by Wallace Wyss –
In a long awaited move to minimize the heat of summer at past San Marino Motor Classic they moved the date forward so now it’s a two part event taking place starting Saturday June 13th and going into the show itself Sunday June 14th. This is almost two months before California’s most famous concours, Pebble Beach.
The SoCal location is still the same–a several acre park in the midst of San Marino, a plush suburb of Pasadena, a community renowned for its classic prewar architecture. There are scheduled to be over 100 cars.
The two parts of the event are a Gala reception and dinner on Saturday night, seating about 150 people, and then the Concours the next day. Both Saturday and Sunday there is an art tent featuring the work of some of the most famous car artists in America.
Like Pebble Beach, there will be brass and nickel era prewar cars, then a second group called Preservation cars which are newer ones, up to 1975. Packard, once a great American marque, will get two classes.
The show is heavy on foreign cars with the Porsche 356 getting its own class as well as the 911 being in a class by itself. There is a class honoring the last air cooled Porsches, as by 1998 the air cooled models were being phased out.
Station wagons are at last honored, but one class of wagons has no “woodies” (though those with fake wood on the exterior are allowed). The real woodies are in a separate class for those using real wood,.
And tor those owners of cars whose automakers have died off, there is an orphan class of almost forgotten American marques, like Studebaker.
JAPANESE CARS HELPED BY BILL GATES LAW
This is one of the first concours (other than Japanese car only shows) to pay attention to Japanese cars, from 1946 to 1984 and hopefully there will be some “gray market” models we have never seen before, their entrance to the US paved by what is known informally as the “Bill Gates Law.” Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, once wanted a Porsche not imported into US (the 959) and it took him over 10 years to get a law passed allowing entrance of non-conforming cars.
Hot rods get a class from ’28 to ’41 model years but it’s restricted to original steel bodies only.
The Mercedes flugelturren, excuse me, gullwing, gets a class of its own with its little brother, the roadster also included.
Big block muscle cars will be there now that it is becoming obvious at some point Detroit will discontinue the muscle cars.
This show does a good job of bringing French cars into the spotlight since they have not been imported by their makers for decades. Italian and British cars also get classes of their own with Morgans having their own class.
RESTOMODS
The new restomod category has three classes. I’ll attempt to describe them as “old cars but with all sorts of new stuff under the hood and in the suspension”.
On Saturday the Gala dinner includes a live band and this event will run from 6 pm to 10:30 pm with fifteen classic cars selected to drive by the tables and show what glamor looks like when it’s rollin’. The dinner is sponsored by super Ferrari fan David Lee, an Internationally known jeweler, who no doubt will have several of his Ferraris on display (he bought the famous white Ferrari 250GTO auctioned recently).
The location is not far from the 10 freeway, in Lacy Park , at 1485 Virginia, San Marino, CA 91106. The Concours on Sunday runs from 9 to 3 pm.
The website to reserve tickets is San Marino Motor Classic.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR Wallace Wyss penned three Ferrari books and now paints oil portraits of his favorite Ferraris. For a list of URLs showing his work write photojournalistpro2@gmail.com
Photos by Wallace Wyss and Richard Bartholomew from past San Marino Motor Classics.
Hopefully it will be much cooler during this new time slot!