Concours displays and the buyer
A lawn full of restored cars looks like a hobby and is actually a long-term durability report. Dry air at 1 400 m preserves some things and destroys others, and the owners standing there will tell you which.
Updated 15 October 2026BloemfonteinThe whole file
Restored cars lined up on cut grass at a concours display, bonnets open, owners standing in the shade beside them.
Why old cars on a lawn matter to a new-car buyer
Everything on a concours lawn has survived forty years of the same climate you are about to buy into. Paint that has held its gloss, rubber that has gone hard and grey, plastic dashboards that have cracked in a pattern you will recognise from any car parked outside in this town. That is data you cannot get from a launch.
We walk the rows with one question: which materials are still doing their job. The answer here is consistently that metal and glass are fine, that painted surfaces survive if they were garaged, and that anything flexible and black has died. It is why we are suspicious of soft-touch dashboard coatings and of exterior trim that relies on a rubber seal to stay attached.
Panel gaps, glass and the honesty of age
Run your eye down a flank at a low angle in morning light and age shows every repair. A car that has been straightened shows a gap that tapers by two or three millimetres along a door shut, and once you have trained your eye on a lawn full of restorations you will spot the same taper on a four-year-old car on a dealer's forecourt.
Glass is the other tell. Original glass carries matching markings on every pane; a replaced windscreen is normal, three replaced panes is a story. We teach this at the start of every second-hand sanity check because it takes thirty seconds and it is more reliable than the paint-depth gauge most people wave around.
What survives and what rots in dry air
The Free State is kind to steel and hard on everything else. Low humidity means very little rust above the sills, which is why older cars from here sell well on the coast. But ultraviolet at altitude cooks paint lacquer, perishes wiper rubber in about eighteen months and turns a plastic headlight lens cloudy in four or five years if the car lives outside.
Underneath, the enemy is dust rather than salt. Gravel dust finds its way into suspension bushes and into the gearbox breather, and the cars on the lawn that still drive properly are the ones whose owners changed oils early rather than on the sticker. That is the argument for a severe-duty service schedule, and it applies to a new car as much as to a restored one.
Owners, tools and parts availability
Ask any owner on the lawn how long a part took to arrive and you will get an exact answer, usually in months. That conversation is the most useful thing at any display, because it is a direct report on the parts network for a marque in this country rather than a promise about it.
The pattern over several displays is clear. Cars from manufacturers with a large local fleet are kept running for an indicative R2 000 to R8 000 a job; cars from small-volume importers wait eleven weeks for a window regulator at an indicative R14 000. If you intend to keep a car past the warranty, that pattern should weigh as heavily as the test drive.
The lesson about resale
Concours lawns are full of cars that were unfashionable when new and are now worth money, and empty of cars that were fashionable when new. The thread running through the survivors is that they were simple, well made and widely sold, which is also the thread running through the cars that hold their value over eight years on the used market here.
Our opinion, plainly: a mid-specification car from a manufacturer with four dealerships in the Free State will cost you less over eight years than a loaded car from a manufacturer with one. The second car is usually more pleasant for the first two years and considerably worse for the last four.
Three things to take away
- 01Dry air at altitude preserves steel and destroys rubber, lacquer and plastic lenses; specify accordingly.
- 02A door gap that tapers along its length is a straightened panel, on a restored car and on a new-ish one alike.
- 03Owners at a display give exact parts-waiting times; treat that as the real local support report.