Edinburgh, 5th of September, 2015
The second day of this week’s Concours weekend saw the
opening of the annual 4th annual Concours of Elegance. After the
Windsor, St. James and Hampton Court event the Royal
Concours went to Scotland this year to be held in the Royal
Residence in Edinburgh, Holyrood House.
Following the tour through the highlands the morning started with
a parade down the Royal Mile, the main street of Edinburgh
leading from the old castle down to Holyrood. In small groups the
cars came down the parade street to be grouped in the yard of
the castle before entering the field. Again 60 cars from different
owners were lined up the following 1 ½ hour before the last car
was set up precisely on his intended sport sorted by the groups
starting with the very early pre-WWI cars from 1902 onwards
when the first pioneers started to race the large displacement
engines on dirt roads to the newest example, the 2015 Touring
show car.
Looking around this year’s concours field had more space than
St. James but was set up a little bit in the same style with a lot of
tents surrounding compared to the clean atmosphere both at
Hampton Court and especially the sensational first edition of
Windsor Castle. The entry list did very much read again like the
who is who of the collector cars scene although some names
were missing as the Chantilly Concours is a very tough
competition. Unfortunately both events again share the same
weekend and several entrants of the first editions could be found
on the entry list of Chantilly instead. Maybe the choice of
Edinburgh was the reason as although this city provides a great
atmosphere to have sightseeing most likely some of the owners’
wives might have preferred the shopping mile in London over the
Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Furthermore the Royal Concours is
again three days, even when not entering the Scottish Highland
Tour the days before whereas the competitor in France is only
one day giving a more compact schedule.
Nevertheless the selection of cars was again superb with several
very interesting cars for every taste, be it the Edwardians, the
luxurious Rolls-Royce or the 1950s and 1960s sports cars. Being
in the heart of Scotland one feature certainly could not be missed,
the Ecurie Ecosse. Apart from the racing transporter with both a
Jaguar D- and C-Type no less than 3 Ecurie Ecosse cars in their
typical color could be seen on the lawn with the Jaguar D-Type
longnose, Tojeiro-Jaguar and a C-Type with a second C-Type just
on display behind.
But not just the Ecurie held up the colors of Scotland but two of
their most talented drivers were honored with a special display,
Jim Clark with several Lotus and the one F1 driver who wears the
tartan more proudly than anybody else, Sir Jacky Stewart. A
three cars display showed his Marta and Tyrrell years.
As mentioned above the concours will be continued until Sunday
when the winner of this year’s Best of Show voted by the entrants
will be announced to follow the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 Touring
Berlinetta, the Bentley Speed Six “Blue Train” and the Alfa
Romeo 6C 1750 Flying Star as the fourth winner of this highly
rated event. Some say that being voted by your own competitors
might be worth more than by a jury with very different taste and
opinions about the styling and restoration of a car.
For today we have set up a small preview-gallery with a picture of
all the entered cars on the field to give an impression both of the
set up and the entries. After the big event next week with the
Goodwood Revival we will have a closer look at the entered cars
with a more extensive gallery and more descriptions of the cars
entered as many of them certainly have a story to tell.
For now we leave the isle direction Paris for the second Chantilly
Concours and the Bonhams Auction that will be held at the same
location.
Text & images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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