Motorclassica opens this week

Organisers of the sixth annual Motorclassica promise that this year's event will be "the country's biggest exhibition of all things automotive..."

For starters, they'll have 100 cars and 40 motorcycles inside Melbourne's historic Royal Exhibition Building, and parked outside will be a further 200 cars and bikes on show. The vehicles inside will all be judged in the Australian International Concours d'Elegance.

A series of presentations taking place on the centre stage will include: 'Investing in Classic Cars', 'Photographing Classic Cars', 'Preservation versus Restoration', 'Historic Racing in Australia', 'Caring for your Classic Car' and the 'Evolution of Supercar Design'.

This year's event, commemorating 50 years of Supercars, will feature a McLaren F1, a Pagani Zonda, a Ferrari F40 and a 288GTO, a Porsche 959 and Carrera GT, Jaguar XJ220 and Lamborghinis Miura, Countach and Diablo.

On the opening day – Friday, October 23 – a section outside the building will be closed off for 'Park & Sell', where owners and buyers can negotiate deals for the cars on display. And on Saturday night, the Theodore Bruce auction will take bids for a 1914 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost valued at over $1 million, an alloy-bodied Jaguar XK120 and two Ferraris, both from 1973. One is a 365 GT4BB Berlinetta Boxer and other is a Ferrari Dino. The auction house anticipates each Ferrari will fetch more than $500,000.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche, Maserati, Citroen, Morgan, Caterham and MINI will all present new cars at the event, which formally begins on Thursday morning with the Tour Classica – a procession of vehicles driving from the New Quay Promenade at Docklands through the CBD to the Royal Exhibition Building.

Tickets are available online www.motorclassica.com.au and can also be purchased at the door.