My First Concours d’Elegance

I’m often found at cars and coffee events before or after a long drive. I’m a regular on driving tours. I can occasionally be found at a race track. The common theme for me is always driving. I believe cars are at their best when they’re doing what they were designed to do…moving. Cars, especially Porsches it seems, last longer and run better when they are used regularly. For that reason, I never really paid much attention to Concours events. Concours d’Elegance is a French term that translates to “a competition of elegance” and a Concours event involves judging a collection of pristine, original and meticulously clean vehicles. I guess it started with French aristocrats who would take their horse-drawn carriages out to show off and be judged on appearance and elegance. Now we’re dealing with horses of a different kind but the competition still boils down to who has the cleanest car. Cleanest…you can’t be obsessed with cleanliness if you’re out driving the crap out of a car! Or can you…

I take it all back. Okay, I still don’t think I’ll ever be a Concours competitor, at least not a winning one, but after attending the largest PCA PNWR event in our club’s history last weekend, I came away with a newfound appreciation for Concours. Now this was a local event, not the super posh kind of event held at Pebble Beach annually, so the competitors here actually drove their cars to the event and polished them up before the judging started. No garage queens brought in by trailer to be found. It was an incredibly well run event, filled with stunning cars and fantastic people. PNWR volunteers always work so hard to make all events fun and the Aker family was kind enough to host us at their workshop outside of Seattle. I had an array of lenses with me and I was a kid in a candy store surrounded by Porsches as clean as when they rolled off the assembly line…some probably cleaner! Except for that tiny spider web on the rear license plate of the yellow Turbo S…that cost the owner some points 🙂

Contestants showed up early so they had time to polish things up before the judging started. The sun was shining so any dirt or dust would be easily visible. They have to clean everything…engine compartment, car carriage, storage…it all needs to be perfect: