Amelia Island, 11 March 2001
Quality in Quantity
In just six years from its inception, the Amelia Island Concours has established itself
as one of the premier and most prestigious events of its type in the world. The
gathering has grown in both size and quality over the years, and this year attracted
over two hundred and twenty cars and motorcycles to the golf links adjacent to the
front entrance of the Ritz Carlton in the exclusive Amelia Island resort in northern
Florida. The span of automobile history encompassed ranged through a truly wide
reaching spectrum, from pioneers of the motoring revolution like the 1886 Benz and
1910 Pierce, through American sporting and luxury icons of the twenties and thirties
like Duesenburg, Packard and Pierce-Arrow, a 1936 Scarab electric car, to an F1
Vanwall, the 1965 Lotus Indy car, the 1970 Howmet TX Turbine sports racing car, a
wide selection of Porsche sports racing models, and unique examples of one man’s
dreams like the 1937 Dubonnet Hispano styled by Saoutchik.
Celebration of Surtees and Pierce-Arrow
The main themes of this year’s gathering were celebrations of John Surtees OBE
and the centenary of Pierce-Arrow. As part of the latter there was a road tour for
examples of the marque on the Friday morning, whilst the special guest was Al
Gonas, who was the original kneeling archer model for the Pierce-Arrow logo. For the
celebration of John Surtees, still the only man to have won World Championships on
both two and four wheels, there was a wide selection of cars and motorcycles of the
types raced by him during his career on display around the concours field. The cover
of the programme and the event poster featured an art montage of the maestro and a
selection of his racing machinery, by Ken Dallison. The display included Manx Norton
and MV Agusta motorcycles, a ”Matchbox” liveried Surtees F2 car driven by Mike
Hailwood in 1972 to win the F2 championship, examples of Ferrari 250 GTO, 250 P
and 365 P2, together with a 1966 Lola T70 spider in the red with a white arrow Team
Surtees livery.
Ferrari Fantastic!
Almost ten per cent of the concours field was occupied by Ferraris, with production
spanning the period from 1949 to 1972. They came from as far as California in the
west, and Vermont in the north, and provided an eclectic display of both road and
racing models, some of which are already noted in the Surtees display. The two
earliest examples both carried Vignale coachwork, firstly there was the beautifully
curvaceous dark blue 166 Inter coupe of Richard Fraser, and second the 212 spider
of Jeff Fisher, in its original black over metallic sea green colour scheme, that took
three awards at the show, including The Bank of America Trophy for the best open
car. Other early rarities were the Oblin of Belgium bodied 166 MM/53, displayed by
Bob and Judith Selz, and Gil Nickel’s stunning yellow 340 America spider Vignale. A
great attraction was the 375 America with Pinin Farina coupe coachwork featuring
long buttresses running from the roof into the tail panel, however it was not the styling
that attracted the attention, but the crumbling and cracked paintwork that is the
complete antithesis of normal concours presentation.
One of the rarest examples in terms of public viewing was the very original 250 GTO
of James McNeil, which apart from an outing at the Louis Vuitton concours a couple
of years ago, has rarely been seen at public events, although it does get regular
exercise around the roads of Long Island where it resides. To compliment this
example, Jim Jaeger brought his 4 litre engined example from Cincinatti. Another
extremely rare bird was what might have been the GTOs successor had things
worked out differently, this being the 275 GTB/C ”Speciale” of Ron Finger with its
unique body styling on chassis number 07185. There were further examples of 275
GTBs, including the 1967 New York Show car, originally owned by Kirk F. White,
finished in an unusual shade of pale gold, and even more unusually having
concealed boot hinges, normally a feature of the much earlier short nose two
camshaft model.
Other Italian treats include a pair of pre-war Alfa Romeos, a 1929 Super Sport Zagato
Spider and a 1933 1750 Grand Sport, a more modern Ghia bodied Alfa Romeo 1900
Super Sport from 1955, and a delightful red Maserati Tipo 61 ”Birdcage”, chassis
number 2462, first owned by Giuliano Giovanardi of Modena, brought by current
owner John Schumann Jnr.
Altogether a tremendous selection of some of the world’s rarest and most
prestigious automobiles, impeccably presented in a garden party atmosphere under
clear blue Florida skies, a true taste of Nirvana for any car enthusiast, whatever their
proclivity.
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