Gymnastics Club.

Among the raft of new events and entertainment taking place this year will be good ol' fashion British bake off which takes place on Saturday and Sunday of the festival.

The Shortbread Sunday competition asks punters to bake three sticks of the biscuit, with preliminary judging taking place on Saturday during the SunLive Great British Village Fete, with the five best shortbreads going through to the finals on Sunday.

'What we're asking bakers to do is nominate a club, group, or society, and the champion will win $250 for their nominated group while they'll have the notoriety of being the best Brits at the Beach shortbread baker.

'The nominated group or organisation doesn't have to be from Whangamata, so if you're from Timbuctoo you can nominate a group from Timbuctoo and the like.”

Colin says they have already received great feedback from people who have registered for the festival and adds that they're 'genuinely lovely people who just want to have some fun”.

'One of the attractions for car enthusiasts is that they catch up with mates from other clubs around the country which they don't see very often. We even get a lot of smaller car clubs hold their annual meetings at the festival which is brilliant.

'My main focus and hope is that absolutely everyone has a jolly good time when they get here, that's what Brits at the Beach is all about.”

The Classic Cover Brits at the Beach Festival, sponsored by SunLive, returns to Whangamata from October 8 – 11. For more information visit: www.britsatthebeach.co.nz