Those who have been following the Living Cars newsletter for over a year might have read about my experience in 2025 with EMWalhalla.

I had a great time and even met with some of my #WeirdCarBS friends like Ben Jackson and Jim Magill, but I feel I did not do the event justice in my coverage.

To be fair, it was mostly because I took pictures and wanted to share the cool cars instead of doing a proper write up, but I intend to compensate for that this year.

Let me know how I did after you read, but this is what we’ll go over.

Elk Merk Waardig is the association that organises EMWalhalla every year.

Their tagline is “Vereniging voor onbekende en miskende auto's”, which in Dutch means something like “Association for obscure and underappreciated cars”.

And at EMWalhalla you can find this spirit far and wide.

I want to bring to your attention that this event which is currently massive (at almost 1200 cars) is also free to attend to. Be it that you want to show your car or just go and have a good time, you don’t have to pay a thing. You don’t even need to be a member of EMW to be a part of it.

As Maurice Fransen, aka plankhond on Instagram said:

With the event getting more and more attention, cars and visitors each year, the costs of running it also grow higher (site rental, permits, first aid, and traffic controllers off-site). As Maurice mentioned, the people who run it are just EMW volunteers, working during weeks before the and at the event, for nothing in return.

That’s the reason why I joined EMW this weekend, and you can do so too, for just €28 a year, or you can directly donate an amount of your choice to the association here, so that one of the main goals of the event remains: for it to be free for everyone to enter.

The event runs from 10 am to 3 pm. 5 hours is the exact amount of time that might sound like a lot when you first arrive, and “how did time fly by so fast?” when they let you know at 2:30 pm that you only have 30 minutes left to enjoy the event.

Since the event is free, during that time people come and go. Some arrive very early and leave late, some come later and leave in the middle, and every combo in between.

When you arrive, there’s people directing the traffic going in, and they do their best to decide at a glance where it’s best for you to park. There’s a youngtimers/visitors section right at the start, and if you want to park on the main lot or in its surroundings, then you need to have a suitable car.

Or just try to convince the people in the entrance. Since I went with my non-spoiler ‘99 Audi TT, the conversation sort of went like this:

After being a bit heartbroken for not having a “special enough car”, I was happy to be able to go to the main lot. Even though another person guiding traffic further told me to cut through grass to get to my friends and he was confused, so I ended far from my friends anyway, but at least in the main lot.

As you can see, there’s not really a very hard line regarding what car goes where. We are all there just to have fun! And if my non-spoiler mk1 TT was not special enough, I don’t know what a Toyota GR86 was doing in the main lot either 😝.

After getting together and catching up a bit with my friends, I decided to pop into the museum while people were still arriving.

I figured people would start outside and then go into the museum, making it busier later. Doing it backwards would give me at least less people in the museum at first, and more cars outside later as I let people keep coming in.

In 2025 the Museum’s main hall was actually closed, and there was a very small exhibition on the side. It was nice, but felt a bit underwhelming.

This year, it was the opposite. The part that was open last year was not, but the main museum was free to enter and explore. Of course the “main flavour” of cars here is Toyota (and Lexus), but there are some very interesting things to see, that I’ll show you shortly.

When I entered the main building, I was greeted by a set of tables displaying different things one could buy, like model cars, magazines, and more. But what caught my eye was, of course, art!

Here I met Ernst Schilperoord, an artist from the Netherlands, who had a stand with a lot of nice prints of his digital work on sale (I bought one of the BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car, as I couldn’t help it after seeing it in the flesh last year at Louwman Museum in the Hague).

We chatted a bit about our art, what inspires us to do so, how we like the “history” behind what we draw, and why it’s not “just a drawing”. Very nice chat and I hope we can meet again in the future. You can see his work on Instagram here and also here’s his website (in Dutch).

After putting my new art away in my car, I went into the museum.

The first section was full of “non-Toyota” cars and even motorbikes, to my surprise, and it was quite varied. A great start.

After that, you could enter the main display where the Toyota lineup started. After being greeted by a model car of Toyota’s first passenger car, the Toyoda AA (read all about it in my article here), you could see in somewhat chronological order, a variety of early Corolla, Crown, Tercel, Corona, and more.

You could also find a bit further, some of the most eclectic offerings like the WiLL Vi and the Sera, and you had of course the usual suspects like the Toyota Supra or AE86.

Special shoutout to two of my all time favourites from the brand that I was secretly expecting to see in the flesh again, and I’m happy to have been able to: The Toyota Century and the absolutely gorgeous red Toyota 2000GT.

In the next room before returning, you could find another 2000GT, but this one was a white prototype. It was sitting there alongside some gorgeous modern Lexus like the LFA and LS, as well as a more classic LS 400. Amazing company, if you ask me.

Going around and back to the entrance, you had the last part of the exhibition where there were some more Toyota and non-Toyota cars like the body-on-Hilux chassis Toyota Classic from 1996, which is a homage to the original Toyoda AA, and also a Suzuki Cara (rebadged Autozam AZ-1), which I don’t know why it was there but it’s always a joy to see.

With the museum out of the way, I can now share the experience about the cars from the people.

And oh boy, they were many.

As mentioned, the attendance was of a bit shy of 1200 cars, so there was a lot to see, and also honestly, a lot that I missed, as one usually does.

Stuff I only knew was there by some talks with friends, or by looking at photos people shared online, like the Peugeot 505 Break 4×4 Dangel, or the Mitsubishi Pajero Mini that I already had seen last year.

I started at the farthest end of the grass parked cars, and walked my way through the whole side.

Here I saw some gems that I thought were very cool, like a Karmann Ghia, the always nice to see Smart Crossblade and some Holden Utes. A personal one was a Renault Megane saloon facelift, since I learned to drive in one!