Classic wheels rock at shows
CLASSIC NEWS/ Nasrec Expo Centre and Bethlehem events took nostalgic looks at blasts from the past, writes Stuart Johnston
Two notable classic car events were held within striking distance of Joburg’s CBD at the weekend. The first one that Motor News’s scribe attended was in the friendly Free State, where the Maluti Motor Show celebrated its 10-year anniversary in Bethlehem.
The great thing about this show for Gauteng enthusiasts is the different approach to petrol hedonism, with drive-bys around the showgrounds including vehicles such as Vaal Japie tractors from the late 1940s and huge US cars that have been gathering dust in barns for decades.
The Maluti Motor Show was held on Saturday, November 10, providing more than enough time for an early-morning blast back to the Nasrec Expo Centre southwest of Johannesburg for the summer rendition of the twice-yearly Classic Car Show starting at 8am on Sunday.
Here the accent was generally on the spectacular, rather than the rustic, and there were some strange sights and sounds. We particularly enjoyed two renditions of the current pick-up craze parked side-byside, both based on 1940s Chevys. The one was a giant Big Foot–type thingie, with a ride height about as high as the roof line of the slammed-to-thepavement low-riding Chevy parked alongside.
Young Time classics are a new trend coming into their own, and these include cars from the mid-1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and even the early