The term translates literally as “competition of elegance,” and in its original context it meant precisely that: an aristocratic pastime of interwar France and Britain in which the wealthy displayed their motorcar-and-coachwork combinations before panels of social and aesthetic judges who awarded prizes for the most harmonious ensemble. The automobile was, in this context, an accessory to a lifestyle — a reflection of the owner’s taste rather than a technical achievement to be measured.
A century later, the concours d’élégance has evolved into something considerably more rigorous, and the best events in the world now combine elements of automotive scholarship, curatorial excellence, and aesthetic competition at the highest level. Understanding what these events judge — and why certain cars win while others do not — is essential for any collector who hopes to present a car competitively or simply to understand what they are watching.
Origins: The Belle Époque and Interwar Period
The first documented automotive concours took place in Paris in 1898, barely a decade after the automobile’s practical invention. These early events were social occasions that happened to involve cars rather than serious technical competitions. Ladies’ committees selected winners based on the elegance of the vehicle-and-costume ensemble, and the results reflected fashion as much as engineering.
The interwar period — the 1920s and 1930s — produced the golden age of coachbuilt European automobiles, and the concours tradition flourished alongside it. Events in Cannes, Monte Carlo, and Biarritz attracted the rolling aristocracy of Europe with their Hispano-Suizas, Delages, Bugattis, and Rolls-Royces wearing bodies by Figoni et Falaschi, Saoutchik, Vanden Plas, and Park Ward. The standards of bodywork and mechanical preparation expected were exacting, and the social stakes were sufficiently high to motivate the kind of investment in presentation that only the very wealthy could sustain.
Pebble Beach: The Modern Pinnacle
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance, held annually on the 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula of California, is broadly acknowledged as the most prestigious automotive competition in the world. Founded in 1950 as part of the Pebble Beach Road Races, it has outlasted the races and grown into an event that defines the collector car calendar.
The Best of Show award at Pebble Beach is the most coveted prize in collector car culture. Previous recipients include pre-war Bugattis, Alfa Romeos, Cords, Ferraris, and Rolls-Royces of exceptional historical significance and presentation quality. The value premium associated with Best of Show status is measurable: cars that have won the top honour at Pebble Beach have subsequently sold at premiums of 30 to 50 percent above comparable examples without the award history.
Approximately 200 vehicles are invited to compete each year from roughly 2,000 submissions. The selection process itself is curated by a committee of automotive historians and senior collectors who determine the classes and the specific invitation list. To be invited is, for many collectors, already a form of recognition.
The Judging System
Pebble Beach employs a class-based judging structure with approximately 30 to 35 classes organised around era, country of manufacture, coachbuilder, and vehicle type. Within each class, cars are evaluated by a panel of judges — typically three to five per class — against a 100-point scoring system.
The judging criteria are organised into four primary categories, each weighted differently:
Authenticity (approximately 30 points): Judges evaluate whether the vehicle’s current configuration correctly represents its original factory specification or documented period-correct modifications. Replacement parts must be period-appropriate. Unoriginal engines, non-matching chassis or body numbers, and anachronistic components all result in deductions. For pre-war cars, documentation of original configuration may rely on factory records, period photographs, and provenance research.
Mechanics (approximately 25 points): The engine bay, undercarriage, and mechanical systems are evaluated for cleanliness, correct assembly, appropriate finish, and the use of correct materials and fasteners. Judges get underneath cars. They open access panels. They look for rubber moulded with period-correct part numbers. The standard of mechanical presentation expected at the top of the Pebble Beach field is extraordinary.
Body and Paint (approximately 30 points): Panel fit, paint finish, colour correctness, and the quality of coachwork fabrication and restoration are assessed here. Pre-war bodies often present complex questions about appropriate finish levels — original hand-applied cellulose lacquer behaves differently under light than modern clear coat systems, and judges are expected to understand these distinctions.
Interior (approximately 15 points): Upholstery materials, carpet, dashboard components, instruments, and headlining are evaluated for correctness and condition. Period-correct fabrics, leathers, and materials are expected; modern substitutes incur deductions even when visually indistinguishable from a distance.
Villa d’Este: The European Standard
The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, held at the Villa d’Este and Villa Erba on Lake Como in northern Italy, occupies a somewhat different position. Organised by BMW Group Classic since 1993, it combines invited classic cars with concept car presentations and emphasises design heritage alongside restoration quality.
The Villa d’Este tradition specifically rewards extraordinary design — coachbuilt bodies of exceptional visual conception, concept cars of significant design intent, and production vehicles that represent high points of automotive styling. The award categories include public prizes voted by attendees and jury prizes from a panel that has historically included senior automotive designers from Pininfarina, Bertone, and Zagato.
Cars that win at Villa d’Este tend toward the theatrical rather than the technically encyclopaedic: a 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Berlinetta by Touring, a 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competizione by Scaglietti, a car that arrests the eye before the judge opens a panel. This emphasis makes Villa d’Este feel closer in spirit to the original interwar concours than the more scholarly American events.
Preparing a Car for Competition
The preparation of a car for serious concours competition is a discipline that established restorers treat as distinct from conventional restoration. A car prepared for Pebble Beach must be correct in every documented detail to the standard of its best-preserved original example — not merely cosmetically impressive.
Leading concours preparation specialists spend 18 to 36 months on a significant car, sourcing period-correct fasteners, period-correct rubber compounds for seals and hoses, period-correct paint chemistry, and period-appropriate cleaning methods that remove contamination without altering original surface textures. The investment required — both financial and in specialist knowledge — is substantial, and the finest preparation shops maintain waiting lists measured in years.
For the collector, concours preparation is both a form of automotive scholarship and a potential value-creation exercise. A well-documented car presented at the best shows commands a premium that often exceeds the cost of preparation. More importantly, the research process tends to produce documentation — photographs, records, provenance history — that becomes permanently attached to the car and continues to support its value throughout subsequent ownership.
The concours d’élégance, in its contemporary form, is the academy of the collector car world: the institution that defines standards, recognises excellence, and determines — with considerable consequence for the market — which cars and which periods of automotive history deserve the most serious preservation.
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