Francisco Carrion
Not a week had passed since the rally that the Rolls-Royce Twenty owners Club had held in northern Spain when another foreign organization visited our country, and not too far from the previous one.
In this case it was the National Classic Tour, a rally organized by a Belgian company "high-top" for 15 years. The route of this edition included roads in the south of France, the Basque Country and La Rioja.
A total of 6 days starting with a meeting at the impressive museum Brussels Autoworld (Belgium), where all the cars were received and later transported by trailers to Bilbao.
The quality of the accommodation is high and the level of organization is high… so much so that a return charter flight was even chartered for the participants. And of course, the price of the registration rose like this to no less than 9.975 euros.
And with these prices you already know: exclusivity. Participating cars they were mostly valuable sports, The oldest being a spectacular Alfa Romeo 1750 from 1932 and the most modern a Ferrari Dino from 1972.
Like in the Thousand Miles (or almost)
The 52 cars in this 15th edition were divided into the categories "discovery" (pure and hard tourism) and regularity, for which the circuit of Los Arcos was even used, although this rally is conceived mainly for the enjoyment of driving and not for competitiveness.
Alfa-Romeo 1750 and BMW 328.
As for the cars that could be seen on our roads the number of Porsche registered stood out in number with no less than 13 units, most of them of the 356 model in its different versions.
Nor is it common for our country to see two prewar BMWs in the same event (models 327 and 328 from the late 30s), a 300 Mercedes 1957 SL roadster or a 4 Aston Martin DB 1/1954.
And among all these “rolling jewels”, a curious Saab 96 with its smoking 3-cylinder two-stroke engine, whose market value is practically the same as the registration fee for this rally!
Aston-Martin DB 4 and Ferrari 330 GTS
Hunted by the hair, again
Again our photographer Unai Ona chased the caravan for several days to take the magnificent photos that we now enjoy, and it was not exactly easy to get information about the event either. Once again, this rally had little or no publicity in the Spanish media.
As we have said before, we hope that this "classic car tourism in Spain" is a new custom that takes root in Europe and we can continue to enjoy it, even from the sidelines.
Photo Gallery, by Unai Ona
