There’s no shortage of concours competitions to go to these days, but they tend to be populated exclusively with time capsule ornaments. And that’s not the Ti way. What if someone came up with the antidote to the traditional car concours…? Well, last night we did just that, with our inaugural Concours d’Appréciation.
We wanted cars that got driven, hard and fast, for tens and ideally hundreds of thousands of miles. Not basket cases desperate to be put out of their misery, but cars that had been loved not as an ornament, but for what they were designed to do.
One bookend was a 1954 2CV whose paint could not be seen for rust but which, beneath, was in fine fettle and will be driven to Le Mans next year. At the other, a Porsche Carrera GT with 77,000 miles on the clock. In between, a Ferrari 599 GTB found in the desert with its engine on the back of a Toyota Hilux, an E9 BMW 3.0 CSL whose owner insists he'll be buried in it, and a 1992 Caterham Supersprint that's done over 100,000 miles, Finland to Spain and Houston to San Francisco.
Our winners: that Carrera GT, a gorgeous 1750 Alfa Romeo GTV that gets driven across the Pyrenees every year, and a Honda Integra Type R which has covered 131,000 miles since its owner bought it almost 20 years ago.
Add all eight generations of Golf GTI, the first UK public showing of the Longbow Speedster, and rumours of a 911 3.2 ClubSport with over half a million miles having escaped the concours enclosure to go feral in the grassy car park... and the event was a sparkling sell-out success in the sunshine.
Thank you to everyone at Bicester Motion, our partners at JBR Capital, every Ti contributor who entered into the spirit of it, and above all everyone who brought an interesting, well loved, well used car.
Want to come to the next one?
Photo credit: Toby Rea, insta: lensograph_tr
