It’s Sunday, 6:30am, when you’re abruptly woken from your sleep. Not by the sun, but by the sweet sound of cars arriving and parking up. Because, as it turns out, the quiet village you’re staying in has transformed into a hillclimb paddock overnight.
This is GP Mutschellen, a classic hillclimb event located in a village just outside of Zürich, Switzerland.
The variety of vehicles at this famed one-day event is unbeatable. You have motorcycles and cars from the 1920s up to the 2010s, along with dedicated race machines. As a bonus for everyone involved, the village locals absolutely love it.
I wasted no time getting amongst it, and capturing cars as they were unloaded off trailers or being pushed down the street was magical. Photographs were waiting to be taken everywhere I looked, and while I could’ve easily stayed in the village paddock all day, there was action to shoot.
The hill climb course itself is quite short, with two slightly curved straights connected by one hairpin corner. Imagine a classic alpine road – curvy straight, corner, curvy straight – and you’ll have the idea.
I made my way up to the first straight, just a few minutes before the first group of motorcycles arrived. If someone in the village weren’t awake when the first bike attacked the course at full throttle, they certainly would have been by the second one.
This location is a fun spot to shoot at. The straight has a curve which allows for interesting head-on photos and even slow-shutter pans. I stayed there for around two hours to let the whole field pass, as my idea was to get all the cars from different locations, something I couldn’t do in previous years.
After a quick stop for a customary bratwurst wrapped in bread, I headed towards my next location – the final straight, which funnily enough also has a curve. I enjoyed shooting the cars with the crowd to the left, from here, and it was also a good spot for both head-on shots and pans. Another great thing about this location was the photo opportunity when the cars headed back down the hill with the sky behind them.
But my favorite location was the hairpin. This corner is actually closed to the public, possibly because it can be quite dangerous, but what a place to shoot from. It was absolute heaven for slow-shutter pans down to 1/15th of a second. And a bit closer to the apex, another amazing opportunity presented itself. As cars headed towards me, there was a village panorama behind them.
My final location for the day was the road that leads up to the start line. Here, people lined the sidewalks, making it a great spot to capture the overall vibe.
GP Mutschellen is an amazing event that I often wish was run over an entire weekend. But who knows, maybe it wouldn’t be so special then.
