Palm Beach, 25th of January, 2018

The Cavallino Classic is always an early highlight of the Ferrari year. When Europe and North of the USA suffer from snow and cold in the winter the Ferrari community heads down towards Florida to celebrate the marque with the prancing horse in style. For the 27th time the American Cavallino Magazine hosts the Classics in Palm Beach starting with the track days at the nearby Palm Beach International raceway. As in recent years the outcome of cars was rather small on the circuit despite the fact that the racing was limited in favor of rather relaxed cruising session as preferred by those who fear for their car under racing conditions and those where the driver wants to step back a little bit from historic racing but still intends to enjoy their cars above freeway speed.

But still a few cars took the track in quicker speed to set times for the qualifying tomorrow in the pre-war and drum brake group as well as the disc brake group.

Three prewar cars could be seen today with the Alfa Romeo P3 and 8C-35 as well as a Bugatti T51. The drum brake groups saw a few Boanos and the long wheel based TDF berlinetta.

The disc brake session saw no less than 3 512 BBLM chasing each other while a sole 250 GTO was representing the front engined era.

Meanwhile the road cars had the chance to go on a tour arriving in the afternoon at the Breakers that hosted a seminar during the day to satisfy the more theoretical approach to the theme rather than the practical driving.
Unfortunately the secret service does not allow any more civil cars on the nearby airport due to the second home of the president so the annual Jet Centre Reception disappeared just as the yacht hop did a few years ago leaving the Breakers as the place to celebrate the finish of the tour.

Tomorrow will be the second of the track days before the main action will be found on the lawn of the Breakers on Saturday where a good number of the former cover cars from the last 200 editions of the magazine are expected among newly restored Ferraris to make their debuted or follow up last year’s Pebble Beach. The international Jury of Restorers, Journalists and Ferrari Connoisseurs will have the difficult task to find the best cars on the field. Sunday will conclude this year’s festivities with the Classic Sports Sunday at the Mar-a-Lago.

Stay tuned, we will give you a small update of the things to happen around Florida the next days.

Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de