The watch on his wrist showed just half past nine when the village center was already filled to capacity. Around 600 cars had gathered in Sarnen on May 18 and 19 for this year's Oldtimer in Obwalden. The few areas that were not occupied by cars were taken up by a few food stands and lots of visitors so early in the day. The popular folk festival with its focus on old cars is definitely not for late risers.
The first four-wheeled jewels could still be spotted outside the official event grounds. In the small public parking lot to the north, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster and Citroën DS Cabriolet stood next to the VW Beetle and Peugeot 404 as if they were also ordinary everyday cars. It was a similar story with a Nissan Skyline GT-R of the R33 generation, which stood out among all the silver-black-grey contemporary companions mainly due to its intense yellow color.
Hooray, the school is on fire!
Behind the barrier that separates the modern traffic from the historic long-term parkers came the next surprise: anyone who thought that interest in pre-war cars was waning was proven wrong here. From Austin to Bentley - the number of curved fenders, running boards and free-standing headlights was pleasingly high, as were the children and young people who enthusiastically inspected the 90-year-old veteran cars.
Those who were there for the first time had to be careful not to get lost in the maze of small alleyways and secret paths (yes, the author is also talking about himself here). Each branch seemed to have its own thematic focus: here everyday cars of the seventies, there US road cruisers of the fifties. One street was almost exclusively filled with Ford Mustangs from 1965 to 1970 - among which a poor MGB looked somewhat lost.
The special exhibition of historic fire department vehicles on the Sarnen school grounds, which also looked back some 90 years into the past, was deliberately themed. Before off-road vehicles and heavy trucks became commonplace, American luxury cars from Packard or Cadillac were often used to fight the flames in the 1930s. Thanks to their powerful engines and robust construction, the crew and equipment could be transported reliably and quickly to the scene.
In addition to the crowd favorites Fiat 500 and Chevrolet Bel Air, visitors were also able to enjoy some "everyday exotics". For example, two Austin Cambridge with Farina lines were present in Sarnen, as well as a Datsun Cherry 100 A and an Alfa Romeo Giulietta - not the sixties beauty, mind you, but its less graceful eighties sister. Anyone who didn't have a classic car themselves or simply wanted to experience something other than their own classic car could be chauffeured in a third-party vehicle on one of the seven-kilometer "cab rides".
Over the mountain to Engelberg
So there was plenty to see. But you couldn't hear much of the cars, as pop music from loudspeakers not built for this purpose and an ambitious organ grinder were constantly vying for acoustic supremacy. To compete with them, you needed the thunderous power of an American LaFrance. Even the Lancia Stratos, whose Ferrari V6 certainly doesn't have a whispering voice, didn't even try, preferring to attract attention with its fully folding bodywork thirds instead of ears.
Anyone looking for unadulterated combustion acoustics had to wait until 15:15. That's when the automobile contents of the village center set off on their afternoon drive, which led almost 30 kilometers through the canton of Obwalden and back to Sarnen. For Pentecost Sunday, the meeting moved to Engelberg, with participants having the choice of taking either the fast or the beautiful route. At 49 kilometers each, the routes around the Stanserhorn or over the Ächerli Pass were exactly the same length.
Spectators who wanted to attend the arrival of the classic cars in Engelberg did not have to get up quite as early as the day before. There, the village center was only reserved from 11:00 am.
An entertaining picture story provides further impressions of the O-iO .
