by On May 28-30, the largest technical festival in Ukraine, OldCarLand, took place in Kyiv. More than half a thousand rare cars were showcased. The oldest of them is over 100 years old.
The cars were displayed among airplanes at the State Aviation Museum named after O.K. Antonov. Most of the cars are rare and have an interesting history. The event was organized by the Old Car Service club of technical classics.
The main exhibition of the festival was formed from Soviet representative hand-assembled cars. Among them was the ZIL-115, which served the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, and became the last in the family of Soviet government limousines. Such cars were produced from 1978 to 1985, with 106 cars made. Features include a body covered with more than 10 layers of paint, an interior trimmed with leather and Karelian birch veneer, and suspension with impressive smoothness.
For the first time at the festival, the Citroën DS 23 from 1973 was presented. It is the first of its kind in Ukraine. It was recently brought from Belgium. The DS 23 is remembered as the car of Charles de Gaulle – a cabriolet based on this model served as the parade car for the general, and the sedan was his daily transport. Such a DS once saved the life of the president of France during an assassination attempt on him. Attacker bullets pierced two tires, but the revolutionary hydropneumatic suspension of that time allowed the body to roll less and continue moving. The car’s suspension provided not only unique ride smoothness and stability in turns but also allowed for clearance changes and wheel replacement without a jack. This car had other innovations: the DS became the first car in the world to receive a robotic transmission with automatic clutch. The “twenty-third” became one of the first mass-produced cars with front wheel disc brakes.
The festival also debuted the world’s oldest “Zaporozhets” – ZAZ-965 from 1960 with the factory number “185”. This specimen was produced in the initial days. It also has certain differences compared to later “Hunchback” models. OldCarLand also showcased a rare Bentley from 1959, which belonged to a family close to the American president John F. Kennedy. It is one of the 1,863 sedans S2 (manufactured from 1959 to 1963). The estimated market value of the car now is $150,000.
For the first time, a full lineup of Ukrainian lightweight motorcycles from the 1940s was showcased. The “highlight” of the exhibition was the KMZ K1B “Kyianyn” moped from 1949 – one of the first post-war two-wheeled vehicles in the Soviet Union. The first specimens of this model were assembled from components that were brought from Germany as part of reparations. “Kyianyn” was produced from 1945 to 1951, during which time it earned the title of the most affordable vehicle with an internal combustion engine in the USSR.
The oldest car at the festival was a Ford T from 1912. It is the first mass-produced car model in the world. It is the model that began the history of the assembly line production concept. However, they showed a car at the event that was assembled a year before the assembly line began. The oldest motorcycle was the Stock Kardan from 1929. The Stock company operated in Germany in the 1920s but disappeared in the 1930s when the Nazis came to power. During its existence, it produced only 30,000 motorcycles, of which only a few have survived to this day.
Traditionally, Old Car Land hosted rallies with retro cars, the “Elegance” contest – where owners of old cars dress in the attire from the time their car was manufactured, and a fashion contest of different eras. The main prize (Grand Prix) was awarded to the Mercedes-Benz W113 from 1965. This car was unofficially nicknamed “Pagoda” because of its concave removable hardtop. In 8 years of production (1963-1971), just under 50,000 such cars were built.
The next festival will take place in the fall of this year.
