The 'Woodstock' Classic Car Freaks

In August, hippies old and young celebrated the 50th Anniversary of woodstock, the world's greatest music festival. Here in South Africa, the pretoria old motor club's cars in the park gig at zwarktops raceway is seen as the "Woodstock" of the classic car fraternity.

- Stuart Johnston

Being stuck in a traffic jam at 6am on a Sunday morning is no joke. But this was no ordinary traffic jam. This was a queue consisting of cars that you’d gladly line-up to see anywhere in the world, and in the case of the annual Cars in the Park pilgrimage to Zwartkops Raceway, the cars that start revving up outside the gate from 5.45 am are unique.

Where else could you see a Rat Truck, a giant truck-version of a rat rod that uses two Peterbilt V8 diesel engines joined one behind the other to produce 750 kW of motivation and enough torque to uproot the entire pit lane infrastructure at Zwartkops?

THE RAT TRUCK RULES

The Rat Truck, with the legend “Henkbilt” on its doors, was one of the spectator highlights at this year’s event which saw close to 3 000 cars and 13 000 spectators enjoying what turned out to be the first day of Spring in Pretoria on August 4, 2019.

The truck was a behemoth creation that also featured two turbochargers towering into the air like elephantine trumpets, what looked like World War Two bomb casings mounted just below the cabin, and, bizarrely, peace signs for indicator lights on the massive grille. Mad Max himself would have approved of Henk’s creation!

OLD ZEPHYRS AND A MINT MERC PEGODA

That early morning pre-dawn trip to Zwartkops enables you to see a plethora of cars being driven into the circuit, to join the other 2 999 special-interest vehicles that make this the biggest car show in Africa. Here you would see a pair of early 1950s Ford Zephyrs in preserved but unrestored trim followed closely by a mint lady-driven Mercedes-Benz 230 SL with the so-called Pegoda roof, worth a lot more than R1-million today.