REPORT - 2022 MOTORCLASSICA - JUST CARS

REPORT - 2022 Motorclassica

Words: Mike Ryan

Photos: Mike Ryan and Tymon Blizzard

For automotive enthusiasts, the past two years have been pretty bleak due to COVID-19, with car shows and other motoring events either moving online or cancelled outright. One of the big victims of those cancellations was Motorclassica, the Australian International Concours d’Elegance, whose absence in 2020 and 2021 left fans without the opportunity to see - up close and in person - some of the world’s rarest prestigious, exotic and valuable vehicles.

Thankfully, Motorclassica was back this year, with a new look and a new approach to showcasing some of the world’s most outstanding automobiles from more than a century of motoring history.

Compared to past years, Motorclassica 2022 wasn’t completely turned on its head, with many familiar and popular features returning, like the themed displays for the concours, outdoor car club displays, special guest speakers, stallholders with everything related to the automotive enthusiast industry and more.

The venue didn’t change, either, with the historic Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne once again hosting this year’s event, as it has every year since the very first Motorclassica in 2010.

The Sprint to October

Mention racing in October and most people’s thoughts naturally turn to the Bathurst 1000, which this year was held on the same weekend as Motorclassica.

While Bathurst is an enduro, the organisers of this year's Motorclassica faced a sprint, as the commitment to go ahead with the event in an uncertain COVID environment was only taken in March. That may sound like a long time, but each Motorclassica takes almost twelve months to bring to fruition, so this year, the team led by new Event Director Jon Treherne had to pack all the planning, logistics and promotion into just six months.

That tight deadline also applied to the curatorial team that sourced the display vehicles. This year, that team was led by Mark Jansen, who signed on as Chief Curator for the first time but has been connected to the event going back almost to its beginning.

JUST CARS followers will know Jansen from Oldtimer Australia, his Queensland-based business specialising in prestige classic, luxury and collectable cars. Following this year’s Motorclassica, JUST CARS had the opportunity to speak to Jansen, who gave some insight into how the event’s post-COVID return came together.

“The biggest challenge was making the commitment to go ahead,” Jansen explained.

“Once management were comfortable that the COVID risk was well and truly low, they made the commitment, signed with the venue and then it was game on!”

2022 Themes

The themes selected by Jansen and his team for this year’s Motorclassica display included 75 Years of Ferrari, 60 Years of Shelby and 110 Years of Italian carrozzeria Bertone, plus special celebrations for Lotus, Porsche and muscle cars.

On the Ferrari side of things, the marque’s 75th Anniversary this year coincided with the 50th birthday of Ferrari Club Australia, so in addition to some exceptional display cars from the Prancing Horse, there was also a special parade of 75 Ferraris, new and old, from Ikon Park in Carlton to the Royal Exhibition Building on the Saturday morning of the event.

A new addition for 2022 was ‘Icons of Speed’, which covered veteran machinery built to break land speed records, decades of fast production cars and modern hypercars.

A broad theme like this may not fit within traditional concours parameters, but it’s one that enthusiasts were calling for.

“From the post-event surveys, people would say ‘I loved this, I loved that, but wouldn’t it be great if we could see some modern supercars’,” Jansen explained. “So, the challenge for us was how to incorporate those into the event while still maintaining the integrity of what a true Concours d’Elegance is all about - classic cars.

“We thought Icons of Speed was a great way to tell the journey of speed throughout the decades. We had cars from the early 1900s, through to an XK120, a 300SL Gullwing and a GT-HO Phase III Falcon, which were all the fastest production car in the world at one point.

“Then you had Ferraris and Lamborghinis from the '60s, '70s and '80s, into the modern stuff – Koenigsegg, Pagani, Ferrari – which I thought told the story quite well.”

Beyond these key themes, the concours covered traditional classes, like the Golden Age of Motoring (to 1918), Vintage & Post Vintage (1919 to 1945), Post War (to 1960), New Age Classics – British and European (1961 – ’80), Modern Classics (1981 – ’92), Supercars (1992 and up), American Classics (1950 to 1980) and Australian Classics (1950 to 1980), as well as two divisions of Classics from the Track, Restoration and Preservation classes.

Selecting Perfection

Given the much shorter time to prepare for this year’s Motorclassica, Jansen’s curatorial team had a major job ahead of them to deliver the vehicles required, but that job was made somewhat easier by submissions far outnumbering the amount of display spaces available, reflecting the hunger that the owners of classic and collectable cars had for Motorclassica’s return.

Normally, the floor space within the Royal Exhibition Building holds 120 cars, but rejigging the floorpan this year allowed 140 to be displayed. However, even that wasn’t enough to satisfy all would-be exhibitors.

“For 120 spots, we end up curating 60 to 80 of them organically,” Jansen explained. “And normally, we’d get about 150 entries come in unsolicited. This year, we had 350, so even though the time frame was short, the built-up demand from people within the collector car hobby was huge.”

The variety on show this year stretched from fairly humble Fords, Holdens, Fiats, Chevrolets and Renaults to exotics from the aforementioned Ferrari, as well as Daimler, Iso, Bentley, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, De Tomaso, McLaren and Lamborghini.

The age range was just as broad, with the oldest car in this year’s concours from 1902 and the newest a just-released 2023-model Koenigsegg. Rarities and oddities filled the floor of the Royal Exhibition Building, too, including a Hartnett, Arnolt-Bristol and Bristol Zagato, Aussie-made Giocattolo, a Schacht high wheeler from the US and German-built Wanderer roadster, to name a few.

Personal Picks

While visitors to this year’s Motorclassica had their own favourites and the judges made their own decisions around the winners in the various judging categories, Jansen said he found it hard to pick a favourite himself.

“I think 2022 was probably the best lineup of cars we ever had. The car that won Best of Show, the Mercedes-Benz 540K from the Fox Collection, was a very, very special car and a worthy winner.

“There was a little MG Airline coupe, which had previously won its class at Pebble Beach, that had some fabulous history and was a beautiful restoration – that was good to see.

“There was a white Lamborghini Miura P400 SV, which was very, very special – the last Miura built, factory right-hand drive and had gone through a no expense spared concours-standard restoration.

“Some of the race cars were pretty amazing, too, including an MG K3, which had a great story and was pretty spectacular.”

But with 350 submissions and only 140 display spaces, of which around half were curated, there were obviously some disappointments amongst those whose cars weren’t selected.

“Some of the cars that didn’t get accepted were more than worthy,” Jansen added. “Other cars didn’t get accepted because they didn’t fit a particular theme. So, all we can say to people is, ‘Unfortunately, your car wasn’t successful this year, but please enter it again next year.’”

2023 Already in Play

Planning for Motorclassica 2023 will already be underway by the time you read this, with the longer time frame to prepare sure to be appreciated by Jansen and his team.

"What we'll all be grateful for (next year) is more time,” Jansen said. “I think that will make life a lot easier for everyone!”

While themes for next year are still some way off being finalised, Jansen hinted that marque displays devoted to Aston Martin (110 years) and Lamborghini (60 years) are likely, with something along the lines of - but not the same as - Icons of Speed to be added, too.

A date had yet to be set for next year’s show at time of writing, but it’s likely to be early October, as in previous years.

For updates on Motorclassica 2023, go to: motorclassica.com.au

Class Year Make Model

VINTAGE & POST VINTAGE (1919-1945) 1937 Mercedes Benz 540K

POST WAR (1946-1960) 1960 Ferrari 250 GT PF

NEW AGE CLASSICS - 1961 Porsche 356B

BRITISH & EUROPEAN CLOSED (1961-1970)

NEW AGE CLASSICS - 1973 Lamborghini Miura
BRITISH & EUROPEAN CLOSED (1971-1980)

NEW AGE CLASSICS - 1970 Mercedes Benz 280SL
BRITISH & EUROPEAN OPEN (1961-1980)

MODERN CLASSICS (1981-1992) 1988 Giocattolo Group B

SUPERCARS (1993 & LATER) 2001 Ferrari 550 Barchetta

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