I’m trying something a little different here for this article. Normally once I have attended a truck show away from home, I will wait until I am sitting at the airport on the return leg, where I’ll nibble on a $14 ham and cheese sandwich, sip away on an $8 bottle of water and then start putting my thoughts down on paper, metaphorically speaking — the truth is it all gets typed into a laptop as its grammar software is much better than mine.
Anyway, this article is a little different because I just can’t wait for the airport. That’s still 15 hours away. I am already back at my accommodation and extremely keen to get all my opinions and evaluations down.
Not just on my first ever jaw-dropping Truck Show Ciney experience, ‘The Temple of Show Trucks’, but also on the experiences leading up to the truck show. I came to Belgium for a truck show and am leaving with more than just several thousand photos and a maxed-out duty-free alcohol allocation.
Firstly, I need to place a shout-out to my extremely helpful and tolerant Uber driver/ Air BnB host/ Tour guide/ photoshoot pimp/translator, William Siben. Like me, William is another truck nut and fellow photographer. He’s also the host of The ShowTruck Channel and for the second time has played host to my European adventures.
This year he arranged several interesting stories that will soon be flowing through these pages, and he also made sure I used my time in Belgium to experience a bit more than just the glory of gorgeous trucks.
Whilst in trucking circles Belgium is most known for the Truck Show Ciney, and for the instant 15-day loss of licence if they catch you on your phone a second time — Belgium is also steeped in military history. I took some time out from chasing trucks to visit and appreciate a couple of historic battle sites on our way to Ciney.
The first site was one very well known to Australians, Hill 60 and Caterpillar Hill. The fighting that occurred there throughout WWI was extremely intense and significant.
In 1917 The 1st Australian Tunnelling Company played a vital role in tunnelling under all the ground that I visited and detonating around 450-ton of explosives, destroying the German positions and demolishing the hills. It was a major feat, and it was an honour to just soak in the history of a site like that.
The second location I added to my must-see list was the small town called Mesen, to visit The Messines Ridge Memorial. This memorial was erected to honour the New Zealand soldiers who played a significant role in the successful Battle of Messines.
Visiting these two sites, whilst on my way to view one of the leading truck shows in Europe was an extremely humbling experience. It was an honour to stand where bravewarriors had fought and appreciate their service.
Now I realise this is not how a typical truck show article starts. This is the first time I have attended a truck show with so much weighty history just down the road. It brought another dimension to the experience, so I am as keen as possible to get that feeling across. I came for the titillating trucks, sure, but being able to soak up so much history, so much Anzac history, is not just a privilege, it is a necessity.
Feeling full of pride in the Australian and Kiwi flag, I rolled in to Ciney with a smile a mile wide. Then I saw some of the trucks lined up waiting outside the truck show venue, and my smile broke several muscles as it extended off my face.
Yes, I know, bonnets were barely represented and the stainless was somewhat scarce, but the Europeans know how to decorate a truck. Not just outside either, but I will get to that.
Let us crack into the truck show breakdown. In case you hadn’t picked up on it beforehand the Truck Show Ciney is known as the Temple of Show Trucks. The best of the best gets invited along to this small country town show and in that sense the show did not disappoint. The quality of the trucks on display really does have to be seen to be believed.
The difference in the styling from country to country is extremely evident as well. With trucks from places like Holland, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Austria and, of course, hometown Belgium, there is more diversity than a Taylor Swift concert.
The show is held at the Ciney Expo Centre, a huge indoor arena with a massive car park. This means the show is spread between both indoor and outdoor trucks. Trucks from all over Europe apply each year, and can apply for bobtail or full unit, as well as applying for indoor or outdoor. Once again, diversity is the key in Belgium.
The organisers of the show go through hundreds of applications and narrow it down to around 300 lucky entrants, putting around two-thirds outside and a third inside. Most of the trailer units get placed out the back, but as you can see via the photos, there were a couple that got the privilege of staying safe and dry in the inner sanctum.
The show officially opens to the public on the Saturday morning, around 10am. The trucks themselves don’t start rolling into the Expo ground until around 7am. Most of the entrants arrived on the Friday and after a bit of washing and polishing they proceeded to spend the Friday night conducting their own truck show/drinking festival.
The Expo centre is aligned with the Ciney cattle yards and aside from providing plenty of room to park up all of the entrants before the show, it also offers the advantage of allowing access to some wash facilities.
After the last sale on Friday, the cattle yards hired out the wash bays to all the trucks that had driven in through a shocking day of rain. Yea. Belgium weather was a lot like Sydney, brief outbursts of rain followed by occasional drizzle and a scattering of showers.
It was quite the sight to see a line of dirty lorries queued up like a bunch of bargain hunters at the Aldi midweek specials sales – three or four trucks deep, just waiting on someone to finish so they could swarm in for a bath.
There was water and whiskey, bubbles and beer, sponges and sodas. Music was blaring, horns were playing the sounds of many local tribes. It was a massive car wash party.
The European truckies, and especially the Scottish and Irish — I’m looking at you Ian Mckellan and Chris Bradfield, are pretty much professionals at this party lifestyle and come Saturday morning the sore heads were ignored and everyone was lined up to get in, get parked up and get back on it.
Once all the trucks were in, the gates were closed, and the crowds started to flock in. There was a constant parade of people throughout the day and those that had popped home to rest their weary feet were back at night for the lights and fireworks show.
The big point of difference between Australia and Belgium is that when we do a lights and fireworks show, we are all wrapped up around 8pm. You’ve even got time to watch the footy if you are so inclined. However, in Belgium, the fireworks show could not start until 11pm. That’s how long you have to wait for it to be dark. Ridiculous.
Day two of the show is very much the same as day one, only in reverse and without fireworks. There is a prize giving held within the hall and I swear they had every trophy there to award. By ‘every trophy’ I am meaning every one ever made.
There was a massive number of trophies, considering over in the EU there really are only two major truck show players — ‘Scania’ and ‘Trucks that aren’t Scania’. I am fully aware that over in Australia, most truck shows are dominated by the KW Bug in a similar way.
Well, I have outlined the show itself, I guess it is time for me to express my views on the show as a whole. Meh. I think that would be a fair word. Don’t get me wrong, the number of trucks, the quality of the trucks, the flat-out coolness of the trucks, that was second to none. We could learn a lot about truck show prep from some of the truck nuts over there.
The show itself, factoring in the 20+ hour commute, was good but no real “wow” factor. As a Gen X affiliate, I know I am not meant to need constant entertainment, and I may have been spoilt by last year’s Truck Star festival, but I did feel the show was missing a little something extra in the entertainment folder.
Amongst the truck show fraternity over in Europe, Ciney Truck Show is very highly regarded. The overall consensus there is that Ciney doesn’t have the politics of many other shows and is a great place for a lot of these guys to catch up. However, as a tourist who had travelled some 16,000+km to get there, politics really don’t factor in to my enjoyment of a show.
When you look at the facilities on hand, I must admit there was some awesome food vans out the front of the expo centre. Though, with the amount of people visiting the show there was quite the lineup to grab your lunch.
After a long wait for an amazing fresh pasta dish, I was shocked to learn that none of the food vans sold drinks. No waters, Cokes or anything. You could get a beer from the beer tent, but if you wanted fluids to go with your lunch you needed to head back inside and line up again.
The difficulty in getting access to fluids did have one advantage though. It meant you weren’t continually queuing up for the one lot of toilet facilities on offer. Unless they had secret toilets somewhere, it was well under prepared.
If there were extra restrooms hidden somewhere they were very well hidden, because I walked that area more times than my old legs could bear, just trying to find a toilet or vacant bush.
For me the highlight of the show was actually the end and the emersion of the truck spotting fraternity as the lorries rolled out.
You will notice the photo taken from the centre roundabout on the exit from the show. This was taken at the start of the departure convoy. The sheer numbers of truck spotters already endangering themselves, and others, in order to get photos as the trucks sooted it up at launch. It was unreal. I had to return to the expo, but I was told the numbers swelled a couple of hours later.
All in all, I had an awesome experience as a whole. I think I if you happened to be floating around Belgium and the show was on, then definitely put down your Saucijzenbroodje and go check it out. I met some awesome people, made plenty of jokes about riding kangaroos to work, drank a fair bit of Belgium Beer and took more than enough photos.
I got to see some unbelievable trucks and learnt that the Europeans have as much passion and pride in their trucks as anyone over this side of the world. I can also attest that they get more smoke out of their V8s than I’ve seen out of any Series 60 or E9.
The Temple of Show Trucks has some amazing trucks and the Europeans would give anyone a run for their money when it comes to passion and pride.
Subscribe to the weekly Owner//Driver newsletter here.