Motoring

Six extraordinary supercars to see at the Compello Festival of Cars

Lamborghini Countach Image by DRIVE Melbourne Photography.

Dave Morley

Posted April 12, 2021

Check out more than 125 supercars, sports, racing and classic cars at the country's hottest motor show. 

Filling a vast warehouse with classic and performance cars, arranging businesses to exhibit and then inviting a few thousand people to come and enjoy it, was once a perfectly normal thing for a car club to do. But in the age of COVID, it takes a pretty brave organisation to dream that big. 

But that’s just what the Melbourne-based Compello Club for exotic, rare and supercar owners is planning with its Festival of Cars next weekend.  

On April 18, the doors will swing open on a 4000 square-metre warehouse in Melbourne’s Moorabbin, showcasing 125 supercars, sports, racing and classic cars, 50 exhibition stalls and 25 trading stands in what the club claims is the first under-cover car show since Covid struck.

So what can car-show-starved lovers of high-end motoring expect to see? Plenty, including lots of older classic and performance cars, current-model supercars that can’t be seen anywhere else in the country and everything in between. According to Compello Club spokesperson Craig Phinn, every car is `hand-picked and cool’. 

If you want to see and hear the cars in action be sure to be there at 1pm for the exit parade.  

Here are just six of the extraordinary cars you won’t want to miss. 

Ferrari F8. Photo: Getty
Aston Martin Vanquish S. Photo: Getty
Nissan R32 GT-R.

Six cars to see at the Compello Car Club Festival of Cars

Porsche GT2 RS Clubsport

Possibly the best, most track-focussed production-based car ever built by legendary manufacturer Porsche. Only 200 examples will ever be built, and with 515kW of power and a customer waiting list longer than the Nurburgring touring car race, this could be your only chance to see the GT2 in the flesh. Oh, and if you could buy one, you’d need something like $2 million in your wallet to seal the deal.

Lamborghini Countach/Ferrari Testarossa

When was the last time you saw these two poster-children for 1980s supercar lovers in the same place at the same time? Even better, the two supercar legends will be parked side-by-side, showing off their V12 engines, Italian sex-appeal and attitude that screams retro cool. No teenage car lover’s 1980s bedroom wall was complete without this pair.

Nissan R32 GT-R race-car

Nicknamed the `Godzilla’ due to its impressive technology and performance Nissan’s GT-R was the car that changed the face of touring-car racing. As well as winning the annual Bathurst 1000km classic here, it also dominated global touring-car racing in the early 1990s and stamped its place in pop culture through films such as The Fast and Furious. Essentially noting could touch the Nissan on a racetrack. The car featured at the Festival of Cars finished fourth at the Bathurst 12-Hour in 1993 further bolstering the model’s reputation in the toughest racing conditions.. While the Nissan changed local perceptions of what was and wasn’t a proper race-car, it also opened our minds to the genius of high-performance Japanese machinery. And we haven’t looked back.

 Aston Martin Vanquish S

Made famous by the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day the Aston Martin Vanquish has been a headline act ever since. But the car you’ll see at this car show is a later example of the Vanquish concept with the addition of one very important letter: S. That single S signifies even more power and performance from the mighty, normally-aspirated V12, while everything else about the car continues to suggest Aston Martin’s core values of supercar performance wrapped up in a dinner-suit. Much like 007 himself. 

Ferrari F8

You can’t replace a performance icon such as the Ferrari 488 with anything other than a huge leap forward. Which is precisely what the Ferrari F8 – otherwise known as the Tributo – represents. It sticks with the mid-engined layout and uses a turbocharged V8 engine for amazing performance, but it’s also styled as a nod to the great Ferrari mid-engined sports car of the past. The car on show is the first F8 to hit the roads in this country, so you won’t see it anywhere else.

AMG GTR Pro

AMG’s retro styled GTR has been a firm favourite among those who like their supercars with a dash of practicality. But in the Pro version of the GTR, any thoughts of that have been banished along with anything else that doesn’t fit into the ethos of a track-focussed car for the street. With a four-litre twin-turbocharged engine and 430kW of power, the GTR Pro also comes with electronically adjustable suspension and carbon-ceramic brakes; all top-shelf stuff. Just 15 of these cars have been slated for Australian delivery, and you can see one at the festival.

 

The Compello Car Club Festival of Cars, 9:30am to 2pm, 18 April at 1 Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin.