Brussels Motor Show

The Heysel plateau in northern Brussels is the city's exhibition quarter, a stretch of interwar palaces under the silver spheres of the Atomium. Belgium has shown its cars here since 1937, in the same vast halls that once hosted world's fairs, and every January the place fills with new metal and the smell of carpet and coffee.

The 103rd Brussels Motor Show runs from 8 to 17 January 2027 across the Brussels Expo palaces. It is the largest indoor car event in Europe, and its recent history is a quiet comeback: written off a few years ago as the big international shows collapsed, it has rebuilt to draw close to 350,000 visitors and nearly the entire Belgian market under one roof. The 2027 edition keeps the format that worked, passenger cars alongside motorcycles and light commercial vehicles, with the European Car of the Year announced on site.

Be clear about what this is. It is a commercial salon, a place to compare production cars, sit in them and talk to dealers, rather than a gathering of rare or historic machinery. For enthusiasts the draw is concentration and the odd indulgence, like the supercar display that has run by the Astrid hall and a corner of genuinely strange cars from the local collector scene. It will not move anyone who only cares about pre-war coachwork, but as a snapshot of what Europe is actually buying and building, in a January when little else is open, it is hard to beat.

Brussels Expo sits right on the Brussels ring road, with its own exits and parking at the Heysel, so arriving by car is straightforward from any direction. Without a car, the metro line 6 toward Roi Baudouin runs from the centre to Heysel station, a few minutes' walk from the palaces, and Brussels Airport is around twenty minutes out, with Eurostar and high-speed trains stopping at Bruxelles-Midi. None of which is the point in January, when the real reason to extend the trip lies well to the southeast, in the Ardennes.