“The History of the Motor Car” will be on show at Zwartkops racetrack on 3 August when the Pretoria Old Motor Club hosts this year’s Cars in the Park event.
“We have assembled a wonderful collection of iconic machines dating from 1945 back to the late 1920s, when development of the motor car accelerated at an amazing rate,” says chief organiser Frik Kraamwinkel. “We will be showcasing both the cars that were bought by the common man, and magnificent examples of cars bought by the rich and famous.”
This year’s show is the 43rd rendition of an event that has its roots in the old POMC Clubhouse area at the Pioneer Museum in Silverton, Pretoria, in the early 1980s. Eventually the Cars in the Park grew too big for that genteel setting and the show moved to the Zwartkops Raceway, situated on the R55 route south of Laudium.
The POMC has always been known for attracting a top-level collection of cars owned by its members, and this year they date back from the end of World War Two.
The most dramatic car on show, and one that was way ahead of its time, will be the 1937 Cord 812, owned by Sakkie van der Watt. This car had front wheel-drive, concealed headlights and a pre-select gearbox that pre-dated the dual-clutch gearboxes that only came into common use in the last decade, nearly 80 years after the Cord was introduced to an amazed American public. Pop-up headlights were only introduced decades later by the likes of Porsche with its 944 and 928 models.
The brainchild of a man named Errett Lobban Cord, the Cord featured a Lycoming V8 engine sourced from an aircraft. In the 1960s, Gram Parsons, who was to become a member of The Byrds rock group, wrote a song about the Cord entitled “The new soft shoe,” a brilliant summation of what the Cord was all about when it was launched in the late 1930s.
The line-up of Special Vehicles at Cars in the Park includes another revolutionary expensive car dating back to the 1920s: the Lincoln V12, owned by Justus de Waal. Despite its exotic V12 engine, this Ford-funded car’s aero shape in an era of box-shaped contrivances made buyers uneasy, to the point where they didn’t trust such a giant evolutionary styling leap and were reluctant to buy them.
The car that was acknowledged as “the World’s Best Car”, the Rolls-Royce, instead concentrated on incredible mechanical refinements invisible to the naked eye, and this famous brand will be represented by a magnificent 1933 20/25 Tourer model owned by Bob Bouwmeesters.
More “regular” cars that were affordable in the bygone era will include Ford Model Ts and Model As. The Model T was actually the first car assembled in South Africa, from 1923 onwards, starting out in an old wool packing shed in Port Elizabeth. The much more advanced Model A, introduced in 1928 to replace the T model, was the fastest-selling car in America’s history at that time.
A number of Model Ts and Model As will be in the Special Invites section in the Zwartkops pits on August 3, alongside Ford’s great rival models, the General Motors Chevrolets and Pontiacs of the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The Ford Model B marked the first time a Ford V8 engine was ever used by Henry Ford in an affordable production car, but Eric McQuillian’s 1933 convertible pickup was fitted with an upgraded four-cylinder engine by the Ford factory, as the early V8s were prone to overheating.
German makes on show will include a 1937 DKW F7, a remarkably reliable two stroke twin-cylinder car (and very fast for its time) owned by Corne Fourie. Great Britain will be represented by a 1940s Austin and a pair of MGs owned by POMC stalwart members Alex Duffey and Christo Ferreira.
Another POMC stalwart, Taco Kamstra will be showcasing a 1940s Pontiac that was a carry-over American car from World War Two, sold here in 1946.
The special invites section will include three Velocette motorcycles from the late 1920s and mid-1930s owned by another stalwart of the POMC, Tom Linley. Tom has long been a competitor and organiser of the DJ Motorcycle commemorative run from Durban to Johannesburg for bikes built before 1936.
The sweep of history will also include the special South African racing homologation production cars that were unique in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and these include the famous Cortina and Capri Peranas and the rare Toyota TRD that was a force in rallying in the early 1980s.
About 2 500 collectable cars from a wide range of age-groups and genres are expected at Zwartkops on August 3. Tickets are available from iTickets at R130 for adults while children under 12 are admitted free of charge. Tickets are also available at the gate at R150. The show opens for spectators at 8.30am, while exhibitors are admitted from 6.00 am to the Zwartkops grounds.
For more information visit www.POMC.co.za