The 2010 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance was held Sunday, March 14th on the 10th and 18th fairways of the Golf Club of Amelia Island adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. An estimated 15,000 people attended the event on a breezy and sunny day.
Honorary Chairman Richard Petty kicked off the 15th annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance by driving onto the field in the 1971 Plymouth Road Runner that he drove to 21 victories on the NASCAR circuit. In addition to Featured Guest Richard Petty, the featured marque was Mercedes-Benz and the Concours highlighted the 40th anniversary of Porsche’s inaugural victory at the 24 Hours of Daytona and Le Mans by showcasing a number of influential 917s. Other classes ranged from Motor Trend cover cars to Cars You Never Knew Existed to Forgotten Fiberglass and many similar one-off categories.
Photographer Darren Pierson (www.dperceptions.com) presents the following photo gallery that shows the wide-ranging collection of cars gathered by Amelia Island Concours Founder Bill Warner. Pierson wonderfully captured the grace, muscle and sport that were all present on the show field.
2010 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance Photo Gallery (Click image for larger picture and description)
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[Source: Photo credit, Darren Pierson]
Very good pictures – sorry I missed this year’s event. Looks wonderful. Will you have more photos?
Hi Amy –
Thanks for your note. Yes, we will have many, many more photos in the coming days.
Best,
SCD
This was a show that should not have been missed, as it had cars for everyone’s taste. The weather could not have been better. I saw cars there that I had seen many years before in California at Pebble Beach, and they still looked GREAT. I saw Mike Jones from the AACA headquarters, and talked to him. I took many photos of cars, mostly the older antiques and classics, but they were all great. I hope to return again, next year.
Thanks for posting 2010 Amelia Island Concours photos so quickly. It was a fabulous event again this year. A car in one of the pictures in the 2010 Photo Gallery is misidentified. The black roadster pictured in Row 4, Column 2 is actually the spectacular 1953 Kurtis-Meteor SR-100 owned by Dudley Cunningham which got first place in the Forgotten Fiberglass Class. The Kurtis Byers 500KK displayed by John and Martia Furlow is a terrific silver with red trim #37 competition car with similar front-end styling, but it was in the class with Race Cars (Post-War-1955). I shot several photos of that car if you’d like to see it. My co-author Geoffrey Hacker and I are quite familiar with both of these cars and their owners, since Geoffrey and I are working on the book “Forgotten Fiberglass”. In fact, I displayed my 1955 Mysterion in the Forgotten Fiberglass class with Dudley Cunningham’s Meteor-bodied Kurtis while Geoffrey displayed his 1946 Belly Tank Streamliner in the same class with the Byers-bodied Kurtis. For more information about these and other fantastic fiberglass-bodied sports cars, visit http://www.forgottenfiberglass.com.
Rick,
I am curious then why the emblem on the hood says Kurtis 500? Any ideas on this?
Thanks!
Darren
Darren,
There are a couple reasons why Dudley Cunningham’s fabulous Meteor bodied Kurtis wears an emblem that says Kurtis 500.
First, Dick Jones who produced the stylish Meteor bodies never offered a “Meteor” emblem so cars with his bodies don’t proclaim their Meteor heritage.
Second, it is not uncommon for a hand-crafted car with body and chassis from different sources to become known by the more famous. In this case, the Kurtis name was the obvious choice. There is magic to the Kurtis name as a result of the enviable reputation Frank Kurtis earned by turning out successful race cars and high performance road-going vehicles. A Kurtis 500-KK chassis in the mid-1950’s cost over $1,200 and it was logical for someone buying one of those chassis to affix a Kurtis 500 emblem in a prominent place as a “Badge of Honor”. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” comes to mind.
Regarding the model names of Meteor and Byers bodies, not only do these bodies look somewhat similar but their model names can be easily confused. Let me now correct an error I made in my initial comment and set the record straight that the Meteor body on Dudley Cunningham’s Kurtis 500-KK chassis is a Meteor SR1 so the car is actually a Kurtis Meteor SR1 (not as I had indicated, based on the listing on page 44 of the event program). Also, at the 2010 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, there were Byers SR100 bodies on the two terrific cars displayed by John Furlow and Guy Dirkin.
Keep up the great photography.
Rick D’Louhy
Thanks for the detailed explanation! You certainly know your stuff. Also, thanks for the compliments on my work.
Clicked on the images and received a larger photo but NO description. How do I get the car description. Regards, Steve Snyder
Hi Steve –
Once you click on the photo, the description of the car is found on the top of the picture.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
SCD