Ferraris at Pebble Beach is one of the longest-enduring relationships that helped forge American sports-car culture. In the early 1950s, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Pebble Beach Road Races were inseparable: elegant automobiles were judged near the Lodge while racing cars competed through the narrow, tree-lined roads of the Del Monte Forest. Ferrari quickly became important to both.
There’s always a first
The first Ferrari appeared at Pebble Beach in 1951, when wealthy sportsman Jim Kimberly brought his 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta to the Concours and then entered it in the road races. The well-heeled heir to the Kimberly-Clark empire was running third on the twentieth lap of the feature race when he lost control and overturned. He escaped injury, and his companion that weekend, actress Ginger Rogers, famously greeted him afterward with a kiss. Could a Hollywood film writer have scripted Ferrari’s entrance any better?
Down to business
By 1953, Ferrari was no longer merely participating—it was winning. Phil Hill drove his Ferrari 250 MM Spyder, bodied by Vignale, to victory in the feature race. Sterling Edwards followed in 1954, winning in another Vignale-bodied Ferrari, a 340 MM Spyder. The victories demonstrated both the performance of Ferrari’s rapidly developing competition machinery and the striking individuality of the bodies created by Alfredo Vignale and designer Giovanni Michelotti.
Outgrowing the forest
Ferrari’s dominance continued. In 1955, Hill won again, this time in Allen Guiberson’s Ferrari 750 Monza. The same car returned in 1956 in the hands of Carroll Shelby, who scored Ferrari’s fourth consecutive Pebble Beach feature-race victory. Hill finished second in an 860 Monza and Jack McAfee third in an 857 S, completing a Ferrari sweep of the podium. Tragically, the race was overshadowed by the death of Ernie McAfee, whose Ferrari 121 LM crashed into a tree. The accident brought racing through the forest to an end and helped spur the creation of the safer, purpose-built Laguna Seca circuit, which opened the following year.
Overlooking the Pacific
Ferrari’s Pebble Beach story, however, continued on the fairways of Pebble Beach. More than 900 Ferraris have appeared at the event since Kimberly’s 1951 debut. In 1953, Alfred Ducato’s magnificent Vignale-bodied Ferrari 212 Inter Coupé nearly captured Best of Show, finishing runner-up to an Austin-Healey 100. Beginning in 1973, Ferrari became Pebble Beach’s first ongoing postwar featured marque, eventually becoming a fixture with multiple Ferrari classes in many years.
Changing of the guard in 2014
The ultimate recognition came in 2014 when Jon Shirley’s unique 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Scaglietti Coupe was named Best of Show. It was the first postwar automobile in more than four decades to receive Pebble Beach’s highest honor and remains the only Ferrari to have won Best of Show.
2026 Honored Classes
For Pebble Beach’s 75th celebration in 2026, Ferrari appropriately returned as the primary featured marque. Two classes in particular connected the modern Concours directly to Ferrari history. The first celebrated Ferraris bodied by Carrozzeria Vignale, whose hand-shaped bodies defined some of the most distinctive Ferraris of the early 1950s—and whose 250 MM and 340 MM Spyders won at Pebble Beach in 1953 and 1954. The spectacular 1954 Ferrari 375 America Vignale Cabriolet won the class and was also nominated for Best of Show.
The second honored Ferraris are associated with Luigi Chinetti and his North American Racing Team (NART). Chinetti was instrumental in establishing Ferrari in America, while NART became Ferrari’s unofficial American competition arm and carried the Prancing Horse into many of the world’s greatest races. The 2026 Chinetti/NART class was won by a 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta—a fitting link to the type that introduced Ferrari to Pebble Beach 75 years earlier.
Together, the Vignale and NART classes captured two essential sides of Ferrari’s identity: extraordinary Italian design and competition. At Pebble Beach, those traditions have been intertwined since the days when Ferraris raced between the trees only a short distance from the manicured fairway where they are celebrated today.
Gallery
Class Awards
Class M-1: Ferrari
- 1st Place: 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta, Anne Brockinton Lee/The Lee Collection, Sparks, Nevada
- 2nd Place: 1961 Ferrari 250 TRI/61 Fantuzzi Spyder, Scuderia N.E., Stamford, Connecticut
- 3rd Place: 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Sperimentale Pininfarina Coupe, Bruce R. McCaw, Bellevue, Washington
Class M-2: Ferrari Competition
- 1st Place: 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/C Scaglietti Coupe, David & Melissa MacNeil, Manalapan, Florida
- 2nd Place: 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Competizione/335 GT Scaglietti Spyder, Chris & Ann Cox, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- 3rd Place: 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Scaglietti Berlinetta Competizione, Larry & Anne Page, Crozier, Virginia
Class M-3: Ferrari / Chinetti & NART Competition
- 1st Place: 1955 Ferrari 375 MM Pinin Farina Berlinetta, Heinecke Family Collection, Bangkok, Thailand
- 2nd Place: 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 “Daytona” Scaglietti Berlinetta, Michael Regalia, Sun Valley, California
- 3rd Place: 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Scaglietti Berlinetta, Chuck Akre, Washington, Virginia
Class M-4: Ferrari / Vignale
- 1st Place: 1954 Ferrari 375 America Vignale Cabriolet, RQ Collections, The Woodlands, Texas
- 2nd Place: 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Coupe, Anton J G Bilton, Gstaad, Switzerland
- 3rd Place: 1952 Ferrari 340 Mexico Vignale Berlinetta, Santiago Martinez, Madrid, Spain
Class R-1: Pebble Beach Road Racing Greats
First Place: 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Spyder, The Cultivated Collector, New Canaan, Connecticut
Class L-2: Postwar Preservation
3rd Place: 1954 Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale Berlinetta, Charals & Diana Haagen, Los Angeles, California
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“Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance” is copyrighted by the Pebble Beach Company, All Rights Reserved.
