Classic & Sports Car

The ICE St Moritz (p17) is a concours unlike any other – well, you don’t see a multi-million-dollar 1956 Ferrari 500TR drifting through the snow at Pebble Beach! The gorgeous Ferrari lost out to a 1957 500TRC in the Barchettas on the Lake class at the 2025 event on 21-22 February, but its owner made the most of the rare sports-racer’s high-revving twin-cam ‘four’ during some spectacular demonstration laps of the frozen Swiss lake, much to the delight of this year’s record crowds.…

There are two brand-new concours events being announced in our news pages this month, one here in the UK and the other in the rapidly growing Middle Eastern classic scene. They join a number of fresh prestige shows launched across the world for this year, such as the enticing Antara Concorso Roma in April, but you don’t need to travel nearly so far – nor spend so much money – to enjoy great classic events. There is no better reminder of this than the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs’ Drive It Day. Created in 2005 to demonstrate the scale of the UK classic scene, it’s an annual celebration of the One Thousand Mile Trial of 23 April 1900. Organised by The Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland (later…

Second only to Pebble Beach among the key American events in prestige and reputation, the 30th annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Golf Club in Florida from 5-8 March. Half an hour from Jacksonville (Amelia is the northernmost barrier island on the Florida coastline), the Ritz-Carlton hosted a 240-car concours split across 35 classes, with the featured groups this year including coachbuilt Ferraris, 50 years of the Porsche turbo, pre-war machines, Sebring Corvettes and IROC racers. The four-day extravaganza – rebranded The Amelia since its 2021 acquisition by classic industry behemoth Hagerty – attracted some 17,000 enthusiastic visitors, 12,000 down on last year due to the prospect of changeable weather that can afflict this part of the world in early March. With this in…

1957 AC ACE BRISTOL This magnificent, unrestored Bristol-engined Ace was dispatched from Thames Ditton to AC Imports of Arlington, Virginia, in December 1957. It was sold to Gerald F Curtin Jnr, who put the car away in his garage in 1969 when it developed a head-gasket problem. There it remained, hidden from sight, until Curtin’s death in 2010. Now owned and enjoyed by Pascal Maeter and Cecilia Lofthus, the car has never been restored and shows just 33,857 miles. It was a deserving winner of the FIVA Presentation Award. 1928 PACKARD 443 Owner Peter Sheppard’s father was given this Packard as a 16th birthday present by his parents. It was delivered in May 1928 by S&S Inc in York, Pennsylvania, and has remained with the family ever since. “During WW2…

A 1933 Alfa Romeo 6C-1750 GS by Figoni was crowned Best in Show at the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance, which took place on Cockatoo Island from 28 February to 2 March. In the mid-1930s, the elegant Alfa was transformed into an open-top racer and was a class winner at the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans. The original closed bodywork was later reinstated and the restored coupé has since won concours d’élégance accolades at Pebble Beach in California, Villa d’Este in Italy, Hampton Court in London, and now Australia. In the main display, visitors to the former working dockyard were greeted by a trio of British machines: a 1935 Lagonda M45R, a 1948 Bentley MkVI by Park Ward and a 1929 Bentley 4½ Litre. This then gave way to a…

Cartoonist Warren Brown was in Sydney after completing an epic, five-month road trip from London to Melbourne in January. Alongside co-pilot Matthew Benns and mechanic Tony Jordan, he was recreating adventurer Francis Birtles’ 1927 expedition, one of the challenges the Australian undertook to help promote the British marque. The trio followed the same 26,000km route through 80 countries taken by Birtles’ original 1924 Bean, named The Sundowner, which survives in the National Museum of Australia, in Canberra. Warren’s similar 1925 Bean Fourteen was on hand at the Concours, still caked in dust from the journey. A tiger mascot for the bulkhead, as used on the 1927 adventure, was gifted by Birtles’ family for Warren’s own car, which performed admirably: only the magneto failed, once, and one headlight fell off.…