Buttercup, a 1975 Lincoln, is always a crowd favorite
Buttercup, a 1975 Lincoln, is always a crowd favorite
Car Shows & Festivals

Concours d’Lemons 2026

A Celebration of Automotive Regret

Avatar photoKristina Cilia

While the rest of Monterey Car Week spends its energy polishing chrome and hushing crowds around eight-figure Ferraris, one corner of Seaside spends its Saturday morning doing the opposite. On the lawn of Seaside City Hall, the Concours d’Lemons gathered its usual assembly of rust, regret, and questionable life choices for another free spin at the title nobody actually wants to lose: Worst in Show.

1956 Mercedes 190SL
1956 Mercedes 190SL

Where Pebble Beach fires confetti cannons for its winners, Lemons greets its champion with a barrage of silly string, which feels appropriate for a show built entirely on the premise that not every car deserves a trophy, and some deserve a fire extinguisher instead. Running from 8 a.m. to roughly 1:30 p.m. the same day as Concorso Italiano and Exotics on Broadway, Lemons remains the one event on the calendar where admission is free and the cars there have never once tried to earn a coveted gold trophy.

Tags
Avatar photo
Kristina Cilia
California native Kristina Cilia has an extensive photography background. She spent almost 10 years photographing military life, people and planes while her enthusiasm for photographing automobiles grew. Kristina has created images for Three Fifty Six Inc. documenting their 356 East Coast Holiday and more. She photographed racing events at Nango (Japan), Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Thunder Hill, Snetterton, Brands Hatch and Silverstone and events like Pebble Beach Concours and Goodwood Festival of Speed. Kristina loves to travel and attend Porsche Club events. She currently resides in Northern California with her husband and two teenage boys.
Related
Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Sports Car Digest Membership is for people who'd rather spend an hour with one chassis number than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • 5,000+ members-only stories

    Concours, auctions, race history, driven classics and the full archive.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • The market, every week

    Auction results and classic-car values from the people who were there.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Sports Car Digest shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Sports Car Digest — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team of historians, photojournalists and racing drivers doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr