A CALVACADE of vintage and classic cars will be taking over Ballarat this Heritage Festival.<\/p>\n
The Vintage Car Show will take to the streets this Sunday, 21 May from 10am until 3pm on Lydiard Street North.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s theme is Country of Origin and there will be 120 cars, trucks and motorbikes from as far back as the 1910s until the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big, wide variety of vehicles,\u201d said captain of the Ballarat Vintage and Classic Car Club, Brendan Stevens.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year we staged all the vehicles by age but this year we thought we\u2019d do a different idea and stage them by country of origin as people are often surprised by where vehicles come from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Stevens said there can be a lot of misconceptions about car manufacturing in Australia, with the first Holden not being made until 1948.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of vehicles that appeared in Australia in the 1950s weren\u2019t actually manufactured here, they were simply assembled here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them came out of Canada and America and England. We didn\u2019t really have manufacturing we just had assembly plants.\u201d<\/p>\n
The display will have collections from Vintage and Classic Car Club Ballarat, Early Holden Club, Volkswagen Club and the Historical Motorbike Association with cars from Canada, Italy, the United States, France, England and Australia<\/p>\n
Mr Stevens said the show is a fantastic opportunity see rare, working cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to block a heritage street off full of heritage cars is a one off really,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of the stuff should be in museums.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said normally people would have to travel a significant distance to see this range of vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got vehicles built in 1915 and they\u2019re being driven around by their owners so it\u2019s very good for them to get them about for the day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019re 10 vehicles built before 1920 so they\u2019re more than 100 years old and they still go for a drive regularly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re otherwise not going to see this stuff unless your involved in the vintage and classic movement or go to a museum.\u201d<\/p>\n
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