Technoclassica Essen (1)

After my enjoyable trip to Retroclassics Stuttgart last spring, this year I thought I would visit the mother of all German (and indeed European) shows, Technoclassica. Cheap airfares courtesy of Easyjet made a day trip viable but the show is so huge (probably three times as big as the NEC Classic Car Show) that you really need two days to do it justice. Here are some highlights of the fantastic cars on show.

Mercedes Benz celebrated 120 years of motor sport with an amazing display of competition machinery from the earliest 19th century race cars to Hamilton’s car from last year. Many of the cars are not on show at MB’s excellent Stuttgart museum and the display as a whole would have required half a day to do it justice.

Mercedes Grand Prix Racing Car – The car that broke French hearts at the French GP in July 1914 in a rivalry that was to find its true intensity a month later when the world descended into the Great War

This is the Team Johnson Rally Wax Mecedes Benz 280E driven by the British crew of Fowkes and O’Gorman that finished second (behind another 280E) in the 1977 London to Sydney Rally. I saw this car depart London as a 8 year old, there to cheer on the Lotus Cortina of my Uncle. He sadly only made it to Iran in what is still considered the toughest and longest rally ever held.