The Surprises of Classic Car Fairs
No matter how often you visit classic car fairs, every time you’ll be amazed by the special old-timers you can buy there. Interclassics in Maastricht is now in full swing and it’s teeming with Porsches 911s, Ferrari Testarossas and BMW M3s. Beautiful stuff, which I can enjoy every time, but there are so many of them that you almost don’t see the specialness anymore. But a Puch Maxi Special for almost 6k, that really sticks with you!
The burgundy BMW 850i at the AutoWeek stand is a gem, but first-generation 8-series can be seen in multiple places. Two Alpina examples, a B12 5.0 and a 5.7, a little further on, are truly special.
A B12 5.0 Coupé for €175,000, a 5.7 Coupé for almost double that!
I am much happier with the beautiful Le Mans blue Peugeot 309 GTI-16 at our stand, the only one at the entire fair, which stands out among all those exotics. At an event overflowing with once unattainable boyhood dreams for normal people, it’s the lesser gods of yesteryear that provide the surprising effect.
The early Honda Civic CRX is touchingly beautiful. The red example is from the third owner and looks like it just rolled out of the showroom. I understand why the seller is asking nearly €20,000 for it. Of course, it’s a lot of money, but hey… youthful sentiment!
Wow, what a beautiful Honda Civic CRX!
Two aisles further on stands a Toyota AE86, the legendary ‘Hachiroku’ as enthusiasts call the Corolla Coupé from the eighties. I personally find the normal two-door version more beautiful, but I completely understand that a sticker ‘messepreis €33,600’ adorns the windshield. Cars with such a reputation can simply command such a price. Someone will certainly pay for it.
But does that also apply to the Puch Maxi Special with an A4 sheet on it showing an amount of €5,950? Even as a former Puch Rider Macho rider with Polini and Dell’Orto parts, for which I really scraped together money as a 16-year-old, I can’t wrap my head around that! And yet someone will pay for it, if only to fill a corner of a man cave. Such sympathetic surprises turn a classic car event into a cabinet of curiosities that leaves you with a good feeling every time.