Bensberg, 7th - 8th of September, 2013
Not few people have the impression that modern cars in the time
of aerodynamic defaults look very much the same, the brand
sometimes just recognizable by the front grill and the badge. In
this time it becomes more and more important to define a brand
by the image it gained over the years so in the last decades the
heritage of the marques became more into focus. It is not a
surprise that many manufacturers built new museums in the last
years nearby the delivery centre of their new cars to give the
proud new owners the feeling to be part of the brands history.
Apart from being a business on its own the classic departments
are omnipresent at the major classic car shows as sponsor.
Forerunner in this sector was the inventor of the automobile,
Mercedes-Benz with the sponsoring of the Mille Miglia, the most
famous classic car event since the 1980s; others like BMW took
over prestigious concours like the Villa d´Este to present
themselves in the best light.
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The Volkswagen Group took another way than taking over an
existing event and initialized an own one with the Bensberg
Classics. Unlike its competitors the challenge for VW was to
represent a wide variety of brands with very different clients
ranging from the prestigious Bentley and Bugatti, the very sportive
Lamborghini and Porsche to the mass production of VW, Seat
and Skoda. Whereas the first marques may be associated with a
concours, the second with a race meeting the third group is more
predestined for road rallies. To get them all together the Bensberg
Classics was intended as a two days event with a tour through
the surrounding region of cologne on Saturday and the concours
on Sunday.
Now in its fifth year the Bensberg Classics established itself in
the classic car calendar in the beginning of September. With the
season heading to its end several events are held during this time
with just a few more sunny weekends to come and one has the
agony of choice what to visit. After the two concours in London
we headed to the final day of the Bensberg Classics to visit the
concours. Whereas the tour on Saturday is much more a regional
event attracting visitors from nearby with some German
Celebrities very much unknown outside the German-speaking
world, the concours on Sunday has more of an international
reputation. This can be seen by the fact that the winner of the
Best of Show trophy is also eligible for the Louis Vuitton Best of
Best trophy aside concours like Pebble Beach, Villa d´Este or
Amelia Island. It is also seen by the international jury including
Pebble Beach chairman Sandra Button, Le Mans legend and Audi
ambassador Jacky Ickx or designer Andrea Zagato.
In the court yard of the 5-star Grand Hotel Bensberg about 45
cars in 8 different classes were set up on Sunday morning. After
a sunny tour the day before the weather changed overnight with
thick clouds and heavy rain right from the beginning of the day. In
four regular classes and four special classes several interesting
cars were lined up in front of the hotel. Being part of the
Volkswagen Group certainly the 50th anniversary both of
Lamborghini and the Porsche 911 were a big theme as beside the
concours entries special displays featured more cars from both
brands. With the continuous development of the Porsche 911 and
the characteristic shape a street car class of the 911 might not
be the most interesting feature as most of the changes in the first
years were in the development of the engine and in Bensberg one
had again the impression that Porsche never built anything less
than the most desirable S version as all the cars had the most
powerful engine option ranging from the early 2.0 to the later 2.4
litre and an early example of the 901 (before the name was
changed due to the “copyright” of Peugeot) could not be missed
as well. More interesting were the cars from the factory museum
including the rally Paris Dakar versions of the 911 and the 959.
Very unimposing but even more important was the 911 Turbo that
started an era at the sports car manufacturer in Zuffenhausen.
Although the Turbo was very difficult to drive in the beginning of its
development with a power peak after the Turbo set in this concept
is forever linked with the 911 as this was the car that brought the
technique both on the road and very successful on the race track.
Also with a special display from basically one collector was the
50th anniversary of Lamborghini celebrated. Aside from the known
production models in the concours class including Miura,
Countach and Islero some prototypes and one-offs were displayed
in the garden of the hotel with the only Miura Roadster (as seen
at Amelia Island earlier this year), the very first Lamborghini 350
GTV and the Bravo and Marzal. These two cars are design
studies by Bertone and were just sold in May 2011 at the RM
Auction at Villa d´Este when Bertone sold their collection. This
special display was one of the highlights as both the normal
Lamborghini and Porsche 911 class suffered from the late date in
the season as they were featured in so many events before that
some regular visitors of these events might lose interest in them.
The same thing can be said about the Aston Martin Centenary,
for some visitors at Bensberg this might be unusual to see so
many Aston Martin in a row but it is difficult to impress with them
at the end of the year, especially as the display just span a small
chapter of the company with the David Brown years. Unfortunately
none of the race cars could be seen that day although a big
Aston Martin collector is just located a few miles away in
Düsseldorf so the oldest cars on display were a pair of DB2/4, a
Cabriolet and a Saloon. More interesting was one of the 19
original DB4 GT Zagato that was presented out of competition and
a rare DB5 shooting brake. The class was finally won by Aston
Martin CEO Dr. Ulrich Bez and the DB2/4 Cabriolet.
A special class that was less common this year was the 100th
anniversary of Pietro Frua. Frua started before the war at
Stabilimenti Farina setting up his own business after the war.
Some of his first designs were several wonderful Maserati on the
A6 chassis, one of them was just sold in Monterey a few weeks
earlier. After selling his own company to Ghia he stayed there as
designer before joining Italsuisse in Geneva. During this period he
designed prototypes like the Opel Kadett A Cabriolet and
although this was a very neat design on this mass production car
it never made it into production. Carrozzeria Frua was responsible
for several of the Glas bodies that were taken over by BMW when
Glas was bought by them. Although the styling elements of Frua
were taken over to the BMW lines he was not able to convince
them to use his design on the following generations as they were
designed in house. During this time Frua worked again for
Maserati designing the Mistral and for AC as could be seen with
the AC 428 on show. Although this was one of the more
interesting classes an early Maserati was missing, unfortunately
the wonderful Maserati 150 GT sold earlier this year in Arizona
and sharing the stable with the last years BoS winning Dino was
not seen that weekend.
Apart from these special classes especially the pre-war classes
attracted much attention. A duo of Bugatti were among the
highlights of the concours, the Type 55 is considered by not few
as the most elegant of the Jean Bugatti designs including the
race technology of the grand prix Type 35 with elegant lines off a
roadster. The Type 57 on show was an Atalante by Vanvooren,
this wonderful unrestored example in pistachio green was part of
the famous Mullin collection before it came back to Europe in a
part exchange for a Type 55. Minor problems with the fuel filter
prevented a start on the cold and damp morning in front of the
judges leaving the class victory to the 55.
At the end of the day the two Best of Show were presented, one
awarded by the Jury and one by public vote. Whereas the public
was more impressed by the local hero, the Horch 930V Roadster
with Gläser body, the Jury voted the Talbot-Lago T120 Cabriolet
both class and best of show winner. This is the second BoS for
this factory bodied “baby” Talbot-Lago as it just won the concours
at the Schloß Dyck Classic Days a few weeks ago and it will
present Bensberg at the Louis Vuitton trophy later that year.
Starting an event like this from zero is quite a challenge,
especially due to the German mentality. Unlike in the US where
people are proud on their achievements and like to show them so
that spectators could admire the presented gems without envy
the everlasting debate about the uneven distribution of wealth in
Germany led to very private collections that are rarely shown in
public and if so normally anonymous. As these are not the best
premises for a concours over here it might be interesting to see
the development of the Bensberg Classics in the next years.
Fortunately VW did not make the mistake to imitate the
American shows in size like the ill-fated European Concours of
Schwetzingen that failed to find new cars every year but to keep
up the quality more international collectors must be attracted in
the years to come. After the successful launch of this event it is
now the challenge to take it up to the next level so that it could be
mentioned in the breath with the other events of international
reputation.
Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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