Wow, the judges at the 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance did something really crazy, intentionally or not. They voted to award Best of Show, their glorious crown, to an old and wantonly aged race car.
Never, ever, before has any Concours d’Elégance honored a barn find with their Best of Show trophy. That’s nutz! So is judging a race car which was never designed to perform on grass. But hey, PB‘s five decades of setting new standards of perfection for historic cars replaced any semblance of originality. I used to think that is why they created the Preservation Class to make amends and stop destroying reference cars. After all, its standards of perfection are purely U.S. West Coast, much like cosmetic surgery is practiced in LA. Have they finally fallen on their sword? Or are they out of their minds?
It took forever to finish their awards ceremony this year — presenting their last and most prestigious trophy with an explosion of confetti. Four class winners were left in suspense at PB’s finish line. Two were pre-war “traditional PB classics.” One was a post-war sports car and this barn-find race car. The owner, Fritz, had wandered off, sensibly tending to the logistics of escaping with his family and his First Place Trophy from the Preservation Class before the mass evacuation.
But hey, they are not AI, they are human. Sometimes we make mistakes, and take ourselves too seriously. Even political parties do it. Why not lighten up? To each their own, live and let live. Let weird happen, climate too. Earth will survive any “whatever” misjudgment. This car hobby is but one of the new follies of the super-rich who buy their distinction from enthusiasts to practice “one-upmanship” with their cohorts. Television does not have a venue where superyachts and mansions can compete for the most elegant award, yet.