One-hundred-eighty treasured classic cars—most of them with their owners—basked in the approval of a large crowd at the Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance over the weekend.
The setting helped—the seaside backyard of the Breakers, perhaps the most famous and certainly one of the most elaborate of the historic Newport, R.I., “cottages.” The crowds were large and enthusiastic, and had no trouble negotiating the puddles left from the persistent rain earlier in the week. As usual, auto enthusiast Jay Leno, who has a house nearby, was a committed participant.
The winning “Best of Show” car was the flamboyant 1938 Delage D8-120 Roadster with coachwork by De Villars. It was bought by current owner Fritz Burkard in 2019. This car was formerly owned by New Jersey-based French car collector Sam Mann, who once won Best of Show at Pebble Beach with it.
A lovely category, considering the current horsepower race, was “Little Gems,” tiny Italian cars with minuscule one-liter engines. These included the winning 1946 Fiat 1100 Frua Spider, a 1948 Cisitalia 202 SMM Nuvolari Spyder, a 1953 Nardi 750 Roadster, and more. All were exquisite, and aimed at the race track.
Individual cars that stood out include a perfectly restored and bright red 1960 BMW 507 roadster; no less than two 1961 Maserati 3500 GTs (one a 2013 U.S. import from Italy, and the other long held in Holland); the 1936 Horch 853A Special Roadster was a streamlined drop-top sharing some styling cues with the 540K Mercedes; a cute Auto Union 1000 SP circa 1960; and a 1951 Cunningham C2-R that was a Le Mans class winner in 1951.
Also exhibiting a Cunningham was Chuck Schoendorf, who owns multiple examples of the marque. The 1952 Cunningham C-3 sported a brown and black two-tone paint scheme and a supercharged Chrysler 300 Hemi engine. The car, whose original owner was grandson of a Maine governor, was dismantled for 40 years, but put back together in time for the big 2018 Cunningham reunion at the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance organized by Cunningham owner Tom Cotter. And after a long sleep there are new Cunninghams, albeit built on the Corvette C8 chassis.
Antonio Pierce, president of Velfera Auto Design, brought the latest carbon-fiber-bodied Cunningham-branded creation, with an engine tweaked by Lingenfelter Performance Engineering to produce up to 700 horsepower. An earlier run of 60 Cunningham Automotive cars sold out, Pierce says, and only 20 of the current car will be made. The price will be around US$330,000. Some members of the Cunningham family are involved in the new effort.
For some, restoring cars is a family project.
A 1956 BMW 502 sedan belongs to Paul and Jayne Queck, but daughter, Heidi, and son-in-law, Erik, are also very involved. “It was a 10- or 11-year process,” Heidi says. Paul Queck, who lives in Indianapolis, says he heard about the car via word of mouth and went all the way to Portland, Ore., to check in with its original German owner. The car was minus its original V8 engine—though it was on the property—and sitting under a tree, looking quite sorry for itself. But Queck bought it anyway.
The elegant BMW was restored in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The process was lengthy, with some parts fabricated and others coming from collectors in Germany, but the car finally emerged to win the “People’s Choice” award at the Hilton Head Concours and Motoring Festival last year. It was also a winner at Audrain.
The list of winners is long, but here are some important cars collecting awards: 1966 Chevrolet John Fitch Sprint Corvair (American 1955-1975), 1973 Buick Gran Sport Stage I Colonnade Sun Coupe (People’s Choice), 1954 Buick Caribbean convertible (American 1940 to 1955), and 1963 Triumph Herald 1200 convertible (30 Under 30, Pre-1965).
The winning lineup at an event like Audrain is important to someone like Eden Cooper, founder and managing partner of Drift Capital. He’s raising money—US$50 million to US$75 million is the goal—for a curated and diversified collection of likely-to-appreciate historic automobiles. Investors, if they’re lucky, will not only get to drive some cool cars, but will also make money.
“They’re not making more of these cars,” Cooper says.
Many spectators also took advantage of the chance to visit the Audrain Automotive Museum in downtown Newport. The current “Stars of 30” exhibit showcases cars from 30 past shows. It’s an excellent chance to see the highly influential Buick Y Job of 1938, a car that was dramatically informing the division’s styling all the way into the 1950s. And there’s also the 1963 George Barris-customized Corvette that went to motorboat racer Bob Nordskog. It was an eye-popper in gold metal flake.
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