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Cape Town · South Africa

Show halls and long roads

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The show hub

Motor shows and expos: six guides from inside the hall

Everything here is written from our own visits in and around Cape Town, with prices in rand given as indications only. Ticket costs, parking charges and hall layouts move around, so phone the venue before you plan a long drive on the strength of a number you read here.

These six pieces are the part of the site we rewrite most often, because show halls change and so do we. They run in a sensible order: plan the weekend, read a stand, understand a concours lawn, use the driving loop properly, get there and back, and then turn a shortlist into a decision three weeks later.

  1. A wide indoor show hall with cars on low plinths under warm lighting and a sparse morning crowdGuide 01 · 5 minutesPlanning a Cape show weekend so it is worth the petrolThe Cape show calendar is lumpier than people expect. A handful of big indoor expos, a scattering of outdoor displays on grass, and a long quiet stretch in the wet months when the only thing happening is a club breakfast under a gazebo. Here is how we plan around it.Read the guide
  2. A single display car on a turntable with its driver's door open and the boot lid raisedGuide 02 · 5 minutesHow to read an expo stand without being read yourselfA stand is a sales room with carpet, soft light and a turntable. That is not a complaint. But a car sitting still, engine off, under four thousand lux of warm downlight, is being presented at its very best, and knowing how the presentation works lets you see past it.Read the guide
  3. Classic cars lined up with bonnets open on a Winelands lawn under oak treesGuide 03 · 5 minutesConcours lawns around the Cape, and how to enjoy oneA concours is nothing like an expo. It happens on grass, usually under oaks, and the pace is set by owners who have been polishing since five in the morning and have nowhere else to be. If you have only done indoor shows, the first one is a mild shock.Read the guide
  4. A driver over fifty at the wheel on a short show loop, hands at a quarter to threeGuide 04 · 5 minutesTest drives on a show loop, and what they are good forMost big expos have a driving area, and it is usually a flat loop of two to eight kilometres with a passenger from the stand in the left front position and a speed limit someone takes seriously. It is not a test drive in any meaningful sense. It is still worth doing.Read the guide
  5. A tarred mountain pass curving up a dry slope in the Western Cape with low cloud on the ridgeGuide 05 · 5 minutesDriving in to the show hall, and getting home afterwardsHalf the complaints we hear about a show are really complaints about the journey: an hour in traffic on the N1, nowhere to park, and a drive home in the dark with a headache. The journey is plannable, so plan it.Read the guide
  6. Two people in their sixties going through service documentation at a tableGuide 06 · 5 minutesFrom the show floor to a signed offer, three weeks laterShows are shortlist machines. The mistake is treating a hall as a place to buy, which is how people end up with a car that photographs beautifully and does not fit the life they actually lead. Here is the three-week version that works.Read the guide

Questions

Eight things people ask us before they phone

Do you sell cars, or take anything from a dealer?

No, and that is the whole point of the arrangement. We are paid by the person we are helping and by nobody else. No stand, importer, dealership, insurer or workshop pays us a referral, and we do not hold stock. If we recommend an independent workshop for an inspection, it is because we have used them and we get nothing for saying so.

What do show tickets and parking usually cost?

As an indication, an indoor expo ticket runs somewhere between a hundred and fifty and three hundred rand, children are often cheaper or free, and on-site parking is forty to a hundred and twenty rand depending on how close you want to be. Club displays on a lawn are frequently cheaper, sometimes a donation at the gate. These figures move, so check with the venue.

Is a test drive on the show loop worth queueing for?

Worth it for driving position, visibility and the controls you will use every day, not worth it for ride or refinement, because the loop is flat, smooth and slow. If the queue is longer than twenty-five minutes we usually skip it and ask for a proper drive on our own roads instead.

We are flying in and hiring for two weeks. What do you actually tell us?

Mostly the unglamorous parts. What the daily rate excludes, what the excess is and whether you can reduce it sensibly, whether tyres and glass are covered, what the agreement says about gravel roads, and which photographs to take at handover so a scratch argument at the end goes your way. Then route notes for the first and last day, because those are the ones people get wrong.

All eight questions

A two-lane coastal road running above the Atlantic with the mountain dropping to the water

Show halls and long roads

Phone us before the show, not after it

A forty-five minute call the week before an expo changes the whole day, and it costs less than the parking and the tickets together. Phone the Bree Street number during the hours on the contact page, or send a note through the form and tell us which show you are going to and what the car has to do for you.

Send us a note