The Classic Car Show’s first two-day event starts this Saturday at Nasrec!
The Classic Car Show’s annual winter event is for the first time being run over two days this year at Nasrec Expo Centre, with the action starting at 8 am on Saturday 6, July 24.
The motorised extravaganza kicks off again on Sunday July 7, with entrance from 8 am and on both days Gauteng’s best-attended motor show runs until 5 pm.
“Last year’s one-day show saw us break all attendance records at Nasrec,"
says Classic Car Show founder and organiser, Paulo Calisto.
“It was wonderful to see over 30 000 car enthusiasts gathered together for one event, but logistically we decided the time had come to move to a two-day event."
“Once again, we will have the traditional classic cars arriving through Gate 5 at Nasrec on the south-eastern side of the complex. The classics will be displayed in the area surrounding Hall 5, and owners can arrive and display their cars on both days.”
The Gauteng area is home to a wonderful array of classic cars from the 1940s through to the early 1980s and visitors can expect American classics from the be-finned 1950s, muscle cars from the ‘60s and ‘70s and British, French and Italian classics from all these eras.
The intriguing aspect about The Classic Car Show is that it mixes up a variety of automotive styles from various continents around the world. So you see massive American saloons parked side-by-side with relatively tiny cars from Britain and Europe, with a sprinkling of the Asian cars that arrived here in large numbers from the 1960s onwards.
The engines differ in size and configuration, so you can contrast the snarl of a highly-tuned four-cylinder car from Europe or the UK, with the rumble of an American V8 that has up to five times the engine capacity. Tracing the history of the motorcar’s development through the different eras and the nations involved in their production is one of the most fascinating aspects of attending a classic car show.
As has become traditional at this show over the past decade, the classics will share the stage with the massively popular German vs Jap show-within-a-show contingent, which draws customised modern classics with German and Japanese heritage, and includes models right up until the modern era.
This segment has evolved in recent years to include more modern Japanese and German cars which have had enormous amounts of money spent on them. Outlandish paint jobs, air-suspended ride heights that see cars lowered almost to the tarmac when parked, and engines that produce startling amounts of power compared to the standard items – these are the attractions of the German vs Jap segment of the show.
Look for a plethora of hot VW Golfs, Toyotas turbocharged way beyond the levels intended by their manufacturers, snarling Subarus with their unique exhaust notes. Special competitions will be run throughout the weekend, including the wildly popular Limbo event and the Dyno Day on the Sunday.
The Limbo event is a competition to see which closed-roof car can pass under the lowest setting of a barrier, while the Dyno Day will see a dynamometer on site to measure engine power. Power outputs exceeding 400 kW are expected by the most serious of contenders!
“We are very excited about going to a two-day event,”
says Southside Crew’s Dawood Hoosein, chief organiser of the German vs Jap show segment.
“This year we have taken the step for our more modern customised classics to require that all cars in our show segment need to be pre-entered. The German vs Jap cars will be delivered to Nasrec starting on Thursday July 4, and once again the top cars will be housed under cover in Hall 5 at Nasrec. This year they will remain there for the duration of the two-day show.”
Owners arriving in classic cars 40-years-and-older at Gate 5 will gain free admittance to the event, and one passenger will also be admitted free. However, in line with its new policy to “take the German vs Jap show to the next level’” the Southside Crew has this year required that all cars in this segment have to be pre-entered, via their website.
As usual with The Classic Car Show and the German vs Jap event, there will be plenty of food and drink on sale, as well as other entertainment, such as music, helicopter flips and kiddie play areas.
All in all, it will be a great family day out for all car lovers. Tickets are currently available through Computicket, at R100 for adults and R30 for children under 12. No tickets will be on sale at the gate. Each ticket will be valid for one day only, either Saturday July 6 or Sunday July 7, 2024. The Nasrec Expo Centre is located south west of Johannesburg’s CBD, just off the N1 highway, near Soccer City.
