St. Moritz, 27th - 28th of August, 2021 |
Friday was the day the cars were lined up at the Kulm Country Club for the registration and with a lot of Swiss
entrants many cars were rarely seen elsewhere, so visiting the Passione Engadina for the first time made a
nice change from the usual suspects one does see on so many events all over Europe. With the travel ban to
the US and restrictions hanging over the British events like the sword of Damocles finally there was the time
to check out this event and to make thing short it certainly did not disappoint. The quality of the cars seen
Friday was excellent led by numerous Ferrari old and new with some exotic pre-war machinery in between
including an ex Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo 8C Monza. |
The sun was shining that day over the country club but as weather could change a lot in the mountains the
sun was only seen infrequent during the next days as the sun-rays exchanged frequently with light rain both
on the driving day and the final concours. In the afternoon the teams had the opportunity to train on the
nearby airport for the upcoming time trials as the Passione Engadina is a regularity event in the tradition of
the Mille Miglia or other events of this kind. |
With Swiss travellers on their way home and even more caravans from the north of Germany and Netherlands
exploring the mountains there was chaos at some of the bottlenecks of the pass when the downwards traffic
blocked the way of a free drive up the hill for the classics. So beside the smell of the brakes from the cars on
their way down there was also the smell of the vintage clutches of the classics on their way up. Fortunately
this part of the rally was soon over and the rest of the day could be more enjoyed. |
After the lunch the corso divided between the modern supercars and the classics as the modern ones did
an extra loop over Davos before joining the classics on the way back to St. Moritz over the Julierpass. Once
back in St. Moritz the cars did another small detour to the airport were a few more regularity trials had to be
driven before a small drive though the town centre and a presentation to the public led back to the garage of
the hotel to finalize the driving day. |
But one car really stood out that weekend when talking about elegance, and that was the Alfa Romeo 6C
2500 SS from the Lopresto Collection. Being himself a very well-known character in the international concours
scene Corrado Lopresto brought his freshly restored Alfa to St. Moritz without any fear of getting it wet before
the concours and so the elegant black coupé could be seen both on the road and at the country club were it
won Best of Show not by surprise. |
Although the Passione Engadina seems to be more a local driving event compared to the big rallies in Italy
or the Tour Auto just taking place in France it is a very high quality event that attracts a lot of really nice
cars. Restricting itself to the Italian dolce vita it also provides a very homogeneous field of Italian sports
cars. So let´s hope that in the years to come we will find again the time to visit in between the big events
that hopefully get back to the calendar in the next year. |
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