By Rick Carey
The 61st Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will be held on Sunday, August 21, 2011 at the Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California.
In 2011 five special categories will headline the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance:
• Mercedes-Benz and 125 years of the Automobile
• Stutz Centennial (Call this one “’The car that made good in a day’, turns 100.”)
• Ferrari 250 GTO
• Edwardian Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts
• Italian Motorcycles
In addition to throwing the car collecting and restoration communities into high gear and triggering a tizzy of activity to find and prepare appropriate vehicles it initiates a frantic rush to prepare applications that tickle the fancy of the Pebble Beach selection committees.
The Jaguar XKSS gathering in 2010 was spectacular, particularly when they were encountered touring in an unprecedented sequence along the roads of the Monterey Peninsula. A similar gathering of Ferrari 250 GTOs will be a fabulous photo opportunity, a not-to-be-missed series of moments for tifosi, and for the rest of us, too, as well as a rare chance to create a definitive catalog of the differences that make each Ferrari 250 GTO a unique object.
Italian motorcycles enjoy a mystique all their own, a special place in motorcyclists’ affection. The ingenuity and creativity of Italy’s masters of small displacement high performance engines is nowhere better displayed than within the frames of Ducatis, MV Agustas, Gileras, Aprilias and earlier marques and in the histories of the riders who rode them to victory.
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance has a record of employing its unique stature, visibility and draw to refresh the appreciation of both automobile enthusiasts and the wider public for the automobile’s history and its important place in the history of society. The Concours selection of Mercedes-Benz and 125 years of the Automobile as one of its headline categories continues that effort, as does the inclusion of the great – and specifically identified – Edwardian Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and American marque Stutz.
Each of these categories by implication also highlights the contributions, creativity, ingenuity and, because it is an important aspect of the marques’ success, persistence of their creators. Their personalities are embodied in the marques’ character and in their names, drawing attention not only to the creators of the featured marques but also to the other pioneers of the automobile whose fabulous, fast, historic contributions fill the 18th Fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links.
There are only 316 days left until August 21, 2011. Make your travel plans now and put more memory in your digital camera.
For more information, visit www.pebblebeachconcours.net.
[Source: Rick Carey; photo credit: Tim Scott / Fluid Images]
