Photography by SSSZ Photo
The Nürburgring is a feat of endurance. Not just in the sense that a single lap of the north loop takes about three times longer than one on almost any other car racing circuit on earth, but more so the simple fact that it has survived for as long as it has. They haven’t run F1 on the real deal circuit that cuts and dips and ascends through multiple weather systems in the Eifel mountains since the late Niki Lauda’s brutal fireball of an accident in 1976, but the full, fearsome course is still in use for certain historic and modern competitions.
Barriers have been added, sections have been widened, and the tree line has been pushed back over the decades since the Nordschleife was constructed in the late 1920s, but the place still commands respect and humility on behalf of those who wish to take it at speed. The 24-hour race in the contemporary VLN series is coming up in less than three weeks’ time, but the end of May saw the Green Hell populated with a deep field of historic motorsport stars, from Group 5 Capris like the Würth-liveried beast above, to touring cars of the more modern than classic variety, to just about every variant of air-cooled 911 that one can name or build a replica of, and almost everything in between.
The event was simply and descriptively called the Nürburgring Classic, which is a young (this was the third edition) but clearly thriving weekend nestled among the circuit’s busy spring-summer-fall calendar that includes massive rock concerts and day-long races made up of over 150 machines sharing the track at once.
Not to be confused with the Oldtimer GP that will be held later this summer in August, the Nürburgring Classic served as a perfect hibernation wakeup call for many of the cars that participated over the course of the idyllic late-spring weekend. The event sees the different categories—and as you can plainly see, there are a great many of them—taking on the full layout that includes the modern grand prix track and the Nordschleife together, but the pit lane area had the highest density of photo-worthy moments, which I hope comes across in our massive gallery below.
