Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este: the beautiful, the weird, and the fantastic

Rainy or not, the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este will always be a must-attend event for us. It is the event where you discover cars you’ve never known existed before, enjoy their history, the quality of their restoration, and their weird and beautiful design elements — and of course, it is an event where you get to meet people from all over the world, united by this fascination for the exotic and the rare automobiles from all decades.

We loved every car at the venue in Villa d’Este, and in Villa Erba as well. Present at the venue were four Le Mans winners, such as the 250 Testa Rossa Fantuzzi from 1959 and the 1968 Ford GT40 in Gulf colours. The winners were announced one after the other, with the winner of Class A (Pre-War high-speed grand-touring) being the Chrysler Custom Imperial CL, and the winner of Class B (Pre-war Weekend Racers) being the Delahaye 145 Coupe Chapron. The Duesenberg SJ Speedster took both Best of Class of this year’s Class C (“Incredible India” — the official class name) and Best of Show. The Ruf-restored Porsche 901 Prototyp finished in the iconic colour of “Quickblau” was the judges’ favourite in the Porsche Class (Class D). The weird Ferrari 330 GTC Speciale took the title of Best in Class in the Gran Turismo Class (Experimenting with the post-war European GT). The Maserati A6G/54 took a well-deserved win in the “Made in Italy” class, just in front of the Ferrari 212 Export Berlinetta Vignale.

The MacNeil-owned 250 GTO, freshly restored, won the Best in Class award in Class G (A century of the 24 Hours of Le Mans). The Ferrari 250 GT California from Hong Kong won both the Coppa d’Oro and the Best in Class in “Here comes the Sun: ‘Topless’ done differently!”. Congratulations to all the owners and to BMW Classic for organising one of the top events of the year. We’re counting the days until next year’s edition.

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