A lot of old timer fanatics from the Benelux area have the Interclassics Maastricht Expo marked on their calendar. The first big Expo of the year! The 2016 edition generated 10 % more visitors than the 2015 edition.
Even with 30.000 visitors the 23th edition of Interclassics never felt too crowded, big pathways between the exhibited cars made sure of that.
Because of the 100th anniversary of BMW, they were the logical choice as main theme for this year’s edition. The may have started with airplane engines before the actual start of building cars in 1929, the focus of the expo in Maastricht was solely on the cars.
Even the cars they build in the beginning era had a sporty character such as the lovely 328 roadster which performed quite well in a lot of races. The luxurious cars and expensive sports cars, like the BMW 507 had a hard time finding new owners in the 1950’s. This forced BMW to offer smaller more democratically priced cars like the “Isetta”. It wasn’t until the launch of the BMW 02 series, 50 years ago that BMW slowly but surely grew to become the huge success it is today.
A part from the slightly more accessible cars they kept on producing sports cars like the BMW 3.0 CSL ,M3 e30 DTM and the M1 Pro car, all of which were on display in Maastricht.
They booked great success on the circuits with their own cars, but also as supplier of engines for several Formula 1 teams. Amongst those was the 1986 Benetton team. The Benetton B186 on display was the same one that Gerhard Berger used to win his first (and the team’s first) Grand Prix in Mexico.
The theme wase been BMW this year. That didn’t stop most of the Classic Car Dealers from exhibiting the inevitable Porsche 911 and 356. Also: no classic car expo without the Italians: Enter a lot of Ferrari, Lamborghini & Maserati classic cars.
Also on display: A Porsche 912 targa soft window restoration project.
And a couple of very rare racecars: Abarth SE10, the always impressive Jaguar XJR-15 (It had its own racing series for a while in the 90’s as an openings act to the F1 races)
Always a partner for the Interclassics Expo is the British auction house: Coys. It had about 60 cars up for auctioning in the MECC. The highest bid was 144.000 € for a 1952 Mercedes 220A Cabriolet.
And last but not least, the Autoweek Classics Awards: “Best Car of Show” went to A uniquely built (by Pietro Frua) BMW Glass 3000 V8. “Best Restoration” was reserved for a Fiat 2100 Vignale on display by Martin Willems. The Belgian owned Excelsior Albert I from 1927 received the award for “Best Pre War Car”.
Already ooking forward to the next edition!
Pictures & Text by Steven Translation: Jonas
