With the enormous Retro Classics show in Stuttgart officially opening tomorrow (Friday 23 March), C&SC was there for the preview afternoon today and can reveal the delights on offer until Sunday 25 March.
Though in fewer halls (8) than the rival Essen show that it inexplicably clashes with this year – though neither show seems to have suffered from splitting the cream of German classics over two venues – the organisers have still filled 105,000sq m of exhibition space with 3000-plus vehicles, hundreds of private cars for sale, factory and museum displays, special exhibits, a Lanke auction, clubs, autojumble and more.
The halls each have themes making them easy to navigate, with coaches, trucks and heavy machinery in one, youngtimers and US classics in another, and one entire hall given over to private cars for sale, autojumble and automobilia.
Despite feeling far smaller than Essen, it is still easy to miss the many gems and it would take more than a day to see everything.
You still have time to get to Stuttgart but, in the meantime, this is what you can expect. Or if you can't, this is what you are missing.
With everything to show you from the weird and wonderful to the just plain weird, We've split them into categories, starting with general show shots (scroll down – quite a lot – further for club displays, cars for sale, fire engines and tractors and coaches).
For highlights from day two and the superb public classic car park, click here.
For James Elliott's pick of the tiddlers discovered dotted around the eight huge halls, click here.
Model T oil truck from 1921 was part of a display of six Ford T workhorses
Yours for a nice round figure – €1 million! BMW Werkmeister 328
Distressed classics were all the rage this year, this on the Auto-Feyer Classic stand
And these were on the Car Collecting Wittner stand. The Aston looked great
A wall of 300s on Kienle's outstanding display included two Gullwings...
... and masked the possible car of show (for us) 1936 Mercedes-Benz 500K Cabrio
1979 BMW M1 Procar, 1959 Maserati WRE and OSCA-powered 1960 Monteverdi MBM SP100 will all be auctioned by The Swiss Auctioneers on 10 June
Bugatti Type 49 cabrio (1931) and Alfa Romeo 6C-2500S from 1947
Any guesses to the star of the 60 years of Mercedes SLs celebration?
The Porsche Museum showed just three cars, but all were important and impeccable
Super-streched Checker can was part of Meilenwerk's varied display
Gross & Schläger showed a wonderful Facel II among many treats
328 Stromlinien Roadster was beyond distressed, but still very alluring
BMW 507 looked almost sectioned, but was actually mid-restoration
Royal Protec showed a rather nice 1967 Lamborghini 400GT
And this was just one stand's Porsche 356 offering, Die Edelschmiede's
1997 McLaren F1 GTR (Lehto/Soper/Piquet) on the BMW Classic pitch
Alfa Romeo 1900 Touring Sprint from 1953
BMW 503 Coupé was up for sale at small-change under €90,000
The Maseratis upstaged pretty much everything with a circle of all the road cars...
...a grid of single-seaters supplied by the Schlumpf...
...a duo of fantastic sports-racers (450S and 300S) and...
...the achingly pretty Maserati OSCA 1600GT Zagato
A Lotus Cortina muscles in on an otherwise perfect Alfa racer line-up
Believe it or not, this was just one of Stuttgart's petrol pump displays
Lots for the Lanke auction, which takes place on Friday and Saturday
