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Drove to Belgium to attend the Interclassics car show in Brussels

11th December 2022, 15:45 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

It was a splendid exhibition of some very special & unique classic cars. This year's theme celebrated 75 years of Ferrari.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Last weekend my friend Berndt and I went to see the classic car show, Interclassics in Brussels, Belgium.

I had ordered tickets online the day before. Berndt brought his Rover 200 Cabriolet and we sat off on Sunday morning at ten o’clock. Berndt has three of these Rover 200 Cabriolets. One is really old and is not in running condition any more. He will use it for spare parts. Then there is his most recent acquisition, the black one. He also has a green one, with an automatic gearbox and it runs on LPG. Very nice cars. We drove to Brussels in less than 90 minutes.

The ring road around Antwerp and Brussels can be terribly congested but on a Sunday morning, it was fine. LPG is still cheap compared to petrol and diesel here in the Netherlands. Less than half the price of petrol.

There are a huge number of classic car exhibitions in Europe more or less all year round. During the last three years, because of the pandemic, most if not all had to be cancelled. It has started up again since spring/summer this year. But I noticed that none of the car exhibitions, or other events we have visited, were at a scale of the pre-Covid period. I guess it takes a while to get all the exhibitors confident.

The Interclassics in Brussels is considered to be one of the high-end classic car exhibitions in Europe. And we were not disappointed. Although it was slightly smaller than in previous years. But it was a splendid exhibition of some very special and unique classic cars. This year's theme celebrated 75 years of Ferrari.

Various mainstream manufacturers were out in force, including Ferrari, but also Porsche and Volkswagen.

The very first car we walked into when entering the exhibition was this lovely 1967 Alfa Romeo Duet. Many Alfisti would consider this the one and only Alfa Spider.

These days a nice Duetto will set you back some Euro 65-75000 (INR 60,00,000)

Volkswagen was presented with a line up of all its Bus models. From the T1 to the T7. When I grew up, (60-70s) the VW bus was a popular family car. Especially with Roman Catholic families as they had large families. In those days no seatbelts or limitations on how many people you could take. So a typical Roman Catholic family of mum, dad and at least 10 kids could easily fit in a VW bus.

All lined up T1 through T7. First time we had seen a T7 for real!

No classic car show would be complete without a couple of my favourite Mercedes Pagodas.

Did I mention Ferrari? How about a 2019 Ferrari Omologata? This car is supposed to be a tribute to the legendary 250GTO. It is based on an 812. It was commissioned by a Ferrari collector and took Flavio Manzoni and his team two years to build.

Of course, there is quite a bit of other things to see, besides cars, but mostly car related. The Interclassics in Maastricht tend to be half-filled with Life-Style stuff, but here in Brussels, nearly everything was car related. From books, models, and posters to watches.

Well, a bit of so-called Life Style was present. Not sure what it has to do with cars, other than I assume car owners buy this stuff.

An unusual Mercedes, still without its coat of paint

At these Interclass exhibitions, they also tend to exhibit a few modern cars. But they are always supercars. So chances of meeting these in the wild are slim. But you might spot them now and then in places such as London, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf etc. A Lamb and a Bentley.

I love this 1964 Bentley S3 Continental. Gorgeous shape and colour. Berndt is a die-hard, hard-core, British classic car purist. He did not like this version. The original one had single main headlights. For the American market, it became these double ones. (Happened to a lot of cars in those days).

A very special Aston Martin DB9, Zagato.

A very special and unusual Daimler! It is an SP250 Sportwagon. Again, this model was specifically aimed at the American market. It has a 2.5L V8 Semi, 140 HP engine. It could do 200 km/h. When introduced in 1959 it cost UKP 1395 (INR 1,37,900)

Some details of some pre-war cars. I love these cars as they are so photogenic.

They don’t make switch gear like they used to!

A stunning 1954 Alfa Romeo 1900 CSS Ghia. Only 10 builds, how rare can you be?

Three exhibition halls, crammed chock full of classic cars!

Another pretty special Aston Martin. This is a DB3 Evocation. This is based on a fully restored DB2/4 chassis with a rebuilt engine, gearbox and running gear. Bespoke aluminium handmade body. One of a series of four. Talk about rare!

Ferrari had a huge stand. I am not that much of a Ferrari fan and neither is Berndt, so we hardly spend time here. Took one image though!

Although it is very nice and interesting to see all these magnificent, special and rare cars, Berndt and I do prefer the more ordinary classic cars. They were virtually absent from this exhibition. We did see a couple of nice Mercedes W123 and this 19070 Opel Kadet 1.1. This is an original Dutch car, with only one owner and an unbelievable 30.000KM on the clock. Asking price Euro 13950 (INR 12,00,000). These sorts of cars used to be part of the Dutch streets where we lived in the 70s. Several of our neighbours had Kadetts.

There were also several classic tractors for sale. There were four of these, all in the same colour!! Since we now live in a rural part of the Netherlands in an old farmhouse I keep pestering my wife about buying a classic tractor. I think it would look great in our driveway and be very authentic. But so far this fantastic suggestion of mine has been vetoed.

This is an original Lamborghini, as most would know Lamborghini started as an industrial agricultural type of manufacturer long before they started building supercars. But you have to admit that this tractor does look stunning. Euro 50000 (INR 43,00,000) and it is yours

Berndt and I spend some four hours. We did not see each and every single car. These exhibitions are just too big. But we had a great time and it was nice to have a proper classic car exhibition after three years of Covid Restrictions.

And some more pre-war cars:

And the final image. Elephants are among the first exotic animals that Rembrandt Bugatti modelled. The small trained elephant was originally designed as a signet for his brother, Ettore, before being rededicated as a radiator ornament for the latter's most ambitious automobile, the Royale.