Concours season is go!

Racing Ferraris take the spoils at two major international concours, on the same weekend, 10,000 miles apart

THE GLOBAL CONCOURS season got off to a flying start on opposite sides of the world on the same weekend earlier this month. While Amelia Island in Florida, USA, and Sydney in Australia are 10,000 miles apart, both resonated to the sights and sounds of spectacular selections of classic cars on the first weekend in March. And both had winners from Maranello.

Sydney is the younger event by a significant distance but has got into its stride very quickly. It has found an excellent home at Hyde Park Barracks, a UNESCO World Heritage site, this year bathed in sunshine rather than floodwater... for the most part. One tropical storm on the Friday did give the 50 cars and thousands of visitors an impromptu shower.

As well as modern hypercars and luxury cars from leading manufacturers, concours stars included an ex-Twiggy Lamborghini Miura and a 1927 Bugatti Type 51 once owned by the Fauvist artist André Derain.

The seven class awards and seven additional awards were well spread among the field, but the two best-of-show titles went to cars very much from opposite ends of the spectrum. The Ampol Heritage Best in Show Pre-War was a 1920 Rolls-Royce 40/50 HP 'Nareeb' Silver Ghost, while the Ampol Best in Show Prix d'Honneur went to a 1962 Ferrari Dino 196SP.

In the USA, despite a change of ownership (from Bill Warner to Hagerty) and modernisation of name (from Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance to The Amelia), the event at the Ritz-Carlton in Florida remains unmistakeable in its character and content after 28 years. There were 260 cars in the concours competition, plus 550 at the previous day's Cars & Community show, while 25,000 visitors attended the show and nearly $150,000 was raised for charity.