 The weekend of the 10th August was the date set aside for the 3rd instalment of the prestigious Concours d'Elegance hosted by Concours SA. The venue was to be Mandela Gardens inside the gated community of Steyn City, and it was pretty fitting considering the upmarket status of it all. The field of entrants was smaller than I expected, but the quality of the cars entered was absolutely bloody brilliant. Cars on display ranged from the early 1900s to modern day Ferraris with a host of things in between, each of them in the cleanest possible condition with owners hoping to walking away with an award or two, or possibly the coveted Best of Show. The defending title holder was a Ferrari F40, which arrived this year wearing new shoes, some 5-spoke OZ Racing wheels. Everyone loves an F40, but with black aftermarket wheels, the car managed to get at least five times cooler, maybe ten. Owner Keith Rivers was clearly not there to defend the title though because as I arrived and saw the car's new wheels, I could hear the judges scoffing at the break from originality from afar. While it looks amazing, it would lose the car some points on originality.
I didn't get shots of all the cars like I usually would, just the ones that looked like they wanted pics taken, so there will probably a few missing from the full gallery that will be on my Facebook page. I was there to cover the event for myself, as well as for Motor Magazine, and the latter is where you'll find all the details on the auction that took place after the concours event, and which is why I'm sharing these pics from the show now. Anyway, back to the cars, one of my favourites seen at shows is Gavin Roberts's absolutely minter of an Opel Superboss in the uber-rare maroon paint, the car is so damn good that it placed higher in the scoring than many other cars worth much, much more. Some of the older Porsches on display also gave me goosebumps though, like Marek Letowt's BMW E28 M5 and Chad Wentzel's '58 Corvette.     Like I said, there were less cars than I expected, which is not a bad thing. I think with the event being held at Steyn City, more people made the effort to check out the happenings than when the event was held at Sun City, so I think 2019 will see both the list of cars and the attendees increase. There were plenty car owners that I know with show-winning cars that would be able to compete with what I saw, which is great because the event can only get bigger and better from here. I also made sure to watch the judges, and to get close to hear some of the mutterings, and there's really not much difference between how a show like this is judged when compared with the aftermarket shows that I've judged. Having a pre-selection stage is obviously the best first step, but it also allows a list of cars to be compiled which will give judges a chance to do their homework on some of the rarer models. With this kind of show, you need to be really clued up on the cars entered so you can point out what's original and what's not and so proper research and homework needs to be done. Cleanliness is one of the factors judged too, although with the cars being parked outside on grass, I think a little fine dust would need to be forgiven. I do know that one of the E36 M3s on display was stripped down for a proper detailing, not just plastic covers and seats, the engine was dropped - that's the level of Concours SA. I'm not sure which of the two below though, but definitely one of them.  Overall, the Concours d'Elegance by Concours SA is a brilliant event that I was lucky to attend, thanks to Greg Marucchi for organising me access at the last minute. This is one that I've added to my annual "must attend events", and you should too if you're as passionate about cars as I am. I'd love to see more of the cars enter from the private collections I know of, there's hundreds of cars out there at this level, some even better too. Well done to all the winners (as seen below), I hope to see you all next year among some new cars and faces. For more on the event, it's sponsors and supported charities, head on over to the Concours SA website, and for the rest of the images, head on over to my ChrisWallMedia Facebook page.  |
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