Jüchen, 1st - 3rd of August
Already for the 9th time the Schloß Dyck Classic Days were held
in the surrounding of the moated castle near Jüchen between
Mönchengladbach and Düsseldorf. Over these last editions the
Classic Days grown to one of the most important events of its
kind in Germany and when walking the parking lots one could see
that the draw area is not just Germany as there are a lot of
guests form nearby Belgium and the Netherlands.
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But what is it that attracts so many visitors even from far away to
spend their weekend in Jüchen while there are uncountable
events elsewhere every weekend in the summer months in an
ever growing classic car calendar? It is not just the quality of the
entered cars in the demonstration runs and even more the
concours but also the atmosphere created by visitors themselves
as most of them are coming in style with an own classic and so
the public car park in the Miscanthus Field is becoming a huge
outdoor museum with about 7000 cars over the weekend that is
worth watching alone. As these are cars actually owned by the
attending car lovers they are exactly those cars other visitors are
interested in as they are both within an affordable price range and
also well-known and not few prefer walking up and down those
line-ups rather than the exotics on the concours fields. When
walking from the car park to the main houses of the castle one
also comes past the picnic area and the exhibitors displays and
even more young timers, classics from the 1960s and German
economic miracle times could be seen parked on the meadows
under the trees and especially the last group of the German cars
had its own exhibition area where people could see the Mercedes
and BMW but also Borgward and Llyod of this era that minted the
status of the car in Germany and not few of the elderly people
who actually saw these cars running on the streets back then got
glazed eyes when telling about them to their grandsons on this
family weekend. A display of the matching commercial vehicles
with colourful livery led to the “Stars&Stripes” display with an
American diner, several classic cars with the typical fins, girls in
petticoat and a band playing rock´n roll.
In the Charme & Style area behind the castle again more than 20
cars were displayed with period accessories and matching
fashion and the owners again put in a lot of efforts to make a
great overall appearance.
Walking over the bridge one did reach the Orangery with the main
display, the concours d’Elegance “Jewels in the Park”. Here 56
coach build examples were lined up in a dozen different classes
ranging from the open sports cars from the early 1920s to the
1960s including some very famous and important machinery,
most of them telling very interesting stories about their
changeable life. Some highlights included the fabulous OM 665
Superba brought to Jüchen all the way from Italy with its
wonderful Castagna body making this car a deserved class winner
and best restored pre-war car on the field. Not less exotic is the
well-known Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GS Aprile of Corrado Lopresto
that won both public choice awards earlier this year at the Villa
D´Este concours and that was awarded best Alfa Romeo in Dyck.
In contrast to the small Italian cars was a quartet of supercharged
straight eight Mercedes-Benz, one with work Sindelfingen
cabriolet body, the other with a very unusual Freestone&Webb
Saloon coachwork. This car was originally built for the German
ambassador in London von Ribbentrop and with the tension
between the two countries the body was built by a British
company rather than a German one to give this car a less exotic
exterior between the Bentley and Rolls Royce of the era. The
Special Roadster as seen in the class of the “Flamboyant Years”
would have been certainly a show stopper in London during this
era. One of two Erdmann&Rossi bodied cars brought over by
Saulius Karosas directly from the Concours in Bensberg was the
Mercedes-Benz 380K built for Max zu Schaumburg-Lippe and the
car with its glorious sound from the supercharged engine was not
just class award winner but also runner up behind the winning car.
Best of show went to the fabulous Lancia Astura Pinin Farina
Cabriolet in stylish green. This car was shown a few years ago at
the Villa d´Este concours and was still in immaculate condition
making this a worthy winner of the concours.
But there were several more cars worth watching on the field
including the Avion Voisin that won the concours two years ago,
several Delahaye including the 135M Figoni&Falaschi from the
Peter Mullin Collection or its white counterpart with Saoutchik
coachwork. Being a VW sponsored event there was also one of
the rare Rometsch bodied VW Beeskow Cabriolets and two
coach built Porsches from Beutler and Wendler, Maserati in its
centenary was again represented by the wonderful A6 GCS Frua
Coupe as seen in Bensberg, a A6 Pininfarina and the 350 GT
Vignale Spider.
Leaving the orangery on came past the wild Erdmann&Rossi
bodied Mercedes-Benz 500 K that originally was designed for the
King Ghazi bin Faisal of Iraq with very floating lines and covered
wheels. Unfortunately the original car disappeared so this was an
exact copy made for King Hussein of Jordan.
But the Classic days are not only static displays but feature the
“Racing Legends” on the short triangle course in front of the
castle. In two paddocks the cars are line-up for the visitors, in the
inner yard of the castle and the “new paddock” at the track.
Especially the new paddock had several interesting cars from the
factory museums as Mercedes, VW and the Fiat Group had their
own special runs beside the normal entries of the Historic,
Classic and Modern “race group” in addition to Monoposto and
Motorcycles. As the normal entries are basically the same every
year the special runs are the more interesting part of the
weekend.
Mercedes-Benz was celebrating again 120 years of Motorsport
but unfortunately the W25 and the W196 Silver Arrows remained
silent as they were already extensively run this year on various
other events. Also the fact that Mercedes is not the main sponsor
of the Classic Days anymore might have been one of the reasons.
So it was Ellen Lohr, Dieter Glemser and Roland Asch running
the Nardo 190 E 2.3-16, the 300 SLS and the C111 on both days
with Hans Herrmann, Klaus Ludwig and Jochen Mass joining
them on the infield for the autograph sessions.
VW had several cars running but the two main features were their
star guest Jacky Ickx in the Porsche 550 Spyder and the
Porsche Type 64 Berlin-Rom streamliner. Although VW tries to
get a connection of the Type 64 and their latest XL1 they are born
for very different purposes. The new VW streamliner is built for low
fuel consumption from their engine whereas the Porsche designed
streamliner based on the KDF-Wagen (later the Beetle) was built
to get the highest possible speed out of the small engined car to
compete on an intended race on the new Autobahn from Berlin to
Rome. Although this race never happened this sole survivor out of
three cars built was certainly the star in Jüchen that weekend as
it was running on both days.
Also running was the Lancia D50, the famous Grand Prix car that
was later entered by the Scuderia Ferrari to secure Fangio one of
his five Championships. Unlike at the Vernasca Silver Flag hill
climb a few weeks ago the D50 ran this time a few more miles
and the unique sound could be heard in the alley for several laps.
Alfa Romeo was running a 750 Competizione and the 1900 Sport,
the Le Mans entered 8C 2900 B unfortunately remained silent all
weekend.
So what is the conclusion of the weekend? First of all the
organizers could be very happy with the resonance of the visitors,
certainly the luck with the weather did them also a favour as the
intended heavy rain and flooding did not reach Dyck but was
visible a few miles away.
The regularity runs on the “race track” do repeat themselves a
little bit every year as there are very few new cars entered
normally, one could see that the fences of the closed off roads
were less covered with people than in previous years. But
certainly the organizers need to keep this nevertheless as the
running cars are part of the success although there were rumours
that the event might become more a concours in the future. We’re
comparing the classic days with other events one might say that
there are better driving event and even better Concours (at least
outside Germany) but there is nothing comparable in the overall
on the continent. Sometimes the Schloß Dyck Classic days are
mentioned in a comparison with Goodwood but it would be wrong
to orient on that as this might be out of reach. But there is without
doubt no event in Germany that the Classic Days must be shy of
and this made a very entertaining weekend in August again.
Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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