Pebble Beach: Chrome-town heroes

The practice putting green is surrounded by white rope and a ring of people jockeying for an uninterrupted view of this year’s concept cars.

As settings go, Pebble Beach Golf Links under a bright blue California sky is as far away from the traditional convention-centre motor show as it gets.

But the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is how concept and classic cars need to be seen, even if seagulls overhead present a unique problem. S*#! happens.

Naturally, BMW’s vibrant 3.0 CSL Hommage R, a tribute to the awesome 1973 3.0 CSL, is appropriately aggressive and visually straddles BMW’s motorsport heritage and modern design. It plucks a cerebral nerve within the Silicon Valley mindset who desperately want one.

Because of its nearness to the Silicon Valley and its 100-year history as a cool place to live, Pebble Beach mixes old wealth with new cash, and manufacturers from Tesla to Hyundai are lured by the affluence which on Sunday reaches peak concentrations of pocket change.

The contrasting black carbon-fibre and metallic orange on McLaren’s 570S cannot be ignored.

It is the perfect colour combination, and design director Frank Stephenson describes his approach to McLaren as no-compromise and committed to introducing race car technology into exclusive high-end sports cars. Yet he admits it was a challenge to meets its entry price point of $US185,000 in North America, or more than $400K here.

Hyundai continues to conceptualise a grand rear-drive coupe, and this time Peter Schreyer, Hyundai/Kia design director, may have hit the sweet spot with the HCD-16 Vision G Coupe concept.

The coupe on the grass is near production realistic in its approach to luxury and a big move forward for Hyundai after revealing the HCD-14 sedan in 2013. The interior plays a contrasting balance between blonde leather and warming wood grains. Doppler graphics echoing from each speaker is a nice nerdy touch within an overall design that is very appealing and professional.

The HCD-16 and the same-sized Buick Avenir obviously jarred the general public’s impression of brand positioning. Revealed in January, the Avenir gives Buick a large rear-drive platform shared with Cadillac as GM carefully positions the brand beneath Cadillac and above Chevrolet. Look for the beautiful Avenir concept to influence the design of a sedan/coupe manufactured in China and the US.

Lincoln celebrates its 75th anniversary by again pumping life into the Continental nameplate. Questions arise about which platform Ford will use when the Continental concept revealed in New York and on display at Pebble Beach becomes reality.

The concept is front-drive. Will the real Continental be rear-drive? More importantly, will Ford CEO Mark Fields allow newly appointed Lincoln front man Kumar Galhotra the freedom to guide the brand beyond badge engineering?

No coincidence then that Lincoln designers and engineers spent a lot of quality time on Saturday with a 1956 Continental Mk II, possibly the last genuine luxury car from Ford which truly matched the grand British marques for price and posh.

China also plays big in Lincoln’s global plans but the other Ford brand has arrived late and with its suitcase half packed. The Continental concept parked between the Avenir and HCD-16 seemed overlooked, and as a concept this one is more conservative than the 2002 Continental concept designed by Gerry McGovern, now design director at Land Rover.

Moving away from the putting green and concept cars to the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach, this year’s Concours d’Elegance features Cunninghams, Mercury customs and the more obscure American marques of Pope and duPont.

Christopher and Dennis Nicotra from Connecticut travel to Pebble Beach mainly for the auctions but this year the son and father brought a 1953 Cunningham C-3 Vignale-bodied Convertible in burgundy metallic with rawhide tan interior. This C-3, as are all C-3s, is powered by a 298kW 331ci Chrysler HEMI V8. More than 60 years later its performance still thrills.

Briggs Cunningham was intent of winning LeMans with an American-built car. C-3 production volume satisfied homologation rules for race entry. Christopher says a total of 25 were built and of those only five are convertibles.

He also owns a C-3 coupe, the only one of the 25 assembled with an automatic transmission, which was Briggs personal car and driven by his daughter who lived a few doors down from the Nicotras in Connecticut.

About 10 years ago a group of investors tried to revive Cunningham and progressed as far as to produce the C-7 concept. Investors spent a lot of money but the company’s revival went nowhere.

Briggs greatest legacy may not be the handful of road cars and race cars that wear the Cunningham badge. He is credited with inventing the racing stripe – blue over white were Cunningham colours. Later on, Carroll Shelby is said to have copied the wide stripes on his Daytona Coupes.

An Italian Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A Cabriolet was judged Best of Show amid 219 entries from 16 countries. The Isotta Fraschini was originally displayed at the 1932 Geneva show and won the Grand-Prix d'Honneur at Cannes in 1933, according to Concours judges.

Gorgeous is the word often heard during the Concours, and gorgeous definitely described the 1937 Delahaye 145 with Franay Cabriolet bodywork in right-hand drive. The engine is a unique V12 with a single intake cam and two exhaust cams and the chassis was originally destined for Grand Prix use.

The car is so near perfect, and the chrome which highlights every edge of its art deco design is flawless. It is the original chrome, claims one of the car’s restorers, but it all had to be redone with each pit and flaw filled before chroming and there are metres of chrome trim. The Delahaye was judged Most Elegant Convertible.

Those who came to Pebble Beach for the week intending to buy at one of the many auctions held from Thursday to Saturday may have been surprised at the relative bargains this year. Ferraris commanded the highest bid prices, as expected. By week’s end, though, the local media reported that overall auction value neared last year’s total at about $A557,000,000.

© Kimball Studios © Greg Guggenheim / Courtesy of Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance