Palm Beach, 20th-23rd of January, 2022

After almost 2 years of deprivations 2022 starts again with the annual Ferrari events of the Cavallino Classic in Florida. Last year was postponed to April due to the pandemic and so the premiere edition of the new organisation of Canossa Events who took over the show just a few months before was only a transition year and the 30rd Cavallino Classic was basically still organized by the old team.

Now in 2022 the first changes of the new format came into play that are set to bring the classics into the future attracting not only those who attend the event for years but also a new and younger public.

As with other events the first visible change is an updated logo of the event that was just introduced a few days prior to the event, developed in cooperation with the design team at Pininfarina.

The next major change was not by choice but by circumstances as the Palm Beach International Raceway was sold and closed. The former Moroso track hosted the races from the beginning of the Classics to last year and although the actions at the track became less and less in previous years the track days still gave the more adventurous participants the chance to drive their cars rather than only show them.

To make up the loss of the track a new opportunity was found in the Concours Club near Miami that hosted the track day on Thursday. This exclusive private club features a small and very technical race track with an affiliated club house that can be described as a Country Club where cars replace the horses and the golf course. As expected, the attendance was again very limited as not few decided to first have a look before maybe attending in future and so only a few cars took the track on Thursday, mostly more modern challenge and street cars with the exception on a 250 GT TdF and a 250 GT Boano.

Friday was again closer to the former program with the symposium featuring three cars, two of them certainly among the star cars of the weekend, the 1966 Ferrari 365 P Treposti and the Ferrari 250 GTO/64. Both cars just completed a major rebuilt and preservation before last year’s Pebble Beach concours and now had their second appearance at the Breakers. Later that day the annual tour started with destination of the Breakers where the cars were welcomed after sunset and the participants had the after-tour party.

Until a few years ago these first two days were also the social part of the event with the evening receptions either at the airport for the jet centre party or the yacht hop in the marina. As Canossa wants to make it a more social event as well it would not be a surprise if these bigger parties would return in one or the other form in near future.

Today finally was the main event of the weekend with the Ferrari Concours at the Breakers. Theme this year was the 75th anniversary of the marque from Maranello as well as the 60th anniversary of the legendary 250 GTO. Today we could admire 3 of the GTO in total, a number that was already exceeded in the past editions.

More interesting and certainly more challenging to assemble was the anniversary display of the marque as every single year was represented by a car, starting with the first 166 Corsa Spiders to the very latest models of the Ferrari range. Usually, the more interesting coach-built cars are presented at the upper lawn directly in front of the hotel whereas the lower lawn is reserved for the more modern cars but the display spanning the entire lower lawn meant that probably for the first time 2 250 GTOs could be seen down there.

There was a little bit of controversy before the concours as the judging was shaken up a little bit asthe main sponsor Ferrari apparently was not happy about independent Ferrari dealers in the jury and therefore 5 judges were excluded from the team. But most of the judges were the “usual suspects” from the previous year following their strict guidelines to award the most original and correct cars with the prestigious platinum awards. As usual the quality of cars and restorations were very high and most of the owners spend a lot of time and money to have their cars in immaculate condition.

With the newer cars this mostly is a question of preservation going hand in hand with spare usage on driving events, the older examples are more subject of major restorations.

As mentioned before two of the stars were the Treposti and the 250 GT/64 and it does not really come as a surprise that these two cars finally won the Best of Show awards for the best street and the best competition car.

Other cars well worth a mention were the 250 TR (chassis 0738TR) that was on display at the Ferrari Classiche display as it was restored in the factory to former glory just recently.

Just two cars further were the 275 GTB of Battista “Pinin” Farina, his personal car that differs in many ways from the standard production models. The car was last shown in the very wet 2019 edition and now after more research and another restoration it came as close as possible to the delivery specifications according to the numerous pictures.

On the more sportive site was the Ferrari 121 LM that was driven in period by the likes of Gonzales, Taruffi, Maglioli, Farina, Carol Shelby, Phil Hill and Ken Miles. The car won the research award.

Tomorrow there will already be the final curtain of this year’s Cavallino Classic with the multi-marque concours at the Mar-a-Lago resort. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is again not the greatest giving a high chance of another wet day at the country club. Hopefully it will not be that bad as it was a 3 years ago where the cars were not even allowed to get on the lawn due to huge puddles and a deep wet underground.

Report & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de