Amelia Island, Florida becomes an ocean of automotive elegance during the second weekend of March. Classic car auctions, tours, displays, an art exhibit, a silent auction and seminars are all part of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance experience.
There was a Friday lunch in nearby Fernandina Beach and a chance to see a few of the cars that participated in the Marque Car Road Tour that are on public display. Saturday began with the inaugural "duPont Registry Cars & Coffee at The Concours presented by Heacock Classic Car Insurance" affair, which took place on the Concours show field. It was free to the public and car fans came out to see the latest offerings from Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac, Corvette, SRT/Chrysler, Maserati, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Infiniti, Bentley, Jaguar, and other sponsors ahead of "Concours Sunday". Members of local car clubs displayed their rare and exotic cars as well.
Featured Concours vehicles were the Corvette Sting Ray, Porsche 911 and the Ford GT-40. They were honored with seminars in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton. Other featured vehicles included Cadillac Concept Cars, the cars of Harry Miller, Ducati Motorcycles and the race cars of Sam Posey, the Amelia Concours Grand Marshal.
With a vast array of elegant classics and stunning sports cars, the 18th Amelia Island Concours appeared to be a huge hit among the estimated 25,000 spectators and car owners. Throw in perfect Florida weather and a low-altitude flyover by a B-25 Mitchell bomber, and this year’s show was another huge success
The tradition at Amelia is to award two cars with Best of Show honors; one is called Concours d’Elegance and the other is Concours d’Sport. This year, in the Elegance category, it was the 1936 Duesenberg SJN belonging to The Nethercutt Collection that won, while a 1968 Ford GT40 owned by the Rocky Mountain Auto Collection took home the sports honor.
Seven Duesenbergs graced the show field, 14 Ford GT-40s were grouped by the lake, 26 Porsche 911s of varying iterations were on display and an impressive array of 21 Miller racing cars. About 150 other astonishing automobiles in categories ranging from Ducati motorcycles to the Corvette Stingray to the “What Were They Thinking?” class vied for everyones attention. For more info and images, go to www.ameliaconcours.org
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