In the first article, we outlined our impressions of this refreshing car show, but we could only finish the first hall. But rest assured, there is a lot more coming.
Hall 1 is a familiar site from last year’s Prewar Days, with its characterful lighting. As in the previous hall, the cars from the same brand are parked together in batches, regardless of their age or racing category.
A few Fiat cars were parked together in the centre of the hall, and a few Ladas and Seats in the corner, but their most characterful member of the Fiat Fleet was the Fiat X1/9 recreated by Guy Moerenhout, the owner of the Abarth Works Museum. If you have not been there, we recommend to check it out!
The Audi fleet honours the brand’s Rally history with a Sport Quattro S1 and a Group B car with a world rally championship pedigree. We may have met them at Autoworld’s 40 years of Quattro exhibition a few years ago.
The BMW fleet was more numerous, covering many decades and categories. Our favourite was the E9 Batmobile in traditional M Motorsport livery, but the BMW 02 and its modern successor also form quite a pair.
Honda was not very well represented, with only three race cars of rather mixed pedigree, just opposite the Mitsubishi corner with a couple of savage EVOs.
Mini is even less prominent, but we were positively surprised by the Peugeot delegation. The 504 coupé is a secret tip for those wishing for a stylish yet affordable entrance to the world of oldtimers, but this car left a truly lasting impression.
Renault and Volkswagen had a moderate grouping, but we are surprised at how much diversity it can bring to race cars from these mass-market brands.
The exhibition features race vehicles of all kinds, from tractors to trucks, and some even without wheels, like speedboats.
Hall 6 is located right by the entrance, hosting another excellent selection, with a few cars that were not of popular brands.
Though an Alfa GTV of this quality makes up for the absence of other models. Apart from a few weirdos, like dragsters and a few Opels and Subarus, the bulk of the fleet carried Ford and Toyota badges.
That week, Ford celebrated 120 years of its racing pedigree, as it was the main theme of InterClassics Maastricht. On the same weekend, dozens of Ford race cars were exhibited in Kortrijk.
We spotted quite a few rarities and exotics, but our favourite is still the Repsol Escort rally car that gave Carlos Sainz several podium finishes and, of course, the RS200 that we presented in the first part of this article.
Toyota ensured one of the most prominent presences, with many classic race cars, and some from the golden age of WRC, the Group A Celica with double round headlights. Some of the classic race cars can be found at the Toyota Motorsport Museum in Cologne.
As in the other halls, there were a few odd ones like a dragster and a rat mod, but most of the vehicles were serious race cars or stylish classics, not the stars of ESPN “The Ocho” : ) .
