The Festival of Motoring 2025 will ignite Kyalami with three days of speed, style, and the shifting future of South Africa’s car culture.

• Kyalami will transform into a playground where families, fanatics, and future buyers all chase the same hit of octane-fuelled adrenaline.
• South Africa’s love affair with motoring will prove it’s alive and well, just with a little more battery and a lot less traditional car brands.
• The Festival will remind everyone that cars aren’t just transport – they’re tech, freedom, identity, and occasionally, very pricey toys.
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If you are anywhere near Kyalami this weekend and hear the sound of engines screaming their way to the redline, fear not — it’s not a late-night drag race on the N1. It is the Festival of Motoring, now in its eighth edition, returning to the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit for three days of horsepower, hot laps, and more Chinese cars than you can shake a bao bun at.

The Sandton Times joined fellow motoring media and car-fluencers for a day filled with bold reveals, big announcements and enough walking to keep your Vitality Steps in check. A packed day saw manufacturers pull out all the stops to impress and wow the press corps and cavalcade of cameras with their latest offering.

On paper, the Festival is Africa’s most immersive celebration of all things automotive, which is a fancy way of saying “lots of shiny cars, lots of noise, and people wearing caps that match their cars”. Over a hundred exhibitors and twenty-two brands are opening their bonnets, and while previous years might have been dominated by the Europeans or even Americans with their impeccable precision and presence, 2025 is decidedly more… Mandarin.

The roll call reads a bit more like a Shanghai motor show: BAIC, BYD, Chery, DongFeng, GAC, GWM and its sub-brands Haval, Tank and Ora, plus Jaecoo, LDV and Omoda. Add in a few of the usual suspects like a bit of Toyota, VW, Subaru, Suzuki, Mahindra, Tata, MG (which is basically Chinese these days), and you start to wonder what the future holds for South African roads?

But let’s not get too bogged down in that quite yet. Because the Festival of Motoring is less about what’s parked and more about what’s moving. Kyalami once again converts into a playground where supercars blast down the straights, Formula 1 demos reminded everyone what a million decibels sounds like, and people with deep pockets and good connections get hurled around the track by professional drivers in hot laps that make a Monday morning taxi ride look rather tame.

Of course, no modern motoring event would be complete without a nod to future mobility. Translation: here’s a corner where you can poke an electric car, sit in it, and then complain that it’s too expensive. But hey, the growth is real. WesBank’s Declan Jones was on hand during Media Day to reveal that millennials – yes, the generation that made avocado-toast fashionable – now make up 45% of WesBank’s customer base. Apparently, young South Africans still love cars enough to finance them, even if it takes 72 months for a new one and a staggering 76 months for a used one. That’s six years of payments for something you bought pre-owned. Which means by the time you’re done paying it off, the car is practically a classic.

And while we’re talking about trends, battery electric vehicles are creeping in, quietly, with that Star Trek sound. Between January 2022 and July 2025, WesBank financed 287 BEVs, almost evenly split between new and pre-owned. It’s still niche, but it’s happening, and if the Chinese brands have anything to say about it, soon you’ll be buying an EV for the price of a decent mountain bike.

Back on the ground, the vibe at Kyalami was unmistakably festive. The Park & Ride system, courtesy of Mall of Africa and Kenings Car Hire, is one to take advantage of. Free parking at the mall and a shuttle to the track means you don’t have to sell a kidney to pay for parking, nor get stuck in too much traffic, which is progress.

Media Day gave us a taste of what’s hot this year. The Chinese brought their A-game with shiny new models bristling with tech, while a pinch of VW, a touch of Toyota, and a whole lot of Suzuki reminded everyone they’re still the backbone of South African motoring. Somewhere between the bold newcomers and the familiar favourites, you got the sense that the country’s car market is at a turning point – younger, more cost-conscious, and increasingly open to alternatives.

As the Festival of Motoring 2025 roars into the weekend, Kyalami once again becomes Africa’s motoring heartbeat. It’s noisy, it’s colourful, it’s chaotic, and it’s absolutely a vibe. Whether you come for the racing, the future tech, the smell of burning rubber, or just to spend a day with your kids gawking at cars you’ll possibly never own, the Festival gives you exactly what you want. And that’s the beauty of it.

It doesn’t matter if you arrive in a Chery or a Porsche, a Suzuki Swift or a Shelby Mustang. For three days in greater Sandton, everyone is united by one simple truth: cars are lit. The Festival of Motoring 2025 take place from 29 – 31 August 2025 at Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit. Tickets available via Howler.

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