The 18th fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links, overlooking Stillwater Cove and the Monterey Peninsula’s particular quality of morning light, is perhaps the most photographed lawn in the collector car world. Each August, it hosts approximately 220 automobiles representing the full arc of automotive history — from pre-war coachbuilt masterpieces to mid-century racing cars to the most significant modern exotics — judged against each other in what has become the definitive international competition for concours presentation.
Understanding Pebble Beach requires understanding both what it is and what it is explicitly not. It is not a concours of originality in the European tradition, where unrestored cars with authentic patina are valued above immaculately restored examples. It is not a hillclimb or a dynamic assessment of any kind. It is a concours of elegance — a judgement of aesthetic achievement, historical significance, and presentation quality — and it operates by its own rigorous and occasionally counterintuitive criteria.
Origins: A Golf Club’s Saturday Diversion
The Pebble Beach Concours began in 1950 as a modest addition to the sports car races organised on the Del Monte Forest roads by the Sports Car Club of America. The first event featured 30 cars and was judged by a panel that included fashion designer Emilio Pucci, whose aesthetic sensibility the organisers considered appropriate for what was then conceived as a judgment of automotive elegance rather than mechanical excellence.
In those early years, the concours was secondary to the racing — a pleasant afternoon activity before dinner. By the mid-1950s, as the road races were discontinued following safety concerns, the concours assumed primacy. Under the stewardship of Jules Heumann and, later, Lorin Sorensen and the current organisation led by Sandra Button, the event grew in ambition and international recognition through the 1970s and 1980s, reaching its current scale by the early 2000s.
The modern Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the centrepiece of Monterey Car Week — a constellation of events beginning on the preceding Tuesday that includes the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance (a driving event for concours entrants along the 17-Mile Drive), the Quail: A Motorsports Gathering, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and the major auction sales held by Bonhams, RM Sotheby’s, and Mecum.
How Judging Works
The judging structure at Pebble Beach is deliberately specific and has evolved through 70 years of refinement. Each year, the committee selects between 25 and 30 class categories, which vary annually and reflect a combination of standing themes (pre-war coachwork, racing heritage, American classics) and special features (a specific marque anniversary, a particular decade, or an emerging area of collector interest).
Within each class, three to five judges — typically a combination of marque historians, coachwork specialists, and long-standing concours veterans — assess cars against a published standard. Judging criteria include authenticity of specification, quality of restoration or preservation, correctness of detail (correct fastener types, accurate period paint codes, appropriate documentation), and presentation quality. Cars are assessed in the morning before the show opens to the public, with judges using reference materials appropriate to each specific vehicle.
Authenticity is weighted heavily. A car presented with incorrect wheel covers, anachronistic tyre profiles, or a radio aerial not period-correct to its specification will lose points in a closely contested class. This places enormous responsibility on preparers — the specialists hired by owners to research and execute concours preparation — who must demonstrate historical research as well as craft.
The distinction between judged classes and the Best of Show selection is significant. Class winners are determined by the class judges and awarded at midday. Best of Show is selected by a separate panel of Senior Judges — typically six to eight individuals with cumulative decades of Pebble Beach experience — who convene after the class results are announced and deliberate on the most worthy candidate from among all class winners.
What Best of Show Judges Look For
The Best of Show panel considers factors that transcend class: historical significance (did this car change the course of automotive design or competition?), rarity (is this a unique or near-unique example?), and what the judges describe as presence — the capacity to command the attention of the entire field.
Coachbuilt pre-war cars from European custom houses — Figoni et Falaschi, Touring of Milan, Saoutchik, Erdmann & Rossi — have dominated Best of Show historically. Cars such as the 1931 Bentley 8 Litre by Gurney Nutting, or the 1937 Hispano-Suiza H6C Dubonnet Xenia, represent the intersection of mechanical ambition and design vision that Pebble Beach was created to celebrate.
Post-war winners have been rarer, though significant: a 1954 Ferrari 375-Plus that raced at Le Mans won in 2014, demonstrating that the committee’s criteria extend to competition cars when the historical significance is sufficiently compelling. The trend in recent years has leaned toward cars whose stories are as interesting as their aesthetics — vehicles that embody a moment in automotive history rather than merely representing its most beautiful expression.
The Entry Process: How Collectors Participate
Entry to Pebble Beach is by invitation and application, and the selection committee is both selective and opaque. Approximately 220 cars are accepted from a field of several hundred applications received each winter for the following August event.
The application process opens in the autumn preceding the event. Owners submit detailed information about their car: chassis numbers, coachwork attribution, history of ownership, restoration documentation, and photographs. The committee evaluates applications against the year’s class structure and selects cars that best represent each category while maintaining diversity across the full field.
Several factors improve an application’s prospects. Cars with documented, verifiable histories — ideally with known ownership from new — are strongly preferred over cars whose provenance requires inferential argument. Recent provenance verification through recognised sources such as the Ferrari Classiche programme, the Aston Martin Heritage Trust, or Mercedes-Benz Classic strengthens applications considerably. Cars that have won their class at other recognised concours events — Villa d’Este, Amelia Island, Chantilly Arts & Élégance — provide evidence of preparation quality.
New entrants are advised to approach the application with the same rigour applied to the car itself. A well-documented, clearly presented application conveys the same professionalism that the judges will look for on the lawn. Repeat entrants who have demonstrated commitment to the event over multiple years receive no formal preference, but the committee is aware of the collector community’s participation patterns.
The Week Beyond the Lawn
Serious participants in Pebble Beach week plan their attendance beyond the concours Sunday. The Tour d’Elegance on Thursday provides an opportunity to exercise the car on the 17-Mile Drive while earning a participation rosette — a fact that many owners use to counter the criticism that concours preparation produces cars too fragile to drive. The Quail on Friday offers a more intimate setting with limited attendance and a programme that has increasingly focused on current hypercars and significant modern exotics alongside historic vehicles.
The auction sales, particularly RM Sotheby’s flagship Monterey event, are scheduled for Thursday and Friday evenings, providing collectors the opportunity to complete a purchase that can then be consigned for future concours appearance — a pipeline that feeds both the auction and the concours, and has helped establish Monterey as the most significant single week in the global collector car calendar.
For those who attend without a car on the lawn, the concours remains one of the few automotive events where the entry price — moderate for a general admission ticket — delivers genuine access to machines that would otherwise be encountered only in museum settings. The education available on that 18th fairway is, for the collector in formation, almost without parallel.
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