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Ford Reveals the Maverick LoboVintage Bugatti Makes History at Pebble Beach Concours
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance typically wows with immaculate restorations, but this year’s biggest winner carried more than its share of patina.
Classic Cars’ Biggest Stage
The annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the most prestigious car show in the world. Held on the fairways of Pebble Beach Golf Links, this year’s show featured yet another cavalcade of extraordinary cars. That one can expect to encounter remarkable, historic, and ultra-expensive automobiles like McLaren F1s (including an F1 GTR racecar), Ferrari 250 GTOs, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTRs, Lamborghini Miura, and the like tells you something about the rarified air.
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance culminates in the Best in Show category, with participating cars drawn from the weekend’s most impressive cars. In years past, the Best in Show category has been dominated by pristine prewar classics from the likes of Packard, Duesenberg, and Mercedes-Benz. This year’s Best in Show winner, a 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports, was doubly historic.
1934 Bugatti Type 59 Wins Best in Show
This year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Best in Show winner was an unrestored 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports racecar. The ’34 Bugatti had already claimed the top slot in the Prewar Preservation class before taking the overall honors, making it the first unrestored car to do so. A win for an unrestored car was remarkable in a category long dominated by impeccably restored pre-war cars. The ’34 Bugatti’s racing provenance shows it has earned every chip, ding, and faded body panel of its 90 years’ worth of patina. The car’s first race saw a third-place finish at the 1934 Monaco Grand Prix which it followed with wins at the ’34 Belgian GP, Algerian GP, and the GP de la Marne. The car was purchased by King Leopold III of Belgium in 1937, who had it repainted the nation’s racing livery of black and yellow, the paint job it still carries today. The Bugatti Type 59 win was a historic one for preservation cars as well as the Bugatti marque, which reclaimed Pebble Beach’s Best in Show title after a 20-year drought.
Head-turning Coach Built Classics
Amidst prewar classics and modern supercars, some of the most eye-catching cars of the Pebble Beach Concours were rare collaborations between storied carmakers and European coach builders. Arguably the most impressive of these was a 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Saoutchik fastback coupe. The car’s sweeping fender lines hint at the carry-over design’s pre-war origins. Its playful mint green and brown paint scheme (original) a bit of postwar felicity. This car won the Postwar Touring class.
Another coach-built rarity was the stunning 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Ghia coupe. Five such Ferrari 375 MMs were given unique coach-built bodies, making this one by Ghia an ultra-rare one-of-one and just one of 36 Ferraris with Ghia bodywork. Indeed, you’re not likely to find another Ferrari in two-tone Salmon and Anthracite Grey paint. The car won this year’s Early Ferrari class.
If you’re looking for something a bit more subtle, there’s the 1951 Maserati A6G 2000 Frua Spyder. This car was the winner of one of this year’s special class categories, the Frua coachwork class honoring the designs of Pietro Frua.
Wedge Cars Wow Pebble Beach Attendees
Another of this year’s special classes was Wedge-Shaped Concept Cars and Prototypes, split into Early and Late. These included concept cars of yore like the Honda HP-X, Ferrari 512S Modulo, and Ferrari Koe O. The winner of the Early Wedge-Shaped class was the 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero Bertone coupe. Designed by the legendary Marcello Gandini (designer of Lamborghinis Miura and Countach, among many others), the Stratos HF Zero has no doors, instead the windshield lifts vertically for ingress/egress, and stands a scant 33 inches tall.
1935 Auburn 851 Speedster, Our Pick for Best in Show
I’ve got to admit I’m a sucker for Art Deco automotive designs. Perhaps it’s my latent affinity for the Batman: The Animated Series Batmobile, but my pick for Pebble Beach’s Best in Show was a show-stopping 1935 Auburn 851 Speedster. The car is opulent and imposing, its lines bold and sweeping. The boattail rear end and muscular fenders give it an air of refinement and power. The car still runs the original supercharged 150-horspower 4.6L straight-six capable of bringing the car to a top speed of 106.1 mph (so says the factory dash plaque). As a proper prewar American classic, this ’35 Auburn 851 Speedster is super rare, just one of 143 built.
And while we love the Auburn boattail, it was heartening to see the 1934 Bugatti Type 59, something simultaneously new and old, claiming this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Best in Show.
