The Lonville Classic started more than a decade ago with an innocent idea to bring together a few friends with classic cars around the gorgeous Swiss and Italian lakes. Over the years, the event has evolved, but the intimacy and informal luxury that only a small and perfectly curated ‘for friends by friends’ event can offer remains.
To the organiser’s delight, Mike Goodbun, the co-editor of Classic Cars Magazine, joined one of the previous editions of the rally. Mike and his wife Amanda turned out to be great and pretty relaxed participants. Driving an amazing AC Ace Bristol, kindly on loan from a local classic car collector, Mike clearly soaked in the atmosphere and managed to capture the essence of the Lonville Classic on paper for the largest classic car publication in the world.
Here his words: “We entered the Lonville Classic rally around Swiss and Italian lakes in a borrowed AC Ace and actually did rather well, but that’s not the point of this enjoyably unique event”. What started as a plan for a classic car meeting near Lake Como in 2009 ended up as the first three-day Lonville Classic and the title stemming from the exclusive all-Swiss watch company originally founded in 1873 and revived in 2007 by Proteus Jaguar C-type owner Vreeswijk and friends.
Like the watches produced in small batches, the event is deliberately kept small: this September’s rally is capped at 24 entries, but that doesn’t mean it’s only for the super-wealthy or multi-million-pound classic cars. Fun, friendships, and good times are high on this intimate event’s agenda, with making time for long lunches and fine dinners as important as enjoying the region’s best driving roads. This is the message that everyone here seems to get, with a refreshing lack of rivalry or seriousness.
Jokingly, it says on page five of the Lonville Classic roadbook: “Bribing is totally acceptable and, if done well, encouraged”. So Morgan Plus 8 driver Graham Lee gets in early with an Eric Clapton t-shirt for Dutch organiser and ‘Slowhand’ fan Joost Vreeswijk during the opening night’s reception overlooking Lake Lugano in Switzerland. The tongue-in-cheek advice continues: “Don’t joke with the Swiss police, ever”. Sense of humour? It’s just not there! And: “Only joke with the Italian police if you can afford it… a graceful person would have better chances”.
The driving test – reversing blindfold – with no sense of direction or speed behind a masculinity-challenging pink eye mask is all down to the navigator to guide the driver between the two cones and finish with the rear tyres parked equidistantly between them.
A vivid memory of the run to Laveno, where we board the ferry across the lake to Intra and skirt the western shore of Lake Maggiore to Stresa for a fine three-course lunch at the extravagantly decorated five-star Palazzo Aminta.
This Villa has stunning views up the length of the lake and past the tiny island of Isola Bella, which in 1918 counted Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw among his guests. In the sixties, it was frequented by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during their first marriage.
The Lonville Classic perfectly illustrates how every event is the product of its organisers’ personality, and if you share the passions and motivations of Vreeswijk and Co. as all of the participants did you really should make a date to join their wonderful little party by the lakes.
Special thanks to Joost Vreeswijk and the Lonville team.
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Article Edited by Mark Webber