Saturday, August 8th marked the return of 4th Annual Hemmings Sports & Exotics Car Show at Saratoga Springs, New York. Alfa Romeo was the “featured” automobile marque this year with many gorgeous examples on hand ranging from Alfa Romeo Spiders, to GTs and Giuliettas. Classic Honda Motorcycles were the featured bikes.

Sun and a light breeze graced the field in Saratoga Spa State Park as pre-1989 collector car registrants lined up just prior to 10am and parked their show cars for the day. Hemmings staff waved in the participants with bright orange directional flags so there was no confusion about where to park. The show was on the lawn between the reflecting pond and the Saratoga Automobile Museum so there was very little dust or dirt to mess up the beautiful cars on arrival. As usual the Hemmings people always had a smile and were very polite and helpful. A smattering of red, orange, white, blue, green and other more rare colored sports and exotic cars filled the lawn with over 150 cars by 10:30am so it was a strong turn-out for this growing show.

Each and every car collector had a story to tell on this day. Roy from Massachusetts, the owner of an amazing Inka Orange 1972 BMW 2002 M2 Conversion (recently featured in Roundel Magazine) showed everyone the cleanliness of the car’s undercarriage, while Tommy from downstate NY shared the story of how he came into possession of his immaculate, low mileage, all original 1977 Toyota Celica GT. Other highlights included the 1974 Ferrari 246 GTS Dino, 1961 Mercedes Benz 300SL, 1985 Renault R5 Turbo 2 the all original Saab Sonett and Ed Hyman’s Porsche 356c to which he straps his mountain bikes and cruises long distances (this Porsche is no garage queen). What a great group of cars and owners!

Following are some images of the cars we really liked on this day out in Saratoga. We hope you enjoy!

1974 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS:

1972 BMW 2002 (M2) Conversion to S14 2.5 Motor:

1985 Renault R5 Turbo 2:

1961 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL:

1968 Saab Sonett:

1977 Toyota Celica GT:

1979 Porsche 930:

1980 Porsche 911 SC:

1982 Lancia Zagato:

1962 Austin Healey 3000 BT-7:

1988 BMW E30 M3:

1978 Ferrari 308 GTS:

1969 Lotus Elan:

1969 Lotus Elan:

1964 Porsche 356-c Sunroof Coupe:

MG TC Special:

Mercedes-Benz 190:

1973 BMW 2002 tii:

When all was said and done Hemmings staff of editors and writers judged cars best in class for their country of origin as well as Best in Show and Publishers Choice Awards.

Hemmings Judges Presented Awards for: Best of Show, Publisher’s Choice and 1st & 2nd place awards for: Favorite British Car, Favorite Italian Car, Favorite French Car, Favorite German Car, Favorite Swedish Car, Favorite Japanese Car, Favorite Alfa Romeo,  Favorite Honda Motorcycle.

Though we did not have the opportunity to catch the presentation of the awards, (Hemmings staff will likely post the winners in their upcoming issue of Sports & Exotics so look out for it there) we did grab a quick video of the winning cars heading to the podium. You can probably get a sense of which cars were selected for their respective countries.

Saratoga Car Show:

The Hemmings Saratoga Car Show really brings out some great collector cars every year. There is such positive feeling of sharing the passion for collector cars at this show.

If you attend this show in the coming years, a couple of activities to check out while you are in Saratoga might be:

The Saratoga Automobile Museum.
The Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga Performing Arts Center
The Saratoga Raceway
Downtown Saratoga Springs has plenty of great restaurants, galleries, antique shops and activities and this year we were able to visit the “arts district” for some a taste of local foods.

Tags: Alfa Romeo, BMW, Car Show, Ferrari, Jaguar, Porsche, Renault, Saratoga Automobile Museum

Posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 7:11 pm under Concours Events, Lifestyle & Events. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.