2019 Caramulo Motorfestival Coverage – Part I

by Pedro F.

Last week I headed up to one of the most well established automotive institutions in Portugal – the Caramulo Museum – to check out the 2019 edition of the Caramulo Motorfestival, a good old fashioned celebration of the automobile in its most diverse incarnations. The Motorfestival includes a beloved hill climb event, club meetings, special exhibits and a series of parallel activities common to this kind of occasion. This means a whole lot of people descend on a very small village throughout the festival’s weekend, making attendance an exercise in patience towards some aspects but you either get in the spirit of these things or you don’t bother to show up at all in the first place.

The AV coverage for the event was supposed to be a whole lot more comprehensive but since my car decided that the perfect time to break down beyond any DIY, side of the road mending possibilities was in the middle of the weekend in a region where the few existent repair shops were closed till Monday, one day was all I got out of the experience. Still, there’s a few cool things to share as well as my two cents to go along with them.

I’ve decided to split coverage into 2 parts: the first one featuring the visitors’ rides, hill climb participants, club members and other assorted presences. The second will focus solely on the Museum cars themselves, either from the permanent collection or from the temporary “supercars” exhibit. In both cases I won’t feature every single thing, just the most (to me anyway) interesting stuff.

Starting with the non-Museum rides then; attendance wasn’t bad but there’s certainly a lot of room to grow and I do hope that for future editions, car clubs in particular can be enticed to make their numbers felt in the same way the MX5 folks did this year (which came down in borderline biblical plague volume). Also of note was the OPC Club which delightfully filled a whole street with Opel Arden Blue.

But onto the photos and we’ll start with Porsche models. 911 Classics attendance was low (with a beautiful 911S and an infamous 911S 2.7 standing out), but thankfully the Porsche Club made up for it with interesting modern stuff featuring a few 991 GT3 / GT3 RS examples, a 996 GT2 and even a Touring Pack GT3 in the most stunning green. A 991 GT2 RS also showed up and it’s incredibly fun to see such a bonkers thing out in the wild.

One of the most distinguished guests of the event was WRC legend Markku Alén. Because of this, Abarth had a 131 Rallye (accompanied by a 131S Familiare support vehicle) on site, a really fun addition to the Motorfestial.

As far as American rides, a flawless 69′ Mach 1 stole the show. There were a few other cars including a Shelby Daytona replica, but no one could take their eyes off the Mustang.

Ferrari-wise, it was also slim pickings (for Saturday anyway), with the most interesting ones limited to a 308 GTS and a Testarossa. The main attraction was, of course, the 166 MM Barchetta that AV readers may recognize from last year’s ACP Concours d’Elegance.

Invariably on the noteworthy list are the E-Types and the increasingly stunning Evo Deltas. Seriously, it’s no wonder that Integrales keep getting more and more expensive because they’re also looking better and better each year.

The Police showed up with its R8 and a couple of folks drove their 570s McLarens up there as well. 4Cs are regulars for this kind of event too.

Among other cool finds were a super stylish 130 Coupe with sumptuous orange velour interiors, a neat little A110 and a pretty uncommon Volvo P1800.

To promote the upcoming Sáragga collection auction which will be happening later this month (and which we’ve already talked about here on AV), RM Sotheby’s brought one of the sale’s most desirable pieces to Caramulo, a car which truly lent some gravitas to the festival: the Bentley 8-Litre.

And last but most certainly not least, the Lamborghini Miura. We will revisit this model in its SV variant for part II of the Caramulo Motorfestival coverage, but no matter the spec., this is an amazing, stunning, endlessly charming car which turns heads like no other thing on wheels. Utter perfection.