amelia island concours d'elegance pictures

[karmaken]

I managed to talk the wife into letting me dissapear for 4 days to attend the Amelia Island Concours at the Ritz Carlton. What an incredible show! Even better that I had press passes for this visit. I did some interviews that I'm hoping to get on Discovery HD Theater. I wanted to get Sir Stirling Moss but he met with the ground, at the bottom of his elevator shaft which meant 2 broken ankles.

Back to the concours, what a wonderful collection of cars. Here are some photos...

This Mercedes took best of show.



cobra at the RM auction



Duesy hood ornament



rolling to the auction block



I love shooting hood ornaments



Don Garlitz, Caroll Shelby and Richard Petty - they told some great stories about the good ole days



Spyker and the new Bugatti Veyron targa - only going for 1.7 million



I interviewed the vp of sales for Sypker and got a ride in this puppy. Gorgeous car with a Swiss watch interior and an Audi V8 pumping about 450 hp.



Dr Simeone's Hippy Porsche with the long tail setup. these cars were treacherous in their early configuration



I'm not sure what this one is, but it was cool.

[SilverSpear]

Cool cars man, I guess the last one is a Jag

[sabin]

sounds like an amazing time

[karmaken]

Originally Posted by SilverSpear

Cool cars man, I guess the last one is a Jag

I just found out that was a Dolphin - made in San Diego.

This is one of those shows that if you have the means, you should take in. Pebble Beach will cost you a good 200 bucks to get on the greens. It cost $50 to get on the field here. I made a weekend of it, rented a condo with a buddy (335 bucks, half block from ocean) Spent 186 bucks on gas (pig pickup truck getting 18 mpg if we were lucky) We ate our big breakfast in the morning and brought snacks to the show, then ate dinner out) It really didn't cost us all that much to pull this off.

One of the Porsches taking an award. I had a great position to take some slow motion shots of the cars as they paraded up the field.





one of the mercedes class



3 Lincoln Continentals that were all at one time owned by a member of the Ford family. Each one had some custom features implemented at the factory.



Gotta love the Allards. All that power and no real functional brakes. You had to have big balls to drive these things fast






One of the subtle details that abound.



I think I built a model of one of these when I was a kid, with this exact paint scheme



External pipes rock!



I think this was a Howard Hughes car with a significant air filtration system in the trunk.

[Cam]

more pictures please!

[karmaken]

Can we have some more please?

Here we go

Another 917



This was one wacked out car





Here's the squared off steering wheel from the Darrin car.



Nothing says class then the Flying Lady on a Rolls



This car was used by the movie studios back in the day.



A coffin front end Cord





Is this a Cunningham

[karmaken]

I took about 1600 photos in between interviews. I ran out of disk space at the end of the day. Here are some more.

regards

ken

There were about 10 917s at the event. The ultimate derivation of these cars did 240 in the back streach of le mans in the early 70's



This was a one off Jaguar that was obliterated in 72 on a test drive. It was rebuilt and shipped to the show from England. Gorgeous car



McClaren Stacks - this car sounded awesome when fired up



66 Ford GT 40 Mark II



Is this a Curtis?



Love the front end indy cars



A Siata I believe



The King was the featured racer of the event.



For sale



At the the RM auction - a real Cobra

[karmaken]

More to come. Here is the next batch



Here is a gorgeous and storied Allard.



An award winning gorgeous PreWar Alfa



An eastern shore Mercedes





This was a wonderful car





This is one of my favorite spots to shoot. You have this influx of all sorts of cars lining up to make the award run down the green. It makes for some great contrasting photos.



Then you get to shoot motion shots as the cars return back.

[karmaken]

[karmaken]

My inspiration for establishing this thread is to hopefuly promote us svx'ers folks to go out an attend some of these events. Its not all uptight people roving around in natty attire. What I've found is that many of the owners (and restorers) are real in depth car guys. They started out with something simple and followed a path to where they are now.

You'll also find at many of these shows that the caretakers/restorers are there with the car. They have intimate knowledge and usually are very happy to share their thoughts on the cars, their history and their issues. I learn so much every time I attend a concours. I also get a chance to meet some pretty interesting fellows.

You also get a sense of the craftsmenship that went into originally building these cars and then restoring them as well. Let's face it, there is nothing that is really ground shakingly new about the modern automobile. So much technology was developed early in the 20th century.

What got me thinking about this was a few years ago judging at the Radnor Concour d'Elegance I ran into a 1914 Locomobile. It was huge and magnificent. The interior had Tiffany lamps and such. But what blew me away was the air suspension. That got me to thinking about all the technology out there and how much of it is based on the beginnings of the automotive movement.

The age of the computer generated car has lost its touch with the organic design process while also taking credit for all the engineering and innovation from the past. We just assume its better and more modern. It makes me yearn for the past, when men were men and the sheep were nervous, I mean men were men and it took balls to drive fast.

Going 50 in a TR6 going around a corner is so much more fun then the same corner in a Ferrari or a modern day Ford for that matter. There's also something about driving a car (like my 64 Lincoln) with the wonderful anticipation, will it start again once you park it at an event or what ever. And that immediate satisfaction of hearing your v-8 roar after reconnecting the battery (I have an undetermined electrical leak somewhere) and you have once again been given the dignity of roaring off into the sunset without having to diagnose any issues. But the flip side of when you don't get started and the camraderie of gearheads coming together to help figure out what ain't clicking right.

To some extent, you'll find the same thing at the concours scene. The budgets just might have some extra zeros. But also keep in mind that there are a host of fellas that have owned their particular car for decades, slowly fixing it up, piece by Hershey found piece.

Enough of my grandstanding, here are a couple more shots.

Check out the hand beaten panels on this Maserati





This tank is a work of art, even without Shelby's signature. The welding is exquisite.



Imagine the hours that went into creating this car and then restoring it after hanging out in the desert for 50 years.



Here is the ultimate in self expression... a car built without regard to cost or resale in mind. I cannot imaging the thousands of hours spent creating this spectacular walnut wooden bodied Rolls Royce.

[K_Dub]

Excellent thread!

The "wacked out car" from your 3rd post is a Fascination of which only 3 were built. The wood interior is a nice touch, as the one I saw at the Peterson Museum with PaulDexler last year had a red shag interior which was wacked out to the extreme.



Great details on this car, although in the low light I had trouble getting clean shots.



And here's a little info for those who're curious. Built in Colorado!



Thanks so much for sharing these pics with us. Hopefully your footage will get picked up by HD Theater, and we'll all get a chance to see your work.

Oh yeah, and that wooden Rolls is freakin' hot. Perfect for tailgating before the opera.

[PaulDexler]

Fabulous show!
Amelia Island is trying to make itself an East Coast Pebble Beach, and I think they have pretty well succeeded. I have seen many of these cars in shows in the West, and some you shot were completely new.
There was considerable gloom at the Nethercutt Museum on their return from Amelia Island, because after taking Best in Show for the past three years, they didn't even get a class award for either of the two cars they brought. I think that was in large due to politics.
The 1912 De Dion roadster they brought won its class at PB, and won the Charles Chayne trophy for "best engineering for its time." The Packard LeBaron Phaeton, one of only three built, took reserve best in show at PB in 2008, so these were not just last minute substitutes.
Politics is a problem with any big, wealthy organization, I think.
P.
ps - Those of you coming to the Nethercutt on Saturday will be able to see both of those cars. P.

[karmaken]

I hope you'll share some photos from that upcoming event. As far as the best of show winners, I don't think you can expect to get it every year. Besides, the 2 cars that did win, the MB 540 and Stirling Moss's birdcage were spectacular cars none the less. I don't know if I shot either car that you spoke of. Could you share a picture?

Meanwhile, here are some more

Some more details on the wooden rolls. Evidently this was an inherited project that had lost steam. It was finished with quite a flourish.















The tool kit was hidden underneath the ostrisch leather covered boot. Below the tools kit was the release for the spare tire compartment below.



As you can imagine, the owners were very careful not to step on the running boards when disembarking.

[K_Dub]

Interesting trophy on the left. Another car I saw at the Peterson last year was a DuPont featuring that hood ornament. If I remember correctly, unlike many hood ornaments which were really radiator caps, this was for ornamentation only and included a light underneath so that it glowed at night.



Seeing as only 600 DuPont Motors cars were ever built I imagine that that piece was a little more common than just on the front of their cars if it's now being used for trophies.

I'll have plenty of pics of both museums to post to their own thread after the meet. So until then, I'll stop trying to hijack your wonderful thread. Keep 'em pics comin'.

Edit:
Google rules. The eagle head was made by Lalique and they still manufacture these today, although they originally were designed for DuPont car "mascots" (as opposed to the radiator caps called "ornaments"). The more you know.