Our five best cars from the 2018 Spa Classic

Alfa Romeo T/33 3

One of the most beautiful, incredible-sounding sportscars on the bill deserved a place on our favourites list in itself. Stick Goodwood house captain and endurance racing legend Emanuele Pirro in the driver’s seat for a busman’s holiday at the Spa Classic weekend and you elevate the sweet singing Alfa to god-tier levels of cool.

Jägermeister CSL BMW 3.0 CSL 

A wealth of 3.0 CSLs taking to the circuit this weekend was one of the spectacles we didn’t foresee – even with full access to the entry list. As many as nine of BMW’s legendary gestational motorsport entry gathered with timeless liveries lining up side by side evoking memories of Spa 24 and Le Mans scenes from 40-odd years ago. As such a 3.0-litre CSL had to make this list but, first world problems, which do you pick? We talked it out and on a personal level, the Alpina car garnered a lot of praise but for sheer visual impact and maximum ‘70s racer bravado, you can’t beat a Jäger. The bulging muscles, lips and winglets of the CSL wear the bright orange colours like few others can. Browse what other liveries were putting in a shift here…

Ferrari 512 M

This is a fair contender for car of the event, to be honest. In a race of stunning ‘60s and ‘70s endurance racing warriors, the 512 M wasn’t only one of the fastest, it was without question possessed of the biggest lungs. The noise that thing emitted as it yowled on the overrun on its way up Eau Rouge, swinging left and back on the throttle as it made the crest. Even the vast plummeting valleys of the Ardenne struggled to contain that flat-12 fury. The speed of the thing too – the rate it came down the straight out of La Source was a spectacle in itself. There’s a reason Group 5 forged a generation of heroes.

Jaguar XJR-14

The XJR-14 takes endurance racing on nearly 20 years in a big way. Proper meaningful downforce and superior tyres no doubt up the pace but the iconic Silk-Cut livery and the roar of that F1-derived 3.5-litre V8 ensured old school sportscar drama wouldn’t go the way of high-speed instability. It’s one of the coolest Group C cars, from the Halcyon days of the legendary classification and is, therefore, one of the coolest cars here by virtue of that.

TOJ SC 304

At the end of what is surely a star cast of historic racing cars, you might think this TOJ would simply pale into relative anonymity. Indeed, it doesn’t have the star power of Jaguar, BMW, Ferrari or Alfa Romeo but this is pure cool racing car. It’s one of the wicked open-cockpit wedges with a sharp snout and a big wing. It uses a Cosworth DFV 3.0-litre V8 engine and, crucially, it rocks a Warsteiner livery. One of the coolest schemes in all of racing (it made the Arrows look as cool as they did at Monaco last week) it absolutely comes alive at speed in the harsh Belgian sun. It feels appropriate to sing the praises of a beer livery in beer country, too…

Photography by Tom Shaxson