On August first and second, and for the seventy-first time in a row, Målilla launched its popular exhibition Motor's Day – a paradise for all persons interested in motors and engines.

The exhibition have the largest number of engines running in Sweden and boasted about five hundred exhibitors with all possible machines with an emphasis on the old. Visitors numbered in the thousands during the two days.

The film shown in the high quality by default. If your connection speed is below par, you can click the red button labeled HD on the movie Control Panel (HD-button pops up only after you started the movie) – or pause the movie after you started it so that it can download in the background. The button to the right of the HD-button enables full screen viewing.

Slow march

Lovingly cared for steam engines, cars, ignition bulb motors, motorcycles, agricultural machinery, tractors and mopeds glisten and shine; steel and brass evokes birdsong in the heart of both proud exhibitors and observers slowly marching in silent attentiveness. Because you do not walk at Motor's Day. You proceed in a slow march. As in a church.

The atmosphere is charged with admiration and respect; fascination and wonder and surely quite a lot of envy – over both the grandness of the exhibits, but above all, of the patience and skill that a beautifully and sensitively renovated exhibit bears testimony to. And not only the eyes will have its fill. The air is thick with kerosene and fuel oil, the scent of sawn timber and the unmistakable smell of old honest workshop that to motor and veteran car enthusiasts is like the aroma of Mom's cooking – it almost makes you starry-eyed.

The world of yesterday was not black and white

Most people's idea of times gone by are influenced by old newsreels and yellowed photographs. In addition, most of us remember the rusty vehicles and machinery of our grandparents. But this picture is wrong, wrong, wrong, and awakening to the truth is almost as painful as when an exhibitor starts his glistening old speedway motorcycle and the engines roars like a wild beast; making the onlookers take a step backwards to correct the involuntary loss of hairstyle.

And suddenly it strikes me straight in the head – this is top-notch products from another time; the engines and cars that got the heart beating in both men and women and were considered the height of design, performance and technology. Exhibits are in mint condition and you just need to peer a little with your eyes to see the proud old fellows as the young men they once were. And apparently still is in the heart and hands.

Pilen is a natural extension

After a few hours at the Motor's Day exhibition, the love of craftsmanship, materials, manufacturing and quality that the Pilen factory value so highly doesn't seem that original any more. There is a thread, a thumping echo from engines of old and the handiness of former days that trickle down into the groundwater in Målilla and ends up in the most unexpected places – like in the mind of the engineer Martin and his wife, Louise, for example.

We strongly recommend a visit to next year's Motor's Day! It is a real experience and a memory for life for both children and adults. See photographs from the exhibit by following the link below.