Gröbming, 10th - 12th of July
For more than 20 years now, exactly from 1993 on the
Ennstal-Classic is held in the beautiful scenery of the Steiermark
with the start and finish in Gröbming. Under the slogan “Driving in
the last Paradise” the Ennstal-Classic became the most
important event of its kind in Austria and one of the major in
Europe during the busy summer months in the classic car
calendar. With so many events going on it is difficult to visit every
one and every year so after a year off we returned to Gröbming for
this year’s edition on the second weekend of July.
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We were surprised to see a few changes over the last two years;
the most important is the new event parallel to the regularity rally,
the so called Race Car Trophy. Within the last two decades the
Ennstal-Classic attracted some of the most important names in
motorsports past and present to Gröbming and the Chopard City
GP on Saturday was one of the highlights were several
manufacturers including Alfa Romeo, BMW and Mercedes-Benz
showed their treasures from the museum driven by Sir Stirling
Moss, Jochen Mass and Walter Röhrl on regular basis or featured
drivers like Nigel Mansell, Sebastian Vettel or Gerhard Berger.
Apart from the factory cars several private entries paraded in
Gröbming and to give those cars without a road registration or
those unwilling to drive the entire rally on public roads some extra
miles the Race Car Trophy is held on the nearby Airport in
Niederöblarn and the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg on closed off
tracks at the same time as the regularity trial. On one side this
attracted a few cars normally not seen like the McLaren and Lola
CanAm racers or the Formula single seaters but on the other side
this also took away a few cars from the rally like the Porsche 550
Spyders or 904 GTS that were driving the long distance in the
past. As those following the rally rarely saw the Race Car Trophy
this reduced the field of interesting cars on the road as it is still
more enjoyable to see them on the Sölkpass or the Nockalm than
on an airfield.
Since a few years now the place of the scrutineering on
Wednesday was moved from the traditional spot in the local car
shop over the street to some tents on the parking lot of a
supermarket and this year finally the buildings of the car centre
disappeared leaving no other opportunities than the mobile
solution. Beside the tent for the technical inspection and the
issue of the paperwork and starting numbers a few tents of the
commercial partners could be seen but to our surprise neither
Mercedes-Benz, BMW or Alfa Romeo was present either with
modern cars or entries both for the race car trophy and the
regularity rally leaving Porsche the sole car related sponsor of the
event. Certainly Porsche with its link to Austria is a good choice
but compared to the Silver Arrows of Mercedes and Audi in
previous editions of the Chopard GP, the original 328 MM racers
from BMW or the Disco Volante of Alfa Romeo in the rally the
wide range of Porsche 911 and 356 lined up left some mixed
emotions. On one side those interested in the air cooled cars
from Zuffenhausen could enjoy the entire range from early pre-A
bent window examples of the 356 to the late T6 as well as several
variations of the pushrod and the Fuhrmann engine on the early
cars or 911 in Coupe/Targa variations in E, T, S or even RS
configuration but for those less educated it was very much a
line-up of a red, green and silver Porsche. This is certainly the
downside on the Porsche model range spanning just two main
street cars lines over the first important decades, the more
interesting race cars are more common on the race meetings.
Not few had the impression that the amount of Porsche was a
little bit too high when listening to the comments of the
spectators at the various stops along the road, the fact that some
of the presenters there were unable to explain the difference
between the models did not help either. As the air-cooled engines
are very reliable making the 356 and 911 a very good rally car
adds to this development as could be seen on other events as
well, the demand for these cars could be observed by the steadily
increasing value over the last years.
But Porsche was not the only car in higher numbers; several
Austin Healey and Jaguar E-Type were lined up on Thursday
morning in Gröbming for the first drive up the Stoderzinken, the
local hill at Gröbming reducing a little bit the variety compared to
previous editions. Especially the pre-war cars were reduced in
their number and surprisingly few BMW 328 were seen this year,
also the traditional trio of Veritas (based on the BMW pre-war
technique) was missed that day. On the other side the pre-war
line-up unfortunately included a Bugatti Pur Sang (Argentinian
Replica) and a so-called Bentley special in the style of the
famous Old Number One double Le Mans winning Speed Six, a
development not everyone approves as it takes away starting
numbers from genuine cars.
But this year edition included the dream of every public relation
officer as the Ennstal-Classic could welcome one of the original
Ferrari 250 GTO. Scottish baron Irvine Laidlaw brought the ex
Lucien Bianchi and Scuderia Filipinetti racer (3527GT) all the way
from the UK and with the latest price development this car might
have had almost the same value as the other 196 cars line-up
next to it in Gröbming. Unfortunately the immense value of the car
was also the only true information that was pointed out wherever
the car appeared, although there are a lot of stories to be told
about the development of the GTO (when Giotto Bizzarrini was
dismissed after the famous “palace revolution”), the success in
the hands of famous drivers like Stirling Moss, John Surtees or
Ines Ireland, how Enzo Ferrari convinced the officials that this is
just a development of the SWB or simply the fact that this is the
last real front engined Ferrari GT racer that could be both driven
on the road and track, the car in Gröbming was always reduced
to “the 50 Million dollar car”. And although most of the spectators
looked reverential because of this value few did know why this car
is as expensive. At the end of the event even the presenter on the
stage had to ask Laidlaw how he heard about the Ennstal-Classis
but on the other side the Scottish Sir might have been the only
person who enjoyed the weather in Austria as he stated with a
smile that “the rain of the three days almost made him feel at
home”.
Over the last few years also the timetable of the rally was
changed, whereas in earlier years the traditional climb up the hill
on Thursday was followed by a smaller prologue the Thursday
was prolonged in later years to reduce the Marathon on Friday to
a reasonable size, from over 600 km to about 460 km this year.
Thursday led from the Stoderzinken through Obertauern to the
Nockalm national park with a later time trial on the Red Bull Ring
to arrive back in Gröbming after passing the Sölkpass in dusk.
Friday led North-East over the Hengstpass to the lunch break in
Steyr to drive back over Lunz am See and the Gesäuse National
Park to the final in arrival in Schladming.
After 21 special stages and seven more light barriers in Gröbming
at the final day the winning team of Reinhard Huemer and Johann
Watzinger on their Ferrari Dino 246 GT was just about a second
closer to the intended time average than the following team of
Helmut Schramke and Peter Umfahrer on their Jaguar XK150
DHC who won the Ennstal-Classic three times in the past.
So what is the conclusion of three days in Austria? The
Ennstal-Classic is still an attractive event for those interested in
Classic Cars, especially if the travel is within reasonable limits.
Compared to the previous editions there are a few changes and a
slightly reduced overall quality in the entry list as it is with most of
the rallies these days due to the amount of competing events in
the summer months. The sad weather did not really help this year
as most of the time the surrounding mountains were covered in
clouds and several rain showers did spoil the fun in the open cars.
For some reason the sun did just come out minutes after the
winners ceremony showing that a good event is also a question of
luck, just as Lord March had that a few weeks ago against all
weather forecasts Helmut Zwickl and his team did not have that
this year. Let’s hope that this was just an interim low and that the
Ennstal-Classic will find back to old strength in the next years.
Report & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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