Sydney Concours d’Elegance
Sydney, Australia 27-28 January
TWO INTERNATIONAL CONCOURS d’Elegances took place on the weekend of 27 and 28 January: one in Sydney, Australia, the other in Palm Beach, Florida. While the Cavallino Classic in the USA was the grander affair, with a bigger classic car gene pool to call upon, the honour of being the first major Concours show of the year went to Sydney by dint of time difference, if nothing else.
Having said that, the quality of the 60 cars on show at the Sydney Superyacht Marina did not suffer in comparison with those on display on the other side of the Pacific. Run under the auspices of the International Chief Judges Advisory Group, the Sydney event not only had world-class expertise in the form of chief judge Nigel Matthews from Canada, Chris Kramer from Germany, and Siegfried Linke from the US, it also had some truly world-class cars on display.
The weather was fair, if humid, and the backdrop of the superyachts on the water under the ANZAC Bridge was spectacular. On the first day, dubbed Supercar Saturday, it was the turn of modern supercars and their owners to show off their steeds, but it was on Sunday that a host of amazing automobiles competed to be Best in Show.
The cars were split into ten classes, run not along marque lines but, more interestingly, by categories of style and inspiration. Winner of the ‘Two Seats & the Road – Fast Coupés from the ’50s & ’60s’ was a superb 1964 Ferrari 275 GTB/4, narrowly pipping another beautiful Ferrari, a 250 GT Lusso in traditional Rosso Corso. ‘Cruising the Riviera – Roadsters from the ’60s & ’70s’ was made up solely of English cars, giving some wag the opportunity to dub it ‘Cruising the Cornish Riviera’! This class was won by a 1965 Austin-Healey MkIII. Another English car, a 1984 Aston Martin V8 Vantage, collected top spot in ‘Gentlemen’s Tourers – Big cars with Two Doors.’
‘Inspired by Racing – Roadsters from the 1950s’ was won by a wonderful white 1960 Mercedes-Benz 300SL roadster, which also collected the award for the most significant sports car present. Another double awardwinner was a superb 1971 Maserati Ghibli SS Spyder that picked up Best Maserati and also won its class, ‘Italian Sportscars from the ’70s’, against stiff opposition. This Maserati is a very special car which would grace any international event, in superb condition and one of just five factory right-hand-drive Spyders built, and the only one sporting a factory hardtop.
At the other end of the Italian scale, the beautifully prepared 1948 Fiat 500 Topolino was the winner of the ‘Small Displacement – Big Fun’ class, which also sported a host of pretty Alfas and not one but two lovely Lancia Fulvia Sport 1.3S Zagato-bodied cars.
‘The New Generation – Sportscars from the ’80s’ was won by a 1989 Porsche 928 S4, which also picked up the Porsche 70th Anniversary award. Australian cars were also on display, an immaculate 1971 Ford Falcon GT taking honours against strong opposition in ‘The Grand Tour – Big Cars for the Trip’.
‘Kings of the Road – Touring Cars from the ’30s & ’40s’ featured a couple of beautiful Alvises, but the winner of the class was the impeccable 1933 Hispano-Suiza HS26 Junior. If you like your cars even older then ‘The Golden Years – Open Cars until 1930’ would have grabbed your attention. And what a class this was, with a 1930 Cadillac V16 Sports Phaeton taking top honours by pipping the 1913 Rolls-Royce London to Edinburgh Silver Ghost that had won Best in Show at Motorclassica in Melbourne in October 2017.
It was a close-run thing, but for the jury there was no surpassing the quality and presence of the imposing Cadillac, and they named this behemoth the worthy winner of Best in Show of the 2018 Sydney Concours d’Elegance.