The Classic Car Trust refers to The Key as its magazine, but filling 274 pages would seem to move the annual publication into the category of a book, more precisely a yearbook of sorts for the collector car hobby.
There is so much to unpack in those pages. We’ll call them 26 chapters, and today we’ll focus on the list of the “Top 100 Collectors 2020.”
“Behind every collection there are passionate people who dedicate time, energy and money to the enhancement of cultural content and the charm of that magical object we call the automobile,” we’re told.
We also learn that several hundred additional collections have been considered since The Key’s previous rankings. The result: 12 new names on the top-100 listing.
Factors used in determining the ratings include collection value, historical importance of the vehicles, the collector’s contribution to enhancing the hobby, and awards won at classic car events. Based on this criteria, for the first time the world’s No. 1 collector is from Europe, Evert Louwman, owner of more than 230 collector vehicles and the famed Louwman Museum in the Netherlands.
The next four on the list are Americans — Arturo Keller, Ralph Lauren, Fred Simeone and Miles Collier.
Next is William “Chip” Connor, an American born in Japan and based in Hong Kong. Five more Americans are next, in order: Rob Walton, Anne Brockington Lee, Laurence Auriana, Peter Mullin and Jon Shirley.
Of the top-100, 57 are based in the United States, with 8 each in Switzerland and Germany, 6 in Italy and 4 in the UK.
Regrettable, only collectors with money seem to be on this list. The vast majority of antique and classic cars are owned by ordinary people.