Epitome of Elegance – A Day at the Concours

*WARNING* Elegant photos of automobiles displayed in a beautiful setting present in this post. Prepare to spend some time gawking…

Elegance, it’s a lost art. Men in suits, ladies in dresses and hats. Seems we have reserved this elegance for Wall Street and the Kentucky Derby alone, but pulling out all the stops, I present to you the Epitome of Elegance…The Concours d’Elegance of America.

A few fancy dresses, hats and a sea of blue sport coats were definitely present, but it was the cars that brought the elegance to the Inn at St. John’s this past Sunday in Plymouth, Michigan.

Normally I would be in attendance at a venue like this for the golf, but to my pleasure I was beckon come for an award, an Automotive Heritage Journalism Award. Honored and humbled, this event started my day with a bang. Friends and family flanked the Brembo tent table to cheer on their favorite blogger.

Veteran journalist and Chief Judge Gary Witzenberg did the honors. Organizer Steve Purdy was on hand for an “atta boy” as well. Check “award-winning blogger” off my bucket list. Now, enough about me…let’s get to the cars!

They started to roll in at 6 am. Fresh from the media table, I with my treasured award and media credential around my neck proudly, moseyed down the course towards delight. Arranged over three long fairways, the green velvet underfoot gave a cool layer to the ankles as I watched the owners prepping for the day with fevered brows.

Ahh the smell of Meguiar’s and turf in the morning. As the sunrise cut through the cloud of polish it was prime time for exhibitors to take one last look around the show…the calm before the storm. The grown-up amusement park was soon to open.

From find to famous, some entries were fully restored. Scrapbooks with pictures of every stage of resolution were proudly shown. One that stood out was a car that was almost completely destroyed and saved by local Detroit businessman Jim George, seen in the background of this photo below.

More details to come in a future post, but know that this bullet ridden, gutted, rust heap made its way to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance for its cotillion in 2017.

Divided into classes like Jazz Age, American Post War, and Modern Collectibles, each car is judged by an esteemed group of car experts in blue sport coats. They stroll the fairway with clipboards crowning “best-in-class” which then move onto the “best-in-show” competition. Ribbons appear on the windshield later in the day.

I’m able to spot Wayne Carini from the Velocity Channel’s show Chasing Classic Cars, whom I met on Saturday, scoping the merchandise. I continue to be impressed with Wayne as he strolled leisurely amongst the bevy of beauties. Later he would gladly pose for a picture with my family as he is one to encourage the young who are interested in cars. *See teenagers in photo below. **Yes, teenage girls.