Classic Cars – Concours Events
June 1st, 2009
Once upon a time, in France, people used to travel by horse and cart. These were the rich people, mind you, so it was almost as important to have a horse and cart that looked good as a combination that got you from A to B. Inevitably, this became a matter for competition, and the French word concours has become common currency in the English-speaking classic car community. The concours d‘elegance – several of which are held throughout the USA annually – is a chance to show off classic cars in their original form. This means no scratches, no bald tyres, and no defects at all.
At a concours, everything is inspected. If you have even a small pebble between the grooves in your tyre, you are marked down for it. If your paintwork is less than uniformly perfect, you are marked down for that, too. In fact, most people do not drive their cars on to the concours arena, they have them transported so as not to damage the work that has been done on them in the weeks leading up to the concours. And, for those who feel that a genre has not truly arrived until it is parodied, the unveiling of the first “Concours D’Ignorance” was recently announced. It’s like the Elegance contest, except for really bad, ugly cars. Post-modernism has come to the concours!
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