Hampton Court Concours Continues to Delight

Our British correspondent enjoyed a terrific day out at a beautiful Palace southwest of London. Oh yes, there were cars aplenty too!

Alongside Goodwood and Silverstone, the Hampton Court Concours of Elegance is one of my favourite events of the year, and by my reckoning I have now been to eight of these glittering occasions, including two when it was held at the equally grand Windsor Castle. It never gets boring.

I don’t think I need to explain the detailed history of the Palace to ViaRETRO’s well-informed readers, other than to say that it dates back to 1514 when it was built alongside the Thames in East Molesey, initially for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Chief Minister for Henry VIII. But after falling out of favour with the king, Wolsey presented the palace to Henry in 1529, who spent time there with three of his six wives – Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr.

The Palace has been much modified and enlarged since Tudor times, with very little of the original buildings still intact, and it is now one of the greatest palaces in the UK – perhaps matched only by Blenheim – and is one of the UK’s major tourist attractions.

Its grandeur makes it a fitting setting for this 11^th iteration of the Concours, to which 90 of the world’s most exclusive cars were invited to take part in the concours itself. In addition to the spectacular Concours participants, there were some additional categories – more on those later – club displays, high-end classic car dealers touting their expensive wares and an auction hosted by Gooding and Company. Annoyingly, this was held on the Friday, so I was not able to check out which lots I couldn’t afford. Add to that some upmarket retail stands and catering, and what you have is effectively a grand classic car garden party.

This year’s concours included ten previous Le Mans 24 Hours winners, pulled together to celebrate 100 years of what is probably the world’s most famous motor race, starting with the victorious 1924 Bentley 3-Litre Torpedo Sport which won the second instalment of the race, an achievement bettered a few years later by the  Bentley Speed-Six (number 41) that won the race in 1929, and then followed it up with another win the next year!

Equally astonishing was the aerodynamic 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300SL W194 – one of just ten built – a highlight for me, closely followed by the sublime 1963 Ferrari 275P, like the Bentley, a two-time winner at Le Sarthe, just gorgeous…

There were so many jaw-droppingly spectacular cars at Hampton Court that it’s hard to pick out just a few. I can’t ignore the presence of a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO or a 1964 250LM, but even these weren’t the ultimate cars on show for me this year – that was the 1969 Porsche 917K, found by the current owner covered in snow outside the Porsche factory in 1973! I must have gone back a dozen times to gaze in awe at what for me remains the greatest racing car ever built. I’ll never get bored seeing one, especially in Gulf colours.

There was yet more astounding machinery arrayed around the palace’s beautiful grounds – how about a 1955 Pegaso Z-102 with coachwork by Touring, one of just 87 cars built by Spain’s only other motor manufacturer besides SEAT, and the fastest car in the world at the time? Or the beautiful 1955 Maserati A6GCS Spyder by Frua, with its exquisite rectangular instruments, from the same year, and which won Best in Show? Or the curvaceous 1956 Jaguar XKSS, the last of only 16 made?

There were a couple of marques not known to me – a 1936 Hoffman X-8, and a 1963 Apollo 3500GT, an Italian-American hybrid that sported a bodywork and chassis built by Intermeccanica, designed by Scaglione and utilising a Buick V8. Intended to be an American alternative to the likes of the Aston Martin DB4 and early ‘60’s Ferrari’s. 42 Apollo GT’s were manufactured initially, and another 46 have apparently been built so far by Vanguard and others. The styling has strong hints of Ferrari 330GTC, I think. Incidentally, two Apollo 3500GT’s were used to portray the Thorndyke Special race car in the 1968 Disney film The Love Bug, a film I loved as a child.

The Hoffman was something else entirely, a one-of-a-kind prototype with its 8-cylinders arranged in, yes, an X. Built by two American brothers as part of their plan to eventually take over Hudson, its detailed history is not well-known and the car was built in secret; it remained a one-off and the brothers’ plans came to nothing. What a treat to see it in the metal, though, and to chat to one of the team that restored the car – and the only person other than the owner to drive it!

As I didn’t get to see the auction lots, I can’t say much about them, but a look at the results provides further evidence of the dip in the classic car market, even at this exclusive end.

Jaguar E-types that were until recently fetching £125 – 150k have been selling for less than £100k. However, there were two particularly significant examples of the E-type on sale at the weekend, and they wore price tags to match.

The first was a 1961 3.8-litre Coupé, the very first RHD example built, bearing chassis number 860001, while the second was a roadster, chassis number 860004, and was the very first E-type sold. Both cars had been meticulously restored, but I couldn’t help thinking that estimates of £1m – £1.4m for the former and £1m – £1.2m for the latter were optimistic…and they were; the coupé stalled at £800k, the roadster sold for £10k more.

Only one lot sold for more than its higher estimate: A Mercedes 300SL roadster that achieved £1.6m. 21 of the 47 lots failed to find a buyer.

Would you pay over £1m …

… for each of these?

 (the two above photos via Gooding & Company)

Returning to the Concours, other delights included the spectacular 1938 Delahaye 145M with a stunning Chapron body, the blue 1937 Peugeot 302DS – a Le Mans finisher in 1937 – designed by car dealer Ėmile Darl’Mat – with its art deco chrome discs on each side of the engine bay, and for pure amusement value, a pair of Peels. The blue Peel P50 was the world’s smallest production car (if one can say that about a car of which only 47 examples were made), one of which was famously driven around BBC’s Broadcasting House with Jeremy Clarkson hunched up inside – and the sci-fi Peel Trident, allegedly a two-seater but, well, only for two tiny people.

Two side events to the main Concours included the Levitt Concours, named after Dorothy Levitt, the first female English racing driver, and featured classics owned by women. My favourite among these was the very lovely two-tone 1957 Corvette C1.

There was also the 30 Under 30 section – 30 classics with owners under 30 years of age; I particularly liked the Inka Orange BMW 2002 that had been prepared for historic racing – for a driver yet to pass his test!

Invited car clubs included Aston Martin, Jensen, Maserati, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Marcos and the Vauxhall 30-98 Register, with 25 members bringing their cars in various body styles to Hampton Court to help celebrate 110 years of the model. They looked absolutely splendid in the sun.

And finally, a few interesting cars in the car park, including a real rarity. An Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider alongside a Maserati 3500GT would stand out anywhere, as did the bright red and yellow Lotus Elans. But the real standout was what I thought at first was a Zagato Alfa Romeo Junior, but was in fact a 1967 Rover P6 with a Zagato-designed coupé body. Tha car was designated TCZ as its model name and I have to say I rather liked it – not something I can say for many Zagato designs. A pity that Rover decided not to put it into production. I’d not previously known of the existence of this car, and there it was, in the visitors’ car park…

Usually it’s the Concours itself that throws up cars new to me – such as the Hoffman and the Apollo – but this was a pleasant surprise to end what had been a superb two days. The Hampton Court Concours continues to delight; I’ll be back again, and again….