The 2013 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance took place Sunday, March 10 at the Amelia Island Ritz Carlton. Featured cars for the 18th edition of the event included the Ford GT40, Porsche 911, Corvette Sting Ray, cars of Lamborghini, motorcycles of Ducati and race cars by Harry Miller. Sam Posey, driver turned journalist, was this year’s Honored Chairman. A small fleet of cars from Sam’s racing career were also displayed. The Concours was graced with near perfect weather after a somewhat cool start to the weekend. Brad Stahl, was on hand to document the event.
The Amelia Island Concours is an excellent event to see the great classic pre-war cars as well as notable racing cars. Two Best In Show trophies are awarded here – one Concours d’Elegance trophy and one Concours de Sport trophy. Over 300 cars compete for these top awards as well as class and corporate awards.
The Porsche 911 50th Anniversary is underway and many of these special cars were on the lawn. The collector market has recently “discovered” the value in early 911’s and prices have seen significant rise in the past 5 years.
Lamborghini also had a number of significant cars on the lawn at Amelia Island including the only factory-produced Miura Roadster and a Zagato-bodied 350GT
Sixteen Ford GT40’s were gathered for this event. It is always a treat to see so many of these great racing (and street) cars together in one venue. The 1968 and 1969 LeMans winning GT40 took home the Concours de Sport trophy this year!
The Corvette Sting Ray display drew crowds all day. There were several amazing examples of these pieces of American history including 1963 Grand Sport #4!
Harry Miller was an American race car designer and builder who is most famous for his Indy cars of the 1920-30’s. His cars won the Indy 500 nine times overall. 21 of his cars were on display at Amelia Island.
An impressive collection of cars driven by Sam Posey were also assembled for the event
Ducati was the featured motorcycle this year and they had an impressive variety of machines – old and new.
Best In Show was awarded to a stunning 1936 Duesenberg SJN owned by the Nethercutt Collection and a 1968 Ford GT40 owned by the Rocky Mountain Auto Collection.
Additional photos from the event:
love the pictures. look like some of the race cars i saw at sebring and watkins glen back in the late 60’s early 70’s. the sound they made!!!. add Ducati singles which were nice to look at but a real pain to keep running. having one ducati with a heel/toe shifter on right/brake on left and another brand with toe shifter on left/brake on right got real old real fast.
looks like they had perfect weather.
the Concours is one of the few things I miss about no longer living in Jacksonville.
too bad you didn’t include a shot of the ’35 Ford pickup that is the official Concours “trouble truck” every year.
always enjoyed seeing it towing some of the high-dollar trailer queens when they would not start or run……..
The Miller racers and the GT 40s would drag me out every time. And it wouldn’t have to be a concourse event. If they showed those cars on a gas station parking lot, I’d be there. Of course I have to give praise where praise is due: Everything there is worthwhile. A first rate show if there ever was one.
*concours
Great event, great photos.
Favorite car? Tough choice. I had a chance to buy a used-up racing Ferrari years ago when I could almost afford it, but passed and have regretted it ever since. There was nothing less useful—or cheap— than an outclassed 3-year-old racing car back in the late-’60s – early-’70s. Due to my poor judgement, the car gods have removed Ferraris from my list of possibilities these days.
Sooo…..it would have to be the Grand Sport. I was never offered one of the few Grand Sports ever made, but I wish I had been. They are one of the most brutal looking, DESIRABLE cars I have ever seen. Got to go now….pull out the copy of ‘Corvette Grand Sport’ and have a look thru it again, which is the closest I’m gonna get to one.
There was a Muira roadster modified by the Zinc Institute to showcase the use of zinc in auto production. (see lead). In 1984 when I worked on the car it was metallic green and in the Lars Anderson collection before going to private sale. Spencer
I have not been to Amelia yet but it’s on the close radar bucket list, I was going to go this year but being a huge F1 fan I went to Austin to the US GP.
Thanks for sharing these photos. What a great event.
Seeing that lake in the background, I sure hope the Best in Show winners both had working parking brakes!
Bobinott
I am not an expert, and I’m sure the experts at the show would have spotted this, but the 63 Corvette appears to be incorrect.
1. The air vents behind the door were 64 only.
2. The gills (air extractors) behing the front wheels were from 65 up. 63 had the “chrome grates”
Like i said, I’m m not an expect, and perhaps someone can correct me.
Are you talking about the Mickey Thompson the one with no bumpers & a full roll cage etc?
Like being in the presents of royalty.