This week, the Hungaroring Classic has quite some shoes to fill. Taking over Le Mans in a racing calendar is a real challenge, but Hungaroring proved to be up for it in 2017, and is upping the game in 2019 by adding a modern race track and eastern classics to the mix.
Hungaroring takes over the place of Le Mans in the Peter Auto Calendar in every odd year, and that really means something.
Most of Peter Auto events showcase iconic cars racing at their home turn, on well-known historical race tracks from their glory days, such as Le Mans, Spa or Monza. Hungaroring is different in the sense that it never saw those cars in action before 2017, as no endurance, GT or single-seater races were held here until the late eighties.
The backbone of the event consists of the incredible fleet of racing classics brought by the Peter Auto racing series, with add on programs like the show with oldtimers from the communist era, time conform dress code and beauty contests for cars (or girls).
There might be a slight contradiction between the regularly refurbished modern infrastructure of the Hungaroring and these cars, but the media buzz echoed by enthusiast bloggers and noted journalists contributed to the massive success of the 2017 event, that is worth recalling in a post, with a few dozen photos courtesy of Péter Bíró (his pictures can ba accessed in his Facebook Profile too).
In recent years the Classic car culture is on the rise in Hungary, partly driven by the surge in demand in the west, but also due to the lively online car culture that covers major automotive events.
The restoration centres and expertise nested in Hungary converged with a rising nostalgia for eastern oldtimers.
At the Hungaroring Classic, oldtimers also gave rendez-vous to their modern successors, and car companies found the right place to show presence.
Although far from the lavish automotive aristocracy of the Western-European focal points, there is an avid culture for JDM classics and US cars too.
Of course, it takes more than a few enthusiasts to upkeep a classic Ikarus bus (one of the most popular coaches of their era), but somehow this was not a problem for the owners of these giants…
There are exotics like the Skoda Rapid, especially in this Hungarian red white-green livery an eye-candy.
The Ur-Quattro is a rare piece of machinery that I haven’t seen since the Audi Museum, you could actually drive one here.
The rest is quite usual Peter Auto, with an unrivalled selection of legendary classics, from elegant 911 2.0s through Le Mans Ferraris to Group C monsters.
Many of these have been thoroughly presented in my earlier Spa Classic posts, but I never met a group C Mercedes in Spa.
So far, I only saw one in the Schumacher Collection, but not in action or in pieces.
The Schumacher Collection is an emotional journey through the career of the greatest F-1 Legend
The gallery below should help to recall some of the best moments of 2017. The organizers brought together some 150 race cars and over 700 collector cars, and the local media craze helped to attract over 20 000 spectators to the inaugural event, that proved to be a historical success in every sense of the word.
The 2019 event is promising to live up to the expectation, and it is not too late to make your way to Budapest, the fun starts in a few days…
