One incident at the wonderful Autoclásic, the annual car and bike spring festival in Buenos Aires, perfectly illustrated the passion of Argentinian enthusiasts.
Prior to traveling to South America, I’d swotted up on locally built cars including the Peron-backed Justicialista, De Carlo microcars and the Torini 380. Like so many of the models built exclusively in South America I’ve seen pictures only in my well-thumbed Georgano Encyclopedia of Automobiles, or on specialist websites.
My first blissful day exploring the sprawling show and autojumble, staged among the elegant Alamos tree-lined avenues of the Hipódromo de San Isidro, was the ideal introduction to Argentinian automotive history.
Club members eagerly explained the histories of rare microcars, while hardy competitors in the Agrupación Clásicos e Históricos del Turismo Carretera regaled me with their adventures on 20,000km rallies.
Other highlights included hearing a prototype Steyr-based air-cooled V8 run in the Justicialista roadster, and finally getting to see an ASA Monfaro kit car. I’ve long wanted one of these Fiat-powered, GRP-bodied, Maserati A6GCS replicas, but local values and high shipping costs now make it another pipe dream.
The generous organisers were jubilant about my enthusiastic response to the event, but I couldn’t hide my slight disappointment at not finding a Torino coupé.
