Until it goes wrong. Which it does. One of the things owners are required to do is demonstrate that their cars actually function, and quite right too: a car that fails in this most basic regard is a car no more, just a piece of car-shaped furniture. And I remember well an owner proudly going through his pride and joy’s controls: horn, lights, wipers, left indicator, right… suddenly he looked thunderstruck: the right indicator had failed to illuminate. “It was working earlier,” he pleaded, “we checked everything this morning.” The judges were unfailingly polite but were soon on their way again. Whether that loose wire or blown bulb had affected their deliberations to the smallest degree I cannot say, but by the thunderstruck look on the owner’s face I know he thought it did.
But that was as nothing compared to what happened when I saw the judges inspecting the engine of a beautiful front engine V12 Ferrari Berlinetta, a four cam 275GTB if memory serves. The car looked perfect, the ultimate development of Colombo’s iconic motor spinning at idle at least as smoothly as it did when new. The crackle black cam covers were immaculate, the sextet of downdraft Weber carbs gleamed. The judges were huddled under the bonnet nodding approvingly until… until one of them suddenly stood bolt upright, took a step back and, addressing the owner’s mechanic who was sitting in the driver’s seat awaiting further instructions, said suddenly and sharply “switch it off! Switch it off now!”
What had happened? Had they detected a death rattle which meant it would soon start firing pistons out the side of the block like a Gatling gun onto the immaculately manicured Pebble Beach lawn? An unpinned hand grenade under the exhaust manifold perhaps? No. The source of such alarm was a single drip of fuel from perhaps not the tightest of unions under one of the Webers. Someone had forgotten to double check one small nut and now the judges were walking away. The owner gave chase but in his heart he must have known it was over. I heard one mutter “fire risk” and that was that.
Nervous owners wait for their car to be judged
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
But in that moment, my thoughts were for neither owner nor judges, but the mechanic still sitting, stricken, in the driver’s seat of the now silent Ferrari. I saw the owner striding back towards the car, with a very different expression on his face to that borne on his outbound journey. I didn’t hang around to hear the ensuing conversation, but it was unlikely to be pretty.
I was then and remain now in two minds about such events. On the one hand I resent the fact they encourage owners to keep cars in a condition that means it is almost impossible to use them, but on the other the focus of really good Concours have changed over the years: of course the cars must be spotlessly clean and most are in an immaculate state (though happily you still see some that have been more preserved than restored and proper patina is by no means unwelcome), but really it’s originality the judges tend to reward most. Which is exactly as it should be: a few weeks back I attended another Bentley Drivers Club Concours, and amid all the rebodied 4½-litre and Speed Six Le Mans replicas with their slatted bonnets secured with leather straps, there stood a demure 6½-litre saloon, so far as I could tell exactly as it was when it left the coachbuilders 95 years ago, an immaculately attired old gentleman in a field full of swashbuckling buccaneers. I loved it.