This year was SpaItalia’s 5th Anniversary, and it promised to be a great event, as it was dedicated to both Abarth and Lancia, a tribute to these makes was made by the Club Lancia Belgio and as an added bonus, SpaItalia 2006 was selected as the “Abarth World Meeting 2006”, a very important meeting for Abarth enthusiasts from all over the world.
But I didn’t drive to the famous circuit of Spa Francorchamps to see Lancia or Abarth, which are great cars, don’t get me wrong, but I’m a Lamborghini guy, so I want to see the latest and greatest from Sant’Agata … and this is were SpaItalia 2006 didn’t live up to the expectations unfortunately.
Previous years there was a massive input from Lamborghini Brussels, who made sure there were a large number of Lamborghinis, both new and classic would be present, even some factory cars were there, but this year it was decided they wouldn’t participate at SpaItalia…
And it showed, there were a lot less Lamborghinis at Spa when compared to last year, no factory cars, no Valentino Balboni ! Fortunately there were still several owners that came to Spa in their classic Lamborghinis, from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany (on Sunday at least).
They represented some of the greatest models made at Sant’Agata, like the 400 GT 2+2, the Espada (both Series II and III were present), the Islero S, the Jarama and Jarama S, the Urraco, a magnificent white Countach LP500S (on Saturday there was a yellow Countach LP400S), a nice red Diablo with Carbon Fiber rear wing, a Diablo SE30 and a silver metallic Diablo SVR that still made a thundering sound like last year … a great car.
Apparently on Saturday there was a Gallardo Spyder present, but it didn’t show up on Sunday, also the first day of this event saw the Bugatti Veyron on the track, what a sight …
As you can read, on Sunday there wasn’t a single Murciélago or Gallardo at SpaItalia which really was a shame, also the space reserved for Lamborghinis was a lot smaller than last year, as still a nice number of Lamborghinis showed up on Sunday they had to find some more space in a hurry …
I still had fun, talked to some really nice people from the Lamborghini Club France who showed up in a nice looking Series III Espada, in original, unrestored condition, a driving car that went on the circuit too, really nice. Fortunately the Lamborghini Club Nederland showed up with an impressive number of cars, I guess they accounted for more than 50 percent of the Lamborghinis present, if you know that some of these owners drove about five hours to get to Spa you can imagine the effort they will go through to be able to share there Lamborghini with fellow enthusiasts in Belgium.
I sure hope next year Lamborghini Brussels will be back, those people know what Lamborghinis are about and they are doing a great job to get the Lamborghini name better known in Belgium, and I’m sure an event like SpaItalia is a great opportunity to do just this … perhaps it’s time to have an official Lamborghini club in Belgium too.
