Midrand - This year marks not only a new name but also a new home for South Africa's premier motor show.
What was originally Auto Africa, and later the Johannesburg International Motor Show, is now simply the South African Festival of Motoring - to be held from 31 August to 4 September at the rebuilt Kyalami racing circuit.
And it will feature new initiatives in several directions.
For the first time show visitors will able to drive the latest models around the newly refurbished circuit - be careful, the first turn is a tricky one! However, the new festival will not be just about cars, but also about the lifestyle that they represent - the food (after all, it was South Africans who invented the term ‘padkos'), the music (listen to your favourite 'road trip' tracks live), children's entertainment and celebrity moments, with local fashionistas adding a bit of glitz and glamour to the shiny metal and rubber.
Several manufacturers will launch new models on the South African market, and a couple have hinted that they have a surprise up their respective sleeves.
Historic date
This year also marks the 120th anniversary of the arrival of the first car in South Africa - although importer John Percy Hess wasn't able to show off his Benz Velo 'horseless carriage' until 4 January 1897 because he was waiting for its benzene fuel to be delivered.
That first public demonstration was held at the Berea Park sports ground, and was attended by Paul Kruger, then President of the Transvaal Republic. Hess called it 'a revolution in locomotion' - what the notoriously conservative Oom Paul called it is not recorded.
Within six years the first Ford (a 1903 Model A which was in fact the first Ford to be sold outside North America) had arrived, to be followed by the iconic Model T before the end of the decade. In 1924 Ford set up an assembly line in a disused woolshed in Port Elizabeth, followed shortly by a GM plant nearby, and the South African motor industry was up and running.
A number of vintage and classic cars will be on show at Kyalami to celebrate those pioneering days, but the stars of the show will be the latest models, and the concepts that preview a not-very-distant future when cars will drive themselves while connecting us to the entire world.