A 1933 Delage D8S De Villars Roadster owned by The Patterson Collection in Louisville, Kentucky, was named Best of Show at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance held Sunday, August 15th on the 18th fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links. Additionally, proceeds from raffles, auctions, sponsorships and ticket sales helped contribute more than $1 million to charity for the fifth consecutive year.
“There are so many things about this car that are special,” said owner Jim Patterson, who founded Long John Silver’s restaurant and contributed to the founding of the Rally’s Hamburger chain. “We’ve won (with other cars) at a lot of concours, but never here. This win at Pebble is the ultimate. This is the one win that really matters.”
Competitors from 33 states and 14 countries brought their prized automotive possessions to the California’s Monterey Peninsula for judging in 29 classes. In the end, the white, streamlined 1933 Delage with coachwork from De Villars was judged the best at the 60th annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
“This Delage has a short wheelbase that makes it look more rakish, but it still has a long and elegant look,” said Concours Chairman Sandra Button. “It did 110 miles-per-hour in its day; it could race and was stunningly beautiful. This car could do it all; it embodied style, speed and comfort.”
Delage added the sports version to the D8 range in 1930. To make the S more aerodynamic than its predecessors, a new radiator shell was used, which required a special hood and firewall that made the D8S even more visually distinctive. Patterson’s D8S graced the 1933 Salon de Paris at the Grand Palais. It was owned during the 1950s by the Grand Hotel Velasquez in Madrid, Spain and was used as transportation for its more discerning guests. Now it’s one of 60 Pebble Beach Concours Best of Show winners.
The 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance saw more than 250 cars and motorcycles on the show field, encompassing more than 100 years of the automobile, with the oldest car on the field being a 1902 Mercedes Simplex.
The Pebble Beach Concours occurs every year on the third Sunday in August. Featured marques for the 61st Pebble Beach Concours, slated for Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011, will include Mercedes-Benz and 100 Years of the Automobile, Stutz Centennial, Ferrari 250 GTO and Italian Motorcycles.
[Source: Pebble Beach Concours; photo credit: copyright © 2010 by Kimball Studios/Courtesy of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance]
For a number of reasons, including all that garish extra chrome inside and the fact that it wasn’t particularly advanced or unusual in either design or engineering when it was new, the Pebble Beach judges could probably have made a much more interesting choice.