Last weekend, AV attended the first Classics Week in the picturesque coastal town of Estoril – Portugal, an ambitious type of event for a small country which merged the anual ACP Concours d’Elegance with a series of races, car club meetings, precision driving demonstrations and meet and greets with former Moto GP and WRC champs. It was a pretty interesting event despite a few limitations, the majority of which will be easily fixable in a follow up edition for 2019. Our coverage of the whole thing was intended to be much more thorough, but AV got snubbed on the press pass application for whatever reason and as such, we could only bring back an extremely superficial overview of the festivities. Still, there was a lot of fun to be had and of course, this not being something even remotely close to other titanic classic car related events across the globe, for its setting and scale it was certainly entertaining for any car enthusiast.
There will be three posts on AV with Estoril Classics Week coverage – this first entry is completely focused on the Concours d’Elegance. A second post will cover the car clubs as well as the always interesting visitors’ parking areas and a third entry will deal solely in racing related content. These 3 posts won’t feature every single thing which was at the event, but they aim to showcase the stuff we found the most interesting and noteworthy.
Focusing on the Concours, despite it always being a joy to attend, this year’s edition felt a little more limited than the couple of previous ones. There was good enough variety and a fair number of interesting cars, but it seemed a bit light in terms of big, crowd drawing focus pieces. Maybe the fact that another classics event was taking place at the exact same time in the northern part of the country had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, we wish we had more to feature on this year’s Concourse but let’s focus on the positive and take a closer look at the best stuff there.
Starting with Ferraris. On the Casino gardens these years, a stunning 1951 195 Inter Vignale, a 1955 500 Mondial with its small but incredibly loud 4 cylinder engine and a 1950 166 MM
On a very different note, it was also nice to see a set of 3 De Tomaso Panteras at this year’s Concourse. These are beautiful, unique cars that haven’t really gotten the recognition they deserve and which are only now starting to see prices reflect their genius and originality. The Panteras were accompanied by an interesting Jalpa, one of the lesser known and popular Lamborghinis
The Citroen section was definitely worth an extended visit. Besides a 1972 DS 23 Pallas with a fairly uncommon vinyl roof, the stars on that lawn were two Chapron cars: a lovely Cabriolet and a very rare and stunning Palm Beach body variant with the later DS front
Another pleasent aspect of the 2018 Concours was the Aston Martin section, featuring classic and modern examples of the iconic manufacturer. As far as classics, a beautiful 1963 DB4, a 1954 DB2 Vantage, and 1951 DB2 Drophead Coupe – previously featured on AV for having participated on a past edition of the Automobilia Iberica, another classic car gathering – were present, as well as two 1970 DB6s and a couple of V8 Volantes. As for modern Astons, the Concours featured a very nice Virage Volante, a Vanquish S and a stunning DB7 Zagato
On the Italian section, a flawless 3500 GT. There’s no way pictures can do these cars justice, they’re so complex on their design, so wonderfully balanced and nuanced that you really do need to see them up close to fully appreciate them. There were a couple of noteworthy Alfas as well, namely a 1965 2600 Sprint and a glamorous 1960 2000 Spider Touring. An interesting Dino 2400 Spider also made an appearance
Unsurprisingly, a few staples of the classic cars scene were also present at the Concours, namely a psychedelic plum colored 911T, an imposing 280SE Cabriolet, a 1962 E-Type, a shinny 66 Mustang and a 1960 Corvette
We really couldn’t end this post without a special mention to one the most striking cars of the Concours, a 1939 Delahaye 135 M Cabriolet Grand Luxe, a symphony of style and charisma
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Automotive Views 