I’m not really a morning person, especially on the weekends. But when it comes to cars, you can wake me up anytime, so when I found out that on a a Saturday morning oldtimer parade in the city where I live – I had to be there.
This event took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and it was organized by Retromobil Club Romania. They organize similar events all over the country, mostly in the spring and autumn, but the other seasons are not forgotten.
It is officially called a parade, but, happily for photographers and fans of everything automotive, it is mostly a static event. One where you have the chance to travel in time, to an era when cars were quite different to what you find on the showroom floors of today.
Since there are no announcements regarding the shiny metal that will feast your eyes, you can imagine I was very curious.
Arriving there, it was already quite full of people enjoying the friendly atmosphere of the old-timers, and my eyes were happy when catching sight of the classics.
I immediately took out my camera and started blending in with the audience, admiring the variety; classic Mercedes’ and old Volkswagen Golfs, but also a classic example of Porsche, Maserati and Rolls-Royce.
The cars are registered as old-timers in Romania, which implies that they are in original state or restored, and of at least thirty years of age. Sometimes, there are guests from other countries, and this year there were two cars from Moldova, popular in Eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain.
One was a Moskvitch 2138/40 and the other one was a GAZ-24 Volga station wagon. I heard about these cars from my grandparents, but I have never actually seen them before.
They were interesting, but my heart beats faster when I see something of Italian or German provenance, like the Maserati Merak, Porsche 928 or a dogleg gearbox-equipped Mercedes 190E. Something American gets me going, too, like the Cadillac Eldorado.
New for me, this time, were a Lexus GS300 S140 and the AMC Hornet. I had never seen these in person before, and I took some detailed looks at them.
As history tells us, until the end of 1989, Romania was ruled by a regime which made it very difficult or almost impossible to get cars from Western Europe, USA or Asia, so there was little variation on our roads.
But, as time passed, petrolheads managed to import cars which were previously unobtainable for someone living in the country.
Over the years, this community started growing, now managing quite a varied display of classic cars which are displayed as events like this one.
If you find yourself in the area and there is an event like this taking place, I highly recommend attending, even for a few minutes. You will not regret it.
