I still got way too many 2018 pictures of neat classic rides stored on my laptop, long overdue for publication. Early April I visited the Autotron classic car show. Visitors driving a classic car can park their vehicle in the lot right behind the main building, whereas the merchandise is inside. As usual, the event was mainly a European affair.
And as usual, you can count on seeing multiple Benzes W114/115 and W123-series, these seem to keep on rolling till the end of days. But of course there were much more goodies…
See? 1974 Fiat X1/9.
1973 Volkswagen T2.
1976 DAF Volvo 66 DL. Mind you, the wagon.
Mercedes-Benz 240 D (W123-series), owned by a German visitor.
1968 Volvo 144.
1983 BMW 525i (E28-series).
1953 Volkswagen Beetle. No exterior options whatsoever, as far as I can tell, so DougD must love it.
1972 Rover 3500 (P6-series).
1975 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce.
1978 Volvo 264 TE Limousine by Swedish coachbuilder Nilsson (I assume).
1973 Fiat 500.
1975 Mercedes-Benz 280 automatic (W114-series).
1967 Volvo Amazon 122S.
1976 Peugeot 504 GL.
1977 Mercedes-Benz 280 CE (W123-series).
1957 Citroën Traction Avant Commerciale.
1969 Volvo Amazon.
1947 Wolseley Eight.
1977 Volkswagen Derby LS. Just look at that plush luxury!
1963 Rover 3 Litre (P5-series).
1977 BMW 316 (E21-series).
1977 Simca 1100 GLX.
Let’s go out with a bang, a 1985 Honda Jazz 1.2 Luxe Hondamatic.
Related reading:
Car Show Outtakes: Autotron April 2018 – The Classic Opels
Cool stuff! I still go into a swoon at the sight of an E28 BMW. But the Volvo limo is completely new to me.
I also remember being very in love with a relatively late model MB 280CE in the mid 80s. Even the non-metallic brown paint did not dampen my enthusiasm.
Finally, A Simca similar to that 1100 was the first Simca I ever saw. In about 1971 someone was picking a kid up from my grade school in it. It was a cold, slushy day and I remember the front wheels spinning a bit while looking for some traction. I had no way of knowing then that this little car was going to save the mighty Chrysler Corporation.
A used, beige, 3-door Simca 1100 was our first family car in the mid-seventies.
Plenty of room for day trips with 4 adults and 3 kids. Our lil’ Simca 1100 Familiale.
Beautiful photos Johannes. Thank you very much for these.
One of my most treasured toys as a child was the blue Mercedes-Benz 240D and travel trailer set sold by Corgi in the late 70s. It was well constructed. In premium condition, this set is valued at almost $80 US today.
My brother-in-law (who is Dutch-Canadian) drove an Amazon, identical to the ’67 shown, in the late 70s. Before switching to a ’79 LTD wagon with dog dish hub caps, of all next choices, as his family grew. It looked like a police K9 unit.
Love those bold retro 70s paint colours. Velour faced seats seemed like such a luxury on European cars at the time. I noticed many North American cars by the 1980s, were duplicating the same icons used on instrument panels in European cars from the 1970s. Not just the pictograms, but the actual fonts as well.
When my parents retired to the country in the mid 70s, I was impressed that our new next door neighbours had a very reliable car to carry them on their daily 160 kilometer round trip to jobs in Ottawa. Back when winters were deadly frigid, with regular snow storms, in the Canadian capital. Their choice? A Mercedes 240D.
What a sweet toy! And very period correct, actually. Back in the seventies, Benz W115 and W123 diesels were the preferred choice -by a very wide margin- for professionals who had to tow a (tandem-axle) trailer frequently/daily. Think contractors, market vendors and cattle dealers. Mid-size Benz diesels were blue collar workhorse-heroes.
Now let’s not mention the words acceleration and/or speed, shall we?
Why do I like the European car shows so much? The cars were generally “cleaner” than the US versions, and they are in impeccable original condition. I guess my roots are showing.
Yes indeed. You did get me with the oval window VW Johannes, although there is some sort of bracket thing screwed to the vents above the decklid. I can’t tell what that’s for.
Can you imagine all these with fuzzy dice and plastic hot dogs on fake drive though trays? 😛
Well Doug, it’s a bracket to hold a pair of skis. How do I know this? By looking in the background of the first picture of the 1969 Volvo Amazon.
A very functional item. In Canada that is, not where I’m sitting.
Ahh, I avoided that picture because of the fuzzy dice 🙂
Right! Agreed, it’s just too much…overdrijven is ook een vak (exaggeration is a profession too).
I agree, but I wonder about the relative percentages of Euro-spec cars were lost due to accident damage vs. the ones with “American” bumpers.
And no “fuzzy dice” in view, like at every American car show I’ve been to!
Though as a former Amazon owner, I’d argue that the wide whatwalls and chrome headlight hoods on the red and white ‘69 are all wrong, at least for an Amazon newer than about 1962. In fact, that color scheme doesn’t look original either.
BTW, the last year the Amazon was sold in the US was 1968, with the DOT mandated side market lights, but I knew it had continued a bit longer in Europe. Quite a contrast with the fresh and modern looking 140 which co-existed with it for a few years.
Back in the nineties, the Volvo Amazon was “fashionable” to use as a daily driver. They were (and are) still around in large numbers, thanks to their high level of build quality and durability. Cars older than 25 years were official classic cars, meaning they were road tax free.
But that was changed to 40+ years. The main reason? Numerous Benz W115, 123, 124 and 201 diesels that were still used as road tax free daily drivers. Who’s gonna stop an old, naturally aspirated Benz oil burner from racking up the kilometers on the odometer once it was 25 years old?
The Rover P6 spare-on-the-trunk option was total weirdness. A British version of the Continental kit? Was trunk space really that marginal on these cars? Rear vision must have been hell, and I wonder how many spares were stolen off the cars.
“The Rover P6 spare-on-the-trunk option was total weirdness”
I agree it looks very odd, but placing it on top or the lid also emphasizes just how much room is eaten up by the spare. Especially since a round spare really uses up the space equivalent to the square box it came in.
Yes, you can stuff little things around the tire (or should I say tyre?), but trunk space comes down to how many suitcases fit in, and the spare represents a big case you don’t get to include.
The De Dion tube behind the rear axle robbed some luggage space, but I suspect it was about appearance, and that they were nowhere near as common back in the day as they are now at car shows. I remember when P6s were still “old bangers” in UK parlance, and can scarcely remember seeing a boot-mounted spare.
They actually called it a “Continental Touring Kit”, and it would have been fairly common for P6 buyers to drive on “The Continent”, so maybe it was a way of telling everyone you needed luggage space for your Grand Tour. You had to have a white oval GB sticker to drive abroad, and plenty of cars which never left the island got those.
Similarly, when Britain went from black to white & yellow plates, the new ones were an extra cost option for years before they became mandatory, and were marketed as “Continental Style”. Apparently they liked Europe back then.
Inspired by “The Continent”, and not the Continental? Or maybe both, a clever play on words by Rover marketing, to appeal to Britons who probably had never heard of the Lincoln Continental and it’s spare tire.
The boot space was very poor (we had two P6s when I was growing up). If you bought the Continental Touring Kit (which reminds me of the old English newspaper headline “Fog in Channel: Continent Cut Off”), you also got a round longship badge to screw over the hole in the top of your bootlid for when you weren’t driving Continental style.
It also reminds me of the ageist joke “P&O for the continent, Rover for the incontinent”.
I really suspect it was nothing to do with Lincoln – the plates clearly weren’t. They weren’t really to do with Europe either as only Britain had those plates – it was just marketing.
It was much more of a thing in Britain then to refer to “The Continent”, and before cheap flights, driving there was much more common – unlike a Lincoln, a Bentley Continental might actually be driven from England to one’s property on the Côte d’Azur. It implied “poshness” and sophistication, and was used in all sorts of contexts.
I wonder where the Volvo 264TE came from? From what I recall, many/most of them went to (former) East Germany and other Eastern bloc countries for use by government bigwigs.
It has right hand drive. I don’t remember if those Volvos when configured for RHD did have their wipers also changed (this one doesn’t).
I remember seeing one like this featured when new in a magazine, probably a C&D or R&T.
I thought that the ’74 facelift of the W114-115s had seen the end of the “AUTOMATIC” decal on Mercedes. Anybody can shed any light on this?
Qatar Embassy, London.
Great finds, the X 1/9 is so 70’s with the lime green paint and the speed block stripes.
’74 X1/9… my first new car purchase. Mine was a darker green with a flat black stripe in the mid-band on the sides. Sweet memories!
I was going to say my favourite car was the ’53 VW, as I had a schoolteacher with one just like that, same colour even. Early beetles with the single exhaust and those taillights with the top-facing lens were very rare here. IIRC ’53 was their first year in Australia.
But then I saw the hatchback commerciale Traction Avant. And that cute little yellow Fiat 500. And the lovely green and black Wolseley Eight. And…..
My favourite car? I have no idea!
I had use of a 55 beetle at high school single tailpipe model 25hp I think it was very slow, calling it gutless would be kind, Rover P5 or the 504 I’d pick.
Having had a ’63 Beetle, I would take the ’53 Beetle in a flash!!!
I sooo miss my ’63. A kid smoking pot in his Dad’s business car was chased by the police. The kid failed to negotiate a turn with the 2 1/2 ton Chrysler Cordoba and crushed my Beetle parked by the intersection. The passenger door was pushed in to the cabin just short of the parking brake. 🙁
Not too pleased with the color of the Fiat 500, but it would be blast to take a driving tour of Europe in it like below.
CC effect I saw a VW Kombi van that model today it followed me for a while truck speed limit is 90 kmh, here 56 mph and the one I was in is on the limiter at 90, the van disappeared in the hilly country 615hp of Cummins Kenworth does 90 uphill too especially empty, VW vans not so much,
There was a beetle parked roadside yesterday about a 63-65 with several people staring at the open engine compartment, dead beetle probably, but two aircooled VWs in two days not too shabby for whats quite a rare vehicle here now especially outside towns.
That’s a nice green on the X1/9, but the 500 is perfect with those wheels.