Hilton Head Island Concours d’Elegance and Motoring Festival celebrated its 18th anniversary this year as one of the highest-quality concours events in the U.S.
Over the years, Hilton Head has gone from being a nice regional event to the must-attend classic car concours that it is today, ending the nation’s annual concours season on a high note.
Hilton Head is a multiday event with a mix of vintage racing in nearby Savannah, Georgia, seminars, gala parties, a major Saturday show for clubs to feature their members’ cars, and the final Sunday concours, which is the main event and the highlight of the weeklong celebration.
One of the highlights of Hilton Head is the special guests who are in attendance, this year including Moray Callum, the vice president of design for Ford Motor Company; Ralph Gilles, head of design at Fiat Chrysler; Craig Metros, design director of Ford’s North American trucks and SUV’s; VERA Park, lead exterior designer at Jaguar; Jay Ward, the creative director of the “Cars” movie franchise; Irina Zavatski, the manager of Jeep Brand exterior design; and legendary Porsche racing driver Hurley Heywood.
The featured marques/models at this year’s concours were Jaguar XK sports car; cars from the collection of bestselling adventure novelist Clive Cussler and his wife, Janet; Lincoln Continental; Italian cars with American engines and an astounding Dodge Viper display and accompanying seminar marking the V10 sports car’s 25th anniversary.
The Lincoln feature included a number of important cars from the Ford luxury brand, and the Jaguar XK group included a huge number of fabulous sports cars , with a stunning alloy-bodied XK120, a C-type racer, and every other model and sub model from the original, raw-boned XK120s through to the sophisticated XK150s.
The Viper display was stunning and included the first prototype Viper among other important cars from the Vipers storied history.
That seminar included such notables as Viper’s executive engineer Roy Sjoberg, Viper chief engineer Herb Helbig and V10 powertrain chief engineer Dick Winkles. They told entertaining stories about development, marketing and competition – the total racing budget for the Viper’s Le Mans-winning racing effort was just $5 million dollars.
Clive Cussler’s cars were well-received, with the favorite being a 1931 Cadillac V16.
Attendance this year was strong, and showed just how far the concours and motoring festival has come in 18 years.
The Best of Show winner from about 200 vehicles on display was a magnificent 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K cabriolet owned by Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Jepson Jr. of Savannah, Georgia.
The 19th annual Hilton Head Island Concours d’Elegance & Motoring Festival is scheduled for October 23 through November 1, 2020.
Just way to expensive for blue collar folks like my wife and I.
I was hoping for an auction or two.